The Project Management Office Toolkit

Creating Consistency

Most department managers wrestle with the problem of how to get consistency in the work that the department does. It is hard to know how the department is doing if each of its people operate in their own preferred manner. To create consistency, managers have four different sets of tools available to them: standards, guidelines, policies, and procedures. There are differences among these tools. For example, consider project status reports. A policy might state that a status report must be produced each month. A guideline might be more flexible, stipulating that the frequency of a status report is up to the judgment of the project manager. A standard would specify the contents and even the format of a status report, while a ...