The strategy involves closely tracking the project activities. The project manager must ensure that all the activities involved in the project are identified and allocated to the right members of the team. To achieve this, a concept referred to as Earned Value Management will be used. Earned Value Management has three main concepts which include Planned Value (PV), Earned Value (EV), and Actual Costs (AC).
Planned Value will be used to schedule the cost of the planned work within a particular period of time. Priority will be given to the most important activities to ensure that the project runs as scheduled. The Actual Cost will be used to track the amount of money spent on each project activity. The Earned Value on the other hand will be used to track and evaluate the current spending on the project (Guide, P. M. B. O. K, 2004). Any unnecessary costs will be eliminated.
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For effective use of the tracking approach, emphasis will be placed on value of time and money allocated to each activity in the project. As the project manager, I will work closely with the finance officer to ensure that budgets are allocated accordingly. Together, we’ll be able to identify any gaps in the project schedule. For the activities that may have stalled as a result of lack of experts (programmers), a budget for training on the new language should be allocated to ensure that the project gets back on schedule.
The use of this strategy by the project manager to monitor progress gives him/her total control over various constraints such as costs, scope and schedule. It becomes easier to identify the problems at an early stage and develop proper solutions before they escalate. The approach will also help to improve the process of planning and relate the time phased budgets with the tasks involved in the project (Snyder, 2014). Using this strategy, it becomes much easier to identify any deviation from the original goals of the project. Finally, any potential risks can easily be identified and countermeasures developed to reduce their impact.
- Guide, P. M. B. O. K. (2004). A guide to the project management body of knowledge. In Project Management Institute (Vol. 3).
- Snyder, C. S. (2014). A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge: PMBOK (®) Guide. Project Management Institute.