Setting up the project controls
Project Board and Project Manager level controls
There are two aspects to be considered here, one the controls needed by the project board, and two, the controls used by the project manager related to the work to be undertaken by the specialist team or team managers. The level of control needed will depend upon the project’s scale, the amount of risk, how complex, and how important the project is.
Many controls will have already been defined in the creation of the project’s four strategy documents, but they may not have necessarily been set up yet.
The main project controls may include the frequency and format of communication, the number of stages – in particular the end stage assessments, the system and mechanisms to capture and analyse issues and project changes, the application of management by exception including tolerances for the different management levels, and how would be delegated authority from one level of management to another will be monitored.
Project Brief controls input
The Project Brief should be reviewed to clarify whether any corporate or programme management strategies, standards or practices that relates to controls need to be applied to this particular project. The four management strategies mentioned previously should be reviewed to identify which controls need to be established.
Lessons from similar previous projects relating to project controls should be sought and applied as appropriate, these may have already been captured in the Lessons Log.
The Risk and Issue Registers should be reviewed, as the aggregated value of issues and risks will determine the detail and complexity of the control activities. The project board should be consulted and agreement reached as to where and when the management stage boundaries needs to occur so that adequate control can be applied.
The project management team structure role descriptions should be checked and enhanced with any agreed decision making authority where appropriate. This may even mean enhancing all be allocating roles as required.
Management by exception controls
As part of management by exception, corporate or programme management will have set project level tolerances. The project board need to agree stage level tolerances and optionally the project manager may set tolerances at work package level (although this may not need to be done at this point in time). Where appropriate these need to be confirmed including any escalation procedures.
All controls should be summarised in the Project Initiation Documentation, and project assurance should be consulted to check that the proposed project controls are appropriate for the nature of the project.
Project board approval should now be sought for the project controls, all the project board may prefer to review them later as part of the Project Initiation Documentation.
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