Scenario: You are the project manager responsible for a new building construction in northern Virginia. The building is worth $500,000 and will have five bedrooms, a kitchen, landscaping, and a two-car garage to be completed in two years. This was agreed upon in a firm fixed contract. During the execution (construction) of the building, you realize that the cost of materials have gone up by 10%, and your schedule is behind by 90 days due to delays from county inspections and permit processes. You also notice that if you continue with the current cost rate and schedule rate that the total cost to complete this house would be $600,000 and delivered three months late.

Submit a three-page report explaining the reasons for these variances from your original project management plan and the proposed steps on how you are going to control the cost and schedule to achieve the contract threshold of $500,000 to be delivered in two years. Your plan must include the following:

• Address identifications of impacted activities with their cost and schedule attributes, remembering to account for contingencies.
• Address explanations of the roles your project management team will play during the execution of your project management plan and how they will help you to control the issues that are arising during the project.
• At the end of your essay, add a separate section entitled, “Reflections on My Learning.” In this stand-alone section, summarize what you have learned in doing the research, reading the textbook, and reading the written lessons in regard to project management and how it impacted your decisions in this essay.

Refer to the execution and control process examples in the Handbook of project-based management: Leading Strategic change in organizations textbook, Chapter 17. Include at least one additional source to support your ideas, thoughts, and theories. Use APA format to document your sources in-text and in your “References” list at the end of the essay.

MBA 6941, Managing Project Teams 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit VII

Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

5. Describe the process of leadership when leading project teams.
5.1 Identify some of the causes for variances during the execution phase of a project.
5.2 Determine the steps that a project manager and project team will take to account for variances

and get a project back on track.

Reading Assignment

Chapter 17: Execution and Control

Unit Lesson

The executing process group consists of the processes required to complete the work defined in the project
management plan and ultimately satisfy the project specifications and objectives. Processes in this group are
utilized to organize project team and resources, to manage stakeholders’ expectation, and to integrate and
perform project activities in accordance with project management plan. In this process group, work is actually
carried out such as the following: code is written, parts are assembled, information is distributed, houses are
constructed, the team is developed and managed, and roads are repaired.

The project executing process group includes the following processes in the specified knowledge areas:

(PMI, 2013)

Process Groups Processes Key Outputs

Project integration
management

Direct and manage
project work

Deliverables
Work performance
data

Project quality
management

Perform quality
assurance

Change requests

Project human
resource management

Acquire project team
Develop project team
Manage project team

Project staff
assignment
Resource calendars
Team performance
Assessments
Change requests

Project communication
management

Manage
communications

Project
communications

Project procurement
management

Conduct procurements Selected sellers
Agreements
Resource calendars

Project stakeholder
management

Manage stakeholder
engagement

Issue log
Change requests

UNIT VII STUDY GUIDE

Project Execution and
Control and Team

MBA 6941, Managing Project Teams 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

Title

Findings made by the team in the executing process group may require preplanning and re-baselining the
project management plan and project documents, including changes to activity durations, resource
availability, and unanticipated risks. Regardless of how detailed a plan may be and how many experts have
proofed the plans, there will be changes. Change orders may originate from either the owner or the
contractors. These changes interrupt the flow of the project and can cause delays. It is important for all parties
involved in the process to be clear in communications and expectations. Change orders need to be held to a
minimum in the best interest of all parties involved.

Usually the project will enter the executing process group when planning is completed or the project
management plan has been updated due to change requests, including defect repairs and corrective and
preventive actions. The approved change requests, which consist of corrective actions, preventive actions,
and defect repairs are typically implemented in this process group.

 Corrective Actions: Actions that are taken to bring expected future performance of the project work in
line with the project management plan.

 Preventive Actions: Actions that are taken to reduce the probability of risk items in the project.

