A WRITE-UP ON

PROJECT CONTROL-
REASONS FOR INEFFECTIVE PROJECT
CONTROL,
TECHNIQUE OF PROJECT CONTROL

UNDER SUPERVISION OF SUBMITTED

BY
DR.ALOK KUMAR RAI
ASHOK KUMAR GUPTA
FMS@BHU ROLL .NO. 06
RAJIV
ROLL.NO. 25
MBA 3rd
(SEM)

FMS@BHU Page 1
INDEX

1-PROJECT

CONTROL-------------------------------------------------------------------------------3

2-REASON FOR INEFFECTIVE PROJECT

CONTROL--------------------------------------------4

3-PROJECT CONTROL

VARIABLE------------------------------------------------------------------6

4-PROJECT CONTROL

TECHNIQUE----------------------------------------------------------------7

5-NETWORK TECHNIQUE FOR PROJECT

MANAGEMENT……………………………………….8

FMS@BHU Page 2
Project management

Project management is concerned with the overall planning and co-

ordination of a project from conception to completion aimed at
meeting the stated requirements and ensuring completion on time,
within cost and to required quality standards

Project Control

Monitoring indicates that:-Project is behind time-schedule, and/or-Project has

exceeded budget, and/or-Quality of materials or finished work is below
standard, and/or-Productivity is lower than as planned, etc.

How can we tell when Project Control is needed?

Performance
 Unexpected technical problems arise
 Insufficient resources are unavailable when needed
 Quality or reliability problems occur
 Owner/Client requires changes in technical specifications
 Inter functional complications and conflicts arise
 Market changes that increase/decrease the projects value
 Inter functional complications and conflicts arise
Inter-Market changes that increase/decrease the project

How can we tell when Project Control is needed?

Cost—
 Technical difficulties that require more resources
 Technical resources--Scope of work increases Scope increases
 Bid amount (accepted for the contract award) is too low –
 Reporting of the monitoring results are poor/late Reporting late
 Project budgeting for contractor cash flows not done right Project right
 Changes in market prices of the inputs Changes inputs
Reference- GENERAL CLUES (Meredith and Mantel,
2006)GENERAL

How can we tell when Project Control is needed?

FMS@BHU Page 3
Time—
 Technical difficulties require more time to solve Technical solve
 Scope of work increases Scope increases--Unexpected utilities needing
relocation
 Task sequencing not done right Task right--Required material,
labor/equipment unavailable when needed.
 Key preceding tasks were not completed on time.
Reference- GENERAL CLUES (Meredith and
Mantel, 2006)

2. Resources for Project Control

1. Money
2. Machinery (Equipment)
3. Materials and Supplies Materials Supplies
4. Manpower (Labor and Supervision)

Elements of Project
Control
 Manpower related control
 Machinery related control
 Money related control
 Material related control

Project control serves two major functions

1-It ensures regular monitoring of performance

2-It motivates project personal to strive for achieving project objectives.

Reasons for ineffective project control

Effective control is critical for the realization of project objective. Yet, control
of projects in practice tends to be ineffective. Why? There seems to be three
reasons for poor control of projects.

Characteristics of the project- Most of the projects are large ,complex

undertaking involving many origination and people .this renders the task of
control because:

 Keeping track of physical performance and expenditure on hundreds or

thousands of activities which are often non -routine is a stupendous
task.

FMS@BHU Page 4
  Coordination and communication problem multiply when several org.
are involved in the project.

(Reff.-Projects by Prasanna
Chandra)

People problems

To control a non routine project, a manager requires an ability to monitor a

wide range of desperate factors, a sensitivity to symptoms indicative of
potential of problems, and a faculty for comprehending the combined effect
of multiple forces .naturally, most of the operational managers, used to the
steady rhythm of normal operations and routine work lack the experience,
training, competence, and inclination to control projects.

Poor control and information system

One of the factors which inhibit effective control is the poor quality of control
and information system. Some of the weaknesses observed in the control and
the information system are:

Delay in reporting performance

Often there is delay in the reporting of performance .This prevents effective

monitoring of the project and initiation of timely action to check adverse
developments

Inappropriate level of detail

Generally cost information for control is collected in terms of cost codes

found in the company’s cost accounting system ,irrespective of the level of
details employed for project planning and budgeting .consider an extreme
example wherein cost and value of work done are reported for the project as
a whole. What is the value of such information for identifying where slippages
are occurring and who is responsible for them?

Unreliable information

FMS@BHU Page 5
One of the major problems in project control is unreliable and inaccurate data
and information. Often project managers receive reports which suggest that
“everything is okay” when the reality is otherwise. Further, for months after
the project is completed, cost dribble in to change a favorable variance into
an unfavorable one or to aggravate an unfavorable variance.

