PMDPro WORDSEARCH

D E C I S I O N Q L B C K C T ACTIVITIES
O C V Q E P X J V B E K H O J DECISION
M O N I T O R I N G R I U M M MEASURING
R N C I T A M M A R G O R P K OUTPUTS
N T WS T A K E H O L D E R S QUALITATIVE
A R Q U A N T I T A T I V E J CONTROL
G O P S E I T I V I T C A H I GOALS
B L N U S A O R L R N M L E O OUTCOMES
F O A L H S L B N A S H U N K PROGRESS
O U T C O M E S F S U Y A S Z STAKEHOLDERS
J F J R T D U R G E L Q T I B COMPREHENSIVE
M G G C X R D B G J O A I V C EVALUATION
U P Q O O F I D Y O R E O E A MONITORING
D V U I H M E A S U R I N G M PROGRAMMATIC
T Y H I C N R Z O U T P U T S QUANTITATIVE

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Give participants material to work on before session starts
▪ Give participants a chance to practice with Blackboard

How:
▪ Have slide on screen when people log on
▪ Enable timer
▪ Encourage people to complete wordsearch
▪ Move to next slide

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 Lingos 4 week PMDPro course
Monitoring, Evaluation and
Control

Change control
Activity based budgets
Earned Value Analysis (EVA)

“Project management can be defined as a way of developing

structure in a complex project, where the independent variables
of time, cost, resources and human behaviour come together.”

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Start session
▪ Ensure recording is switched on

How:
▪ When it is time to start, start recording, greet everyone and explain objectives in this
session
▪ Go over points on screen
▪ Remind participants that we aim to get them to share their experiences.
▪ Move to next slide

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 THE MONITORING, EVALUATION AND
CONTROL PHASE

“It is always easier to talk about change than

to make it.” — Alvin Toffler

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Quickly remind participants where we are in the PMDPro Phase cycle

How:
▪ Explain that we are in M&E and control phase
▪ Move to next slide

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 WHY DO WE MONITOR, EVALUATE
AND CONTROL?

“A good plan can help with risk analyses but it will

never guarantee the smooth running of the project.”-–
Bentley and Borman

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Get participants thinking why M,E and C matter.

How:
▪ Ask participants the question on the screen. Answers – screen/text/microphone – should
include learning about what is happening, make changes etc.
▪ Feedback and ask participants if the M&E activity takes resources? Answer: yes – Ask
participants which PM tool should include all this activity? Answer; WBS – example of how
tools need to be kept live.
▪ Move to next slide

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 Evaluation Vs. Monitoring
Hierarch Indicator Means Assumpti
Is the causal y of s of ons
Objective Verificat
logic between s ion
the outcomes
and the goal Goal
correct?
Outcome(
Monitoring
s)
focuses on
Is the causal Outputs the
relationship activities &
between the Activities output
outputs and levels –
Inputs including a
the outcomes
check of the
correct? ongoing
logic of the
original
assumptions

Looking more closely at evaluation, we know that it is concerned about

the causal logic between the outcomes and the goal.

In other words, evaluation is focused on measuring the outcomes, goal

and what are generally called impacts - the higher level changes. While
the mid-level outputs are important to project management and
monitoring, you want to be sure that the processes and products being
produced in the project contribute to higher-level change in lives of
people and their environment. Evaluation is the causal logic between the
outcomes and the goal. Is it correct? Also, evaluation is the causal relationship
between the outputs and the outcomes – that must also be correct logic.

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 Evaluations – 3 types

Mid-term Final Ex-Post

•Conducted in the •Conducted toward •Conducted at a time
middle of the the end of the after project
project project. completion.
•Knowledge-
•Generally an •Largely judgment oriented,
internal oriented – merit, emphasizing
evaluator(s) worth or value sustainable impact
•Are especially
•Improvement- •Generally include an useful when
oriented external evaluator advocating for
interventions in a
specific program or
•More planning and portfolio area.
investment.
•Not conducted as
regularly as final
evaluations

Mid term offers a snap shot during the project and can identify big issues early –
more like an audit than monitoring
Final – did you do hat you said you would – what's the quality
Ex-post – 6-12 months after

Are the participants doing any of these in their projects?

