Welcome back, so we have a business case for the project. It's been authorized through a project charter or contract. We've prepared the project management plan and started to direct the work, what's next? As a project manager, we must assist the team in monitoring and controlling the work. We will review these activities in much more detail in course two of this specialization, called Scope, Time, and Cost Management. But for now, what you need to know is that monitoring and controlling your project involves comparing your actual performance against those six baseline elements we discussed in the last lesson, asking yourself, are we following the plan? Are we following the schedule? Can we meet our cost assumptions? Are we following the scope, etc, etc? Another piece of the puzzle is to compare our actual performance to the assumptions we made on the cost and schedule. Is it taking the same amount of time that we assumed when we put together the schedule and cost estimates to complete each element of the project? Do we need more or fewer people? Are the resource cost rates the same? All these elements should be examined on a continuous basis as part of the monitoring and controlling process. Are we implementing and following our plans? Based on these evaluations, we should be forecasting what the actual cost, schedule, and scope will be at the end of the project. These evaluations and the steps we take to manage any deviations from our baseline plan is called change control. Change control is a essential part of monitoring and controlling a project. Change control is a process to identify, document, and approve modifications to the project baseline. There are two types of changes: trends and change requests. All proposed changes are based on the conditions documented in the baseline. To document or review a change, the first action is to compare the proposed action to the conditions set forth in the baseline. Changes may be modifications to the environment, charter, requirements, scope, specifications, schedule, or cost of the project. So what's the difference between a trend and a change order? They both change the scope, schedule, and cost. Trends are conditions that deviate from the baseline, but are within the original charter, requirements, or scope of the project. Examples may include: an actual labor rate that's higher or lower than expected, scheduled durations that are longer or shorter than predicted, material costs that are different than expected. A trend will impact your forecast of how the project will actually complete. But it does not change the underlying scope, schedule, or budget you're comparing your performance against. Trends may forecast improvements in performance, or may forecast less than planned performance. Change requests are formal proposals to modify any document, deliverable, or baseline. Examples of a change request are: the client requests a change to the project specifications, a government regulation changes and must be incorporated, causing a change in cost and schedule, the client or sponsor requests that you accelerate the schedule. A change request formally modifies the project baseline. It's a revision to the agreed scope, schedule, budget, or execution approach. In some cases, it may even have contract implications. This chart outlines basic change control process. Once a potential change is identified, we compare the proposed state to our baseline documents. Does it represent a deviation from the scope, schedule, cost, charter, risk profile, and project plan? If not, there's no change, and we stop. If there is a deviation, then we need to ask, was there a formal request for a change from the client, project sponsor, or other off-project entity? If not, we issue change notice and record it in a change log. If there was a formal request for a change, then we seek approval from the authorizing agent to change the charter or other baseline documents previously agreed to. If this change is approved, we will issue a change order documenting the approved change, modifying the baseline documents, and adding the change to the change log. The final step in any project or project phase is close out. This is an important step. It is where we document how the project went, and capture data to be used by future projects. Consider it a key step in the organizational learning process. Key steps in the process include formally documenting the completion by notifying the appropriate people. In many cases, this is a requirement of the contract to start a warranty or filing payment process. Transferring the project deliverables to the final users, capturing lessons learned and project history to aid with the estimating and execution of future projects. And finally, storing the project documents in the organizational archives for future reference. This is key, as it may be needed if future questions arise on performance or whether you met the requirements of the project. This final step is one that many of us overlook. We're ready to move to our next project. We're ready for the excitement of starting something new, and we just let it slide. However, a bad close out might have a impact on the organizational performance. Imagine if someone wants to do a similar project, and can't find the data from your project to learn from. Imagine if the organization is challenged in court, but can't find the information to defend itself because it was not stored properly. Both scenarios have the potential to create a serious setback for the organization. Now we've completed the lessons in the project integration module. Hopefully, you understand the importance of a project charter and a project management plan. You should be able to identify the contents of these documents and how to use them to monitor and control your project. We've taken a quick look at change control and how it might be used on a project. In the next course, we'll delve more deeply into the elements of the project management plan, and also change management. In the next video, we want to review our assignment to create a project charter for the Wellmont's Pharmacy drone case.
