Why a Project Management Office must monitor project progress
Project monitoring and project tracking is an important facet of the responsibilities of a Project Management Office. In reality regardless if a PMO is in place or not, project monitoring must be done.
Why you need project tracking and project monitoring
The reason for this is so as to make sure that a project is making progress and on track to deliver, there needs to be a process to observe progress. Without this, a sponsor and organisation will be placing absolute trust that the project will deliver what has been agreed, by the concluded date and in the allocated budget. I am sure you may agree this is a giant “leap of faith”.
This should also be of the most urgent priority to the project manager, in reality it is an element of their job description to control and monitor progress. Without tracking how will the project manager know if the project will deliver and if interventions are required?
What is project monitoring and project tracking
In it’s simplest and purest terms, project tracking is monitoring the progression of a project to asses if it is making the right progress so as to achieve the agreed objectives or outcomes. This is mostly attained by the use of a pro project standing report.
The report must supply a clear and concise statement of the project standing as at the date of the report. It should also include a direct and informative executive statement (“elevator speech”) that details the standing, any key issues/risks causing a status other than Green along with required action.
Smart project tracking and monitoring for a PMO
If you’d like to increase the value of your PMO you should look to:
– Implement a good, clear, pro project report
– Provide clear guidelines on how the report should finished
– Review submissions and check for quality and consistency
– Meet with the project manager to check, understand and challenge the report
– Issue a reporting calendar
– Provide higher managers with high level overviews thru PMO Dashboards, trends, areas of focus
Never under estimate the power of presentation
While high-value content is the most vital input for project monitoring and project tracking, don't underestimate the power of a professionally designed report with good visual signals. When this is ignored a good report can be considered unfairly as low quality. Therefore , ensure you've a professional looking project report and dashboard. If you do not have time or are not good at design, fast track this by purchasing a group of proven project management templates .
Simon Wilkinson is the founder of Practical PMO where he writes a regular blog providing practical advice on how to set up a PMO and how to do project monitoring.
