There are five major functions in business management. Koontz and O’Donnel list these functions as Planning, Organizing, Staffing (some management theorists combine organizing and staffing into a single function) Directing and Control. In a previous article in 2012 I discussed the function of Control. At this time I would like to revisit this function and look further into Control of management tasks and the use of feedback to maintain control of a project.
Many managers just start the project and let the project team go along toward their objective. Then at the project completion everyone is surprised when the manager discovers the project is off course and has been going in an entirely wrong direction! What went wrong? How could the project team screw up so badly?
Let’s get one thing straight: Project teams don’t strive to make mistakes or screw up a task. Typically, project teams get off course when they either lose sight of the objective, or misunderstand the objective. As a manager how can you prevent that from happening?
The old management adage is “You get what you inspect”. Once you have briefed the project team and set them on their course, you have the duty to make sure they maintain that course. The best way to monitor and control a project is to have regular meetings of the team and let them show their progress.
I have found that the first project review meeting should be held relatively quickly after the project gets under way. As a general rule, I want to have the first project assessment at least a week after they have their objective and get to work. You accomplish two things when you have your project meetings. First, you show the team that you are serious about this project and expect it to be completed properly. If you stop reviewing the progress, the team will quietly stop working.
Second, the project meetings give you a chance to make sure the team is on track and has not misunderstood your objective. Of course, if there are problems in accomplishing the work, you want to know this as soon as possible and you have to take corrective action. As a general rule, the longer you wait to take corrective action, the more costly the correction will be in terms of money and time. Better to find out early that you have problems.
Project team meetings should open with a review of the project objective. Then, using the project schedule, milestones are measured and problems or issues are discussed. Corrective actions may be formulated in another meeting with only those members directly involved in the correction. Meetings don’t have to be long and involved to be effective. Keep the meeting members to a minimum, and make sure everyone understands his role before the meeting is adjourned.
Although very few managers do this, a project completion meeting should be held to make sure every detail is completed on the project. This meeting can be used to determine if other issues have been uncovered; and to assess the performance of each member of the team.
If you are going to take the time to organize and plan a project, you should be prepared to monitor progress and get feedback on the performance of the team. If you can’t take time to control the team, you shouldn’t waste time organizing the team.
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