Reff-projects by Prasanna
Chandra

Project Control Variable

Project Management tries to gain control over five variables:

Time - The amount of time required to complete the project. Typically it is

broken down for analytical purposes into the time required to complete the
components of the project. This is then further broken down into the time
required to complete each task contributing to the completion of each
component.

Cost - Calculated from the time variable. Cost to develop an internal project
is time multiplied by the cost of the team members involved. When hiring an
independent consultant for a project, cost will typically be determined by the
consultant or firm's hourly rate multiplied by an estimated time to complete.

Quality - The amount of time put into individual tasks determines the overall
quality of the project. Some tasks may require a given amount of time to
complete adequately, but given more time could be completed exceptionally.
Over the course of a large project, quality can have a significant impact on
time and cost (or vice versa).

FMS@BHU Page 6
Scope - Requirements specified for the end result. The overall definition of
what the project is supposed to accomplish, and a specific description of
what the end result should be or accomplish.

Risk - Potential points of failure. Most risks or potential failures can be

overcome or resolved, given enough time and resources.

Three of these variables can be given by external or internal customers. The

value(s) of the remaining variable are then set by project management,
ideally based on solid estimation techniques. The final values have to be
agreed upon in a negotiation process between project management and the
customer. Usually, the values in terms of time, cost, quality and scope are
contracted.

To keep control over the project from the beginning of the project all the way
to its natural conclusion, a project manager uses a number of techniques:
project planning, earned value, risk management, scheduling and process
improvement.

Project control technique

Performance analysis: a better approach to control

Effective control over a project systematic “performance analysis “this calls

for answering the following questions;

Is the project as a whole on schedule, ahead of schedule , or behind

schedule?

Has the cost of the project as a whole been as per budget estimates, less
than the budget estimates?

What is the trend of per formation? What would be the likely final cost and
completion date for the project and its individual parts?

Method analysis

FMS@BHU Page 7
For analyzing the performance at cost account and higher levels of the work
breakdown structure, we employee a method of analysis which takes into
account the value of work that has been done. In the traditional method of
analysis, the project manager measured the actual Progress against the
predetermined schedule and the actual cost against the budget estimate.
Performance analysis sees to remove this subjectivity by employing an
analytical frame work based on the following terms.

 BCWS-Budgeted cost for work schedule

 BCWP-Budgeted Cost for Work Performed

 ACWP-Actual Cost Work of Performed

 BCTW- Budget Cost For Total Work

 ACC-Additional Cost for Completion

 Cost Variance- BCWP-ACWP

 Schedule Variance in Cost Terms-BCWP-BCWS

 Cost Performance Index- BCWP/ACWP

 Schedule Performance Index –BCWP/BCWS

 Estimated Cost Performance Index-BCTW/(ACWP+ACC)

(Reff-Projects by Prasanna
Chandra)

NETWORK TECHNIQUE FOR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

CPM - Critical Path Method

Critical Path Method (CPM) designed to address the challenge of shutting

down chemical plants for maintenance and then restarting the plants once
the maintenance had been completed.
Complex project require a series of activities, some of which must be
performed sequentially and others that can be performed in parallel with
other activities. This collection of series and parallel tasks can be modelled as
a network.
CPM models the activities and events of a project as a network. Activities are
shown as nodes on the network and events that signify the beginning or
ending of activities are shown as arcs or lines between the nodes.

FMS@BHU Page 8
Steps in CPM Project Planning
1. Specify the individual activities.
2. Determine the sequence of those activities.
3. Draw a network diagram.
4. Estimate the completion time for each activity.
5. Identify the critical path (longest path through the network)
6. Update the CPM diagram as the project progresses.
1. Specify the individual activities
All the activities in the project are listed. This list can be used as the basis for
adding sequence and duration information in later steps.
2. Determine the sequence of the activities
Some activities are dependent on the completion of other activities. A list of
the immediate predecessors of each activity is useful for constructing the
CPM network diagram.
3. Draw the Network Diagram
Once the activities and their sequences have been defined, the CPM diagram
can be drawn. CPM originally was developed as an activity on node network.
4. Estimate activity completion time
The time required to complete each activity can be estimated using past
experience. CPM does not take into account variation in the completion time.
5. Identify the Critical Path
The critical path is the longest-duration path through the network. The
significance of the critical path is that the activities that lie on it cannot be
delayed without delaying the project. Because of its impact on the entire
project, critical path analysis is an important aspect of project planning.
The critical path can be identified by determining the following four
parameters for each activity:

 ES - Earliest start time: the earliest time at which the activity can start
given that its precedent activities must be completed first.
 EF - Earliest finish time, equal to the earliest start time for the activity
plus the time required to complete the activity.
 LF - Latest finish time: the latest time at which the activity can be
completed without delaying the project.
 LS - Latest start time, equal to the latest finish time minus the time
required to complete the activity.
The slack time for an activity is the time between its earliest and latest start
time, or between its earliest and latest finish time. Slack is the amount of
time that an activity can be delayed past its earliest start or earliest finish
without delaying the project.
The critical path is the path through the project network in which none of the
activities have slack, that is, the path for which ES=LS and EF=LF for all
activities in the path. A delay in the critical path delays the project. Similarly,

FMS@BHU Page 9
to accelerate the project it is necessary to reduce the total time required for
the activities in the critical path.