 Defect Repairs: Actions that are taken to repair defects or entirely replace components that are faulty

or dysfunctional

Costs are usually high in this process group, as this group will utilize most of the project time and resources.
Project managers and their teams typically face significant conflicts and challenges over schedules during the
executing phase.

The primary outputs of the project executing phase are as follows:

 Deliverables—Any unique and verifiable product, result, capability, or service that must be produced
in order to complete a process, phase, or project.

 Work Performance Data—Information on how far along a deliverable is and how it is progressing
against the plan is routinely collected as the project progresses. There can be several work
performance data of interest in the project such as the following:
o deliverable status,
o schedule progress,
o resource utilization,
o key performance indicators,
o costs incurred,
o number of defects, and
o quality standards.

 Change Requests—Approved change requests may require implementation of preventive and
corrective actions and may also modify policies, the project management plan, guidelines,
procedures, costs, and the schedule baseline.

 Project Management Plan Updates—Most of the elements of the project management plan will be
updated in this process.

 Project Documentation Updates—Documents such as requirements documents, the risk register, the
stakeholder register, project logs (issues, assumptions.) may be updated (Project Management
Institute [PMI], 2013).

As the project team executes the project management plan, variances are bound to occur given the changes
in the triple constraints (scope, time, & cost). A variance is the difference between what you planned to
achieve and the actual achievement. For example, you planned that the house would cost $500,000 to
complete in 24 months. As the project team started to build the house, they noticed that the housing materials
are more expensive than what was originally planned and that is taking them more time than expected to get
county permits and inspections thus delaying the house completion by an extra three months. Now the house
will cost $560,000 and will take 27 months to complete. The process that the project team takes to ensure
that project execution does not deviate from planned actions (and to bring it back when it deviates) is known
as the control process. There are four primary steps to control process:

1. Effective Planning—Without a robust project management plan indicating core milestones with
corresponding activities and measures, it will be hard to monitor when there is a deviation and
therefore impossible to monitor. When the project has a project baseline plan that is concise, agreed

MBA 6941, Managing Project Teams 3

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title

upon and measurable, the team is better able to control any deviation. Effective plan includes the
identifications of activities with their corresponding time of completion and cost attributes.

2. Effective Reporting—An important element of the controlling process is the ability to report deviations
accurately and in a timely manner so that project stakeholders can make an informed decision.
Therefore, effective reporting requires that the report be made against the approved plan with a
clearly defined criteria for control. The control reporting techniques and tools should be simple for the
project team to allow ease of reporting so that the project team does not waste excessive time
reporting that might impact project schedule. Another important element of effective reporting is that
the project team should submit their reports at defined intervals. These intervals are linked to the
project milestones so that the reports can be meaningful and measurable. Finally effective reporting
should be discussed at formal meetings and should stimulate creative project team and stakeholders
discussions.

3. Effective Reviews—During the monitoring process, the team must review the variance data to ensure
that the variances are reflected correctly and based on their review and analysis, then propose a
control mechanism. Bear in mind that the two most quantitative project measures are time and cost;
therefore, effective review of the cost/time generated data ensures effective control. When data are
effectively reviewed, the right resources would be aligned. However, when the project team fails to
conduct an effective review of the project data, the root causes are missed, and limited project
resources are wrongly assigned with zero impact on control.

4. Effective Action—Once the review is completed through the validation of variances, the project
manager and his or her team must now decide on the appropriate actions to take. Effective action
requires that the team respond accordingly by not overreacting or under-reacting. The goal of
effective action is simply to apply a control mechanism to bring back the variances to align with the
project plan.

Reference

Project Management Institute. (2013). A guide to the project management body of knowledge (5th ed.).
Newton Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Suggested Reading

In order to access the resource below, you must first log into the myCSU Student Portal and access the
Business Source Complete database within the CSU Online Library.

This article gives you an insight on how to execute and control project processes:

Hammad Ud Din, T. (2004). Effective planning techniques for the execution of an EPC project. Cost

Engineering, 46(4), 14-19.