{"id":36309,"date":"2022-12-15T14:44:08","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T14:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toggl.com\/blog\/?p=36309"},"modified":"2024-06-21T11:55:35","modified_gmt":"2024-06-21T11:55:35","slug":"project-monitoring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toggl.com\/blog\/project-monitoring","title":{"rendered":"Project Monitoring: Stay On Top Of Scope, Time & Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Effective project monitoring helps keep the moving parts of a project flowing. But maintaining one eye on the broader picture is challenging for even the most experienced project managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Staff members fall sick, clients push out the project scope, and even if just one or two of your subtasks take longer to complete than the estimates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this guide, you\u2019ll learn what project monitoring is, the three key constraints, and how to monitor them effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is project monitoring? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Project monitoring is the process of continuously tracking a project\u2019s scope, timelines, budget, progress, and critical success metrics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s about ensuring the project is on track to reach its goals (in terms of deliverables, deadlines, and financials) \u2014 and controlling change requests along the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project monitoring is the fourth of the five official steps in project management, following initiation, planning, and execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is project monitoring important in project management? <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Project monitoring is crucial for keeping a project on track. If you’re not carefully watching every moving part, your project can quickly get out of hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things don’t always happen according to the project plan (in fact, they rarely do). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Project monitoring helps you catch these deviations as they arise and take corrective actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s illustrate with an example:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’re a project manager at a digital marketing agency, and you’ve just wrapped up the planning phase for a new website build. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You’ve organized your resources, set up the workflow structure, built a realistic project timeline<\/a>, got a little buffer in the project budget, and are kicking things off today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fast forward three weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your lead designer has been away sick for the last week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You arrive at the office to an email from the client, who’s just come up with a brilliant idea for a set of landing pages they also want to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that day, you receive the invoice from your contracted copywriter. It will cost you 12% more than you’d budgeted for due to rapid fluctuations in the exchange rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re not carefully monitoring project performance, you’ve got a big problem on your hands here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Timeline<\/strong>: You’re behind schedule by a week \u2014 and probably more, as you’ll need to adjust other milestones.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Scope<\/strong>: The project’s scope has just been increased, and you’re already behind schedule.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Budget<\/strong>: That buffer you built into your budget? Gone.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    But if you’re the kind of PM with project monitoring aced, you’ve already sorted these issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You’ve assigned some additional design work to a freelance junior designer and rejigged the timeline to account for the elements only your lead designer can complete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You’ve pushed back on the client’s landing page request, referring them to their account manager to discuss the possibility of an additional project post-launch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And you’ve already reallocated funds from the design budget (because you’ve paid a junior designer to complete some of the more simple tasks) to account for the additional copywriting costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This distinction \u2014 the difference between a smoothly running project and one that’s gone off the rails \u2014 is why project monitoring is such a critical skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The three key constraints of any project<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Three main constraints that need careful monitoring in any project are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \n
    1. Scope<\/strong>: the specified achievements and work that needs to be done to reach the project objectives<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    2. Time<\/strong>: the project schedule, including start and finish dates and deadlines for activities, tasks, and milestones<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    3. Budget<\/strong>: the cost of the project broken down into categories (e.g., development costs for a new website build)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Some PMs call this the Triple Constraint Theory<\/a>; others call it The Iron Triangle<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"triple<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      Whichever term you favor, there\u2019s no way around it: Balancing all three is critical to effective project management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      That\u2019s because these constraints don\u2019t exist in a vacuum. Adjusting one element impacts the whole triangle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n