CPM Benefits
 Provides a graphical view of the project.
 Predicts the time required to complete the project.
 Shows which activities are critical to maintaining the schedule and
which are not.
CPM Limitations
While CPM is easy to understand and use, it does not consider the time
variations that can have a great impact on the completion time of a complex
project. CPM was developed for complex but fairly routine projects with
minimum uncertainty in the project completion times. For less routine
projects there is more uncertainty in the completion times, and this
uncertainty limits its usefulness.

PERT
The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) is a network model
that allows for randomness in activity completion times. PERT was developed
in the late 1950's for the U.S. Navy's Polaris project having thousands of
contractors. It has the potential to reduce both the time and cost required to
complete a project.

The Network Diagram

In a project, an activity is a task that must be performed and an event is a
milestone marking the completion of one or more activities. Before an
activity can begin, all of its predecessor activities must be completed. Project
network models represent activities and milestones by arcs and nodes.

PERT is typically represented as an activity on arc network, in which the

activities are represented on the lines and milestones on the nodes.

Steps in the PERT Planning Process

PERT planning involves the following steps:
1. Identify the specific activities and milestones.
2. Determine the proper sequence of the activities.
3. Construct a network diagram.
4. Estimate the time required for each activity.
5. Determine the critical path.
6. Update the PERT chart as the project progresses.

1. Identify activities and milestones

FMS@BHU Page 10
The activities are the tasks required to complete the project. The milestones
are the events marking the beginning and end of one or more activities.

2. Determine activity sequence

This step may be combined with the activity identification step since the
activity sequence is known for some tasks. Other tasks may require more
analysis to determine the exact order in which they must be performed.

3. Construct the Network Diagram

Using the activity sequence information, a network diagram can be drawn
showing the sequence of the serial and parallel activities.

4. Estimate activity times

Weeks are a commonly used unit of time for activity completion, but any
consistent unit of time can be used.
A distinguishing feature of PERT is its ability to deal with uncertainty in
activity completion times. For each activity, the model usually includes three
time estimates:
 Optimistic time (OT) - generally the shortest time in which the
activity can be completed. (This is what an inexperienced
manager believes!)
 Most likely time (MT) - the completion time having the highest
probability. This is different from expected time. Seasoned
managers have an amazing way of estimating very close to
actual data from prior estimation errors.
 Pessimistic time (PT) - the longest time that an activity might
require.
The expected time for each activity can be approximated using the following
weighted average:
Expected time = (OT + 4 x MT+ PT) / 6
This expected time might be displayed on the network diagram.
Variance for each activity is given by:[(PT - OT) / 6]2

5. Determine the Critical Path

The critical path is determined by adding the times for the activities in each
sequence and determining the longest path in the project. The critical path
determines the total time required for the project.
If activities outside the critical path speed up or slow down (within limits), the
total project time does not change. The amount of time that a non-critical
path activity can be delayed without delaying the project is referred to as
slack time.

FMS@BHU Page 11
If the critical path is not immediately obvious, it may be helpful to determine
the following four quantities for each activity:

 ES - Earliest Start time

 EF - Earliest Finish time
 LS - Latest Start time

 LF - Latest Finish time

These times are calculated using the expected time for the relevant
activities. The ES and EF of each activity are determined by working forward
through the network and determining the earliest time at which an activity
can start and finish considering its predecessor activities.The latest start and
finish times are the latest times that an activity can start and finish without
delaying the project. LS and LF are found by working backward through the
network. The difference in the latest and earliest finish of each activity is that
activity's slack. The critical path then is the path through the network in
which none of the activities have slack.

The variance in the project completion time can be calculated by summing

the variances in the completion times of the activities in the critical path.
Given this variance, one can calculate the probability that the project will be
completed by a certain date.
Since the critical path determines the completion date of the project, the
project can be accelerated by adding the resources required to decrease the
time for the activities in the critical path. Such a shortening of the project
sometimes is referred to as project crashing.

Benefits of PERT

PERT is useful because it provides the following information:

 Expected project completion time.
 Probability of completion before a specified date.
 The critical path activities that directly impact the completion time.
 The activities that have slack time and that can lend resources to
critical path activities.
 Activities start and end dates.

Limitations of PERT

FMS@BHU Page 12
The following are some of PERT's limitations:
• The activity time estimates are somewhat subjective and depend on
judgment. In cases where there is little experience in performing an activity,
the numbers may be only a guess. In other cases, if the person or group
performing the activity estimates the time there may be bias in the estimate.

Reff: www.wikkipedia.com

FMS@BHU Page 13