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 Monitoring Evaluation
what A continuous review of project Gathering and analyzing information to
progress, of checking planned determine:
activities against actual results, and Progress toward delivery of
seeing if corrective action needs to activities/outputs; and
be taken. Contributing to achievement of
outcomes/goals.

why Analyze current situation To measure project effectiveness

Identify issues and find solutions To determine whether outcomes have
Discover trends and patterns been achieved
Keep project activities on schedule To learn how well things are being done
Measure progress against outputs To learn lessons for future improvement
Make decisions about human,
financial and material resources
when Continuous Periodically (the frequency depends on
the resources the project is willing to
invest – typically there are midterm,
end-of-project and post project
evaluations.
how Field Visits Internal Evaluation
Records External Evaluation
Reports

Run through the right version of the exercise and discuss any mistakes or
differences of opinion

Remember to ensure the below is covered

Monitoring basically is a continuous process that you're checking

activities against actual results. You're checking what was planned vs.
what actually happened. Sometimes those are called variances or the
difference. That will suggest whether corrective action might be needed.
Whereas evaluation is different. It's not as continuous but progress
toward delivery of the outcomes and the goals, taking in mind also
activities and outputs which are primarily the focus of monitoring. We do
monitoring to keep up with what's happening on a day by day and week
by week basis so that changes can be made. We're trying to identify
issues in order to alert the project manager and team so that they can
think about and consider actions to manage or remedy those situations.
Those can be human, financial or material resources.

Evaluation is making more of a judgment about effectiveness in order to

learn how well things have been done. It is a judgment on the success or

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failure of the project. Monitoring is done continuously and sometimes on
a day by day basis as you are implementing whereas evaluation is usually
done more periodically. Of course there has to be baseline information
collected. Often there's a midterm, end of project and sometimes a post
project evaluation. The documentation is what's listed on the how.

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 PROJECT CHANGES
What project management tool do we have
to record changes and any unplanned event?

“What is not on paper has not been said.” –

Anonymous

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Remind participants that change is normal in projects
▪ Remind participants about issue logs
▪ Introduce idea that changes need to be controlled

How:
▪ Ask participants to answer the question on the screen – on screen or in text. They should
come up with issue logs.
▪ Ask participants how they go about managing the change process. Give participants time
to answer on the screen and give microphone to 2/3 people.
▪ Highlight fact that they all have some mechanisms to manage change.
▪ Ask – how do you make sure that only authorized changes are made - move to next slide

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 AUTHORIZED CHANGES
How do you make sure that only authorised
changes are made?

"Whosoever desires constant success must change his

conduct with the times.“ — Niccolo Machiavelli

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Make sure participants realize that project management is about control – changes need
to be controlled
▪ Get participants to understand that only authorized changes can be made

How:
▪ Ask participants to answer the question on the screen. Whilst people are writing, choose
someone to speak as well
▪ Go through main feedback items on screen and highlight any formal control mechanisms.
▪ Explain that you are going to highlight a change control process that may help.
▪ Move to next slide

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 TOLERANCE

Project Manager
Authority

Project
Board/Sponsor
Authority

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Remind participants about the importance of tolerance

How:
▪ Remind the participants about the concept of tolerance we covered in the project set up
(when we discussed the project charter)
▪ Any issue, change or adjustment that lies in the project managers authority (tolerance)
this is recorded on the issue log and managed by the PM. If the issue or change is outside
the this tolerance it becomes the realm of the project governance (board or sponsor) and
will trigger a change process

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 CONTROLLING CHANGES

"It is a bad plan that admits of no modification."— Publilius Syrus - First Century BC

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Present model to participants

How:
▪ Go over model
▪ Ask participants if a model like this would help. Why? Feedback in
text/screen/microphone.
▪ Move to next slide

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 Questions?

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Ensure participants have an opportunity to ask any questions on material.

How:
▪ Show slide and ask participants write any questions on the screen, in chat or raising their
hand and asking via the microphone.
▪ Listen, feedback
▪ Move to next slide

▪ NB if the group are having issues understanding the change control process it is
sometimes helpful to build out a simple version showing their current process – let them
build it out fully and then ask where the opinions of the beneficiaries comes in?

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 BUDGETS & EXPENDITURE
What sort of budgets do you use? How do you
monitor project finances? What difficulties have you
experienced?

“We didn't actually overspend our budget. The

allocation simply fell short of our expenditure.” -
Keith Davis

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Find out how participants budget and monitor expenditure.
▪ Learn what problems participants have had.
▪ Make sure participants know differences between activity and other budgets.

How:
▪ Ask participants the question on the screen. Let participants answer on screen/ text and
microphone. Answers may be varied.
▪ Highlight any people issues – financial management is responsibility of PM – prompt with
some questions – how do you compare expenditure with budgets? Highlight need for
budgets to be developed around activities.

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 ACTIVITY BASED BUDGETS

“You can’t keep it all in your head. Project control tools

are an absolute necessity for the control of large
projects.” -– Louis Fried

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Make sure participants understand how activity based budgets work

How:
▪ Highlight budget on screen – go over it – point out that it is a simple example
▪ Move to next slide

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 ACTIVITY BASED BUDGETS
What are the advantages of activity based budgets?

What can you do if activity based budgets are not

available from your systems?

