Project management has developed into a multifaceted profession, and it’s no longer plausible to expect a single individual to excel in all dimensions of project management. Different elements of project management necessitate different skill sets.
We can classify project management into four distinct sections:
– The technical facets, which are intrinsically tied to the product that needs to be delivered.
– Managerial elements, such as team and stakeholder management.
– The contractual facets, both towards the client / management and towards (sub)contractors.
– The analytical elements, also known as project controls.
At Ingeniva, we assert that each of these components deserves recognition as a full-fledged profession. We’ve decided to focus on the last one, project controls. It being understood that the interconnection with the other components is fundamental and must maintain harmony in the flow of information.
However, since project controls is not a well-known concept in our market, we believe there is a need for a clear definition.
What is NOT included in project controls?
We commence with a definition of project controls by outlining the components of project management that are not encompassed by Project controls:
– All PM processes that are inseparably linked to the project’s products and require deep knowledge of these products (i.e., quality control, scope definition, etc.).
– All PM processes directly tied to integration (as defined by PMI) and steering the project execution.
– All PM processes that are considered necessary soft skill disciplines for the general management of a project team and its stakeholders.
– PM disciplines related to Health, Safety, and Environment.
So, you may wonder, what else is left for a project manager to handle? Well, the answer is… project controls!
What is project controls?
Here’s our definition:
“Project controls encapsulates those aspects of project management that estimate, model, analyze, predict, measure, report, and visualize project data to generate insights into the project that will guide and influence decision-making, thereby maximizing value for the stakeholders.”
Project controls professionals are the analytical ones. They’re the ones you can rely on to utilize the right tools & techniques to provide insight into the project’s health. They have the comprehensive understanding needed to preemptively alert the team about the impact of a change or delay on another part of the project. They are the ones who transform data into information. They are people like us.
Project controls encompasses many knowledge areas within project management:
The true value of project controls techniques frequently lies in modeling and analyzing the integration between these knowledge areas. It should be emphasized that these knowledge areas aren’t necessarily entirely within the scope of project controls. A clear example is risk management. Yes, project controls can add value by recording, prioritizing, analyzing, and reporting risks. We can also serve as moderators in risk workshops, but identifying the risks and their mitigation actions are so closely related to the subject of the project that they fall outside our purview. Various subject matter experts are needed to provide this input. Hence, effective project controls is a collaborative endeavor.
Ingeniva
Project controls is our core business. We possess extensive experience with a variety of tools and techniques that can be employed to provide the required project insights. We have experts specialized in Planning Management, Earned Value Management, Schedule Risk Analysis, Time Space Diagrams, Claim Analysis, Enterprise Resource Management, BI Project Dashboards, and much more. In this blog, we will share information with you as part of our mission to enhance the overall knowledge level on project controls in the market.
The age of project controls is just dawning.
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