In the world of project management, many project managers follow the Project Management Body of Knowledge, or PMBOK.
PMBOK is a structured approach to project management, developed by the Project Management Institute, which includes five phases:
In this article, we'll look at the Monitoring phase.
Phase 4: Monitoring
In PMBOK's phases of project management, the third phase (Execution) and the fourth phase (Monitoring and Controlling) often feel as though they are one and the same. But, make no mistake -- they are not.
Although, they are tied extremely close together. In fact, it's sometimes necessary when you
reach Phase four to return to Phase two and begin planning again. However, it's probably more realistic to look at phase three and four this way:
In Phase three, you execute your original project plan. But, it's pretty rare that all of your project tasks are happening simultaneously. So, it's quite possible that while you're executing Task 2 (Phase 3), you're monitoring Task 1 (Phase 4) to make sure the work is going according to the project plan (Phase 2). Let's look at a real world example.
In this example, you are the project manager working on a project that involves the painting of five separate rooms. Your tasks (simplistically) could look like this:
- Task 1: Prep Room 200
- Task 2: Prep Room 300
- Task 3: Paint Room 200
- Task 4: Prep Room 400
- Task 5: Paint Room 300
- Task 6: Prep Room 500
- Task 7: Paint Room 400
- Task 8: Paint Room 500
In this scenario, you can have one set of resources prepping the rooms and a second set of resources painting the rooms. This means, as long as the prepping resources get a one room head start, the painting team can begin in Room 200 while the prepping team moves to Room 300. As you can see, at any time during the project, you can have several tasks all at different stages of completion.
This is where you'll find yourself moving (hopefully seamlessly) between the Execution and Monitoring phases. And, while it's easy to forget which phase any particular task might be in, there's one simple way to tell.
In Phase 3 - Execution, you're moving forward with your project plan and beginning work. In Phase 4 - Monitoring, you're watching work progress and keeping on eye on the original project goal to ensure your project sticks within the original project scope.
Read more about Phase 5: Closing
Read more about Phase 1: Initiation
Read more about Phase 2: Planning
Read more about Phase 3: Executing