There is a difficult leap between talking about balancing

the budget and actually doing it. – Kevin Brady

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Make sure participants understand the advantages of activity based budgets

How:
▪ Ask questions on screen – answers on screen/text/microphone. Key advantage is being
able to compare like with like and tools link together – WBS links to activities – building
block and budgets will show us how much it will cost. Difficult to compare across projects
without activity based budgets. Harder to learn.
▪ Move to next slide

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 EARNED VALUE MANAGEMENT (EVA)
Task Planned Month One Month Two Month Month Four Month Five Month Six
Cost Three
A 100 100
B 200 200
C 100 100
D 400 400
E 100 100
F 200 200
G 200 200
H 100 100
I 300 300
J 100 100
Planned total cost per 100 300 700 300 300 100
month
Planned cumulative cost 100 400 1100 1400 1700 1800

Actual total cost per 150 350 800

month
Actual cumulative cost 150 500 1300

Illustrative Budget for a Six Month Project

(including actual costs through Month 3)

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Understand problems with simply looking at cost information.

How:
▪ Ask participants to look at slide draw some conclusions and use their experience to
suggest causes.
▪ Key point is that project is overspent – difference between actual total cost and planned
accumulative cost. Causes may include more activity or delays. Ask participants if being
overspent is a problem. Answer – it depends – use these two scenarios to explain;

Scenario A: On the one hand, the project could be more expensive than was originally
estimated. In this case, project activities are on schedule, but they cost more than
anticipated in the budget. Analysis: Scenario A is definitely problematic. It points to a trend
that, if continued, will result in a project that will be over budget. In this situation, corrective
action will need to take place to ensure that the project avoids budget shortfalls.

Scenario B: The project might be spending more than it expected because the project is
ahead of schedule. As a result, the project is spending more than they anticipated in the first
three months of the project. Analysis: Scenario B is not necessarily problematic. Yes, the
project in Scenario B is spending more money per month than was originally planned;
however, it is also completing more work than it had planned. In this scenario, the project
needs to collect more information to decide whether the project is spending more money
than it had anticipated for the amount of work it is completing.

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▪ Explain that EVA is a technique to help us link financial information with schedule
information.
▪ Move to next slide

Elapsed time: 80 minutes

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 Earned value analysis (EVA)

Definition: Earned Value Analysis is a tool that

compares the planned and actual cost for each
task that has been performed and ALSO
compares the rate of progress on each task to
what was scheduled in the project plan.

So…. to do Earned Value Analysis the Project

Manager will need a more complete set of data
that combines elements of both the project
budget AND the project calendar.

Earned value analysis (EVA) is a tool that compares the planned and actual
cost for each task that has been performed and also compares the rate of
progress on each task to what was scheduled in the project plan. So, EVA
would have been useful for analyzing the scenario that we looked at in the
previous slide. To do earned value analysis, the project manager will need a
more complete set of data that combines elements of both the project budget
and the project calendar

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 EARNED VALUE ANALYSIS: SCENARIOS
Behind Schedule On Schedule Ahead of Schedule

Under Budget Need more

Good Good
data
On Budget
Bad Good Good

Over Budget Need more

Bad Bad
data

“Whilst you can practice good project management without EVM, you cannot
practice EVM effectively without good project management.” — Steve
Crowther

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Understand EVA model

How:
▪ Explain diagram. Simple framework to help with project monitoring – links two parts of
triple constraint.
▪ Ask participants for implication for project monitoring. Answer: need to bring finance and
project staff to work together.
▪ Move to next slide

EVA shows that:

▪ Not all scenarios where the cumulative costs exceed the project budget
are bad

▪ Not all scenarios where a project’s cumulative costs are under budget are
good.

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 EVA
How would you make EVA work in your project? What
information would be needed?
Who would get this? When? How?

There is a difficult leap between talking about balancing

the budget and actually doing it. – Kevin Brady

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Discuss how to get EVA working in reality

How:
▪ Ask questions on screen – answers on screen/text/microphone.
▪ Push on detail – who/what/why/when etc.

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 Questions?

If, on your team, everyone’s input is not

encouraged, valued, and welcome, why call it a
team? – Woody Williams

Facilitation Notes
Aims:
▪ Ensure participants have an opportunity to ask any questions on material.

How:
▪ Show slide and ask participants write any questions on the screen, in chat or raising their
hand and asking via the microphone.
▪ Listen, feedback
▪ Move to next slide

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See you
next
time☺

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 EVA

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Discuss how to get EVA working in reality

How:
▪ Ask questions on screen – answers on screen/text/microphone.
▪ Push on detail – who/what/why/when etc.

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 EVA

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Discuss how to get EVA working in reality

How:
▪ Ask questions on screen – answers on screen/text/microphone.
▪ Push on detail – who/what/why/when etc.

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 EVA

Facilitation Notes

Aims:
▪ Discuss how to get EVA working in reality

How:
▪ Ask questions on screen – answers on screen/text/microphone.
▪ Push on detail – who/what/why/when etc.

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