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Introduction:

Mumtaz Construction Company is a renowned name in construction services. They are involved

in many construction projects in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. Currently, a housing society is being

developed by the company near New Islamabad Airport named “Mumtaz City.”

Recently, the company has been awarded a project to build a shopping mall in Islamabad. It will

be consisted of a basement plus four stories. The mall will be consisted of fifty shops and offices

to be rented out. It will take five years to be developed. The estimated cost for construction is

estimated to be hundred million rupees.

MEC aspects of the Project:

The difficulties faced by company in managing various projects are mainly involved the

distribution of workload and personnel among running projects. Projects take place along with

the operational work, so its organizational culture needs to be well-structured and monitored

to have a deep effect on how the projects work. Moreover, there is almost a traditional way

going on for managing the projects, and the structure is split into its various functions

depending upon the routine activities and milestones. Therefore, Project managers are

responsible to keep in track the progress of the project and keep monitoring the project growth

and must report to management for all activities and operations.

The performance of the project needs to be continuously monitored and evaluated in terms of

achieving goals and objectives of the projects.

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The scope needs to be validated by formal acceptance of project deliverables by all

stakeholders once the deliverables are completed.

The key benefit of this process is that it brings objectivity to the acceptance process and

increases the chance of final product, service or result acceptance by monitoring and evaluating

each deliverable. Process of monitoring the status of the project and product scope and

managing changes to the scope baseline is the major aspect of MEC. It will help in ensuring all

requested changes and recommended corrective or preventive actions will be processed

through the “Perform Integrated Change Control” process.

Monitoring, evaluation and control will provide regular feedback on project performance and

show any need for corrections. Some more aspects of MEC will be:

Early identification of problems and their possible solutions

Achievement evaluation of project objectives

Promoting the participation, ownership and accountability and stakeholders views

intake

Documents updating for lessons learned from the current project for future use

Identification of indicators to provide evidence that actual work performed is in line

with the planned outputs

Identification of the most appropriate methods for collecting and analyzing information

Different stakeholders will have different requirements from this project. The design of

monitoring, evaluation and control process will depend on who needs to know what, and why.

Each group will have specific use for monitoring and evaluation information:

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Project Manager needs to know if the work done is as per the planned baselines in

terms of scope, cost, quality and schedule. If any deviation from the planned progress is

indicated, measures should be taken place to keep project as per planned objectives.

Financers need to know how the money was spent and what was achieved in the project

in order to be accountable.

Top authority and managers need to know what is going well and what is going badly by

comparing results with the baselines, so they can take measures to improve and control

deviations. They also need to be able to learn from the experience in order to develop

their own capacity and the quality of similar future projects.

Project users and beneficiaries also need information from monitoring and evaluation in

order to hold the manager to account and to have more control over decisions that

affect the project outcomes.

Control Scope:

The project manager will monitor the scope baseline and find out if there is any deviation

against the baseline. It will perform the following:

1. Measuring the actual scope against the scope baseline

2. Taking corrective actions to manage scope

3. Weekly progress meetings would be conducted to review the progress of scope

4. Completed work packages would be randomly selected and verified against the scope

baseline

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5. All of completed deliverables would be verified against the scope baseline. If any

deviation of deliverables from scope baseline is indicated, corrective actions would be

taken place

6. All of completed deliverables would be presented for acceptance by client

7. If any change in scope baseline is required, change request would be raised through

integrated change control

The following tools and techniques would be used to manage scope:

Group decision making techniques

Expert Opinion

Control Schedule:

1. Schedule data that would be gathered for progress reporting is actual start, percent

complete, remaining duration and actual finish where applicable.

2. Actual schedule data will be recorded on daily basis.

3. Progress review meetings will be held on weekly basis.

4. Scheduling method for this project is critical path method.

5. Gantt chart and network diagram will jointly be used as schedule model.

6. In weekly progress review meetings, following will be the agenda:

a. EVM report

b. Issue log review

c. Change log review

7. Microsoft Project Professional will be used as scheduling software.

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8. EVM methodology will be used for schedule variance analysis and forecasting.

9. Estimation for remaining durations and forecasts will be done through Program

Evaluation and Review Technique.

10. Forecasting related to critical and near critical path activities will be done through

Monte Carlo simulation.

11. For Monte Carlo simulation the results with 90% probability will be selected.

12. Fast tracking would be done for schedule compression.

13. Resources will be optimized using both resource leveling and resource smoothing

techniques.

14. Maximum threshold for the schedule performance index would be 0.85.

Reports:

The following reports would be discussed in weekly meetings:

1. EVM Report:

a. Graphical view of AC, EV and PV curves

b. Earned value

c. Planned value

d. Schedule variance

e. Schedule performance index

f. Schedule variance at completion

g. Estimate to complete

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2. Issue Log Review:

a. List of issues

b. Corresponding dates

c. Issue Initiator

d. Issue owner

e. Issue status

f. Action taken

3. Change Log:

a. Change request ID

b. Change request summary

c. Status

d. Corresponding dates

e. Impact area of change request

Control Cost:

1. Cost will be estimated and controlled at fourth level of work break down structure of

the project.

2. For cost variance analysis and forecasting following tools and techniques will be used:

a. Earned value management

b. Variance analysis

c. Reserve analysis

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d. Trend analysis

3. Cost will be estimated with parametric approach.

4. Actual cost data will be monitored on daily basis.

5. Cost performance review meetings will be held weekly.

6. In weekly cost performance review meetings, following cost performance reports will be

discussed:

a. EVM Report

b. Variance analysis report

c. Reserve analysis report

d. Issue log review

e. Change log review

Reports:

Following reports would be discussed during weekly meetings:

1. EVM Report:

a. Graphical view of AC, PV and EV curves

b. Earned value

c. Planned value

d. Actual cost

e. Cost variance

f. Variance at completion

g. Estimate to complete

h. Estimate at completion

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i. To complete performance index (BAC)

j. To complete performance index (EAC)

2. Variance analysis report:

a. Material usage variance

b. Material rate variance

c. Labor wage rate variance

d. Labor efficiency report

3. Reserve Analysis Report:

a. Reserve allocation at activity level

b. Amount of reserve consumed at activity level

c. Amount of reserve added back to management reserve

d. Amount of reserve needed from management reserve

4. Issue Log Review:

a. List of issues

b. Corresponding dates

c. Issue Initiator

d. Issue owner

e. Issue status

f. Action taken

5. Change Log:

a. Change request id

b. Change request summary

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c. Status

d. Corresponding dates

e. Impact area of change request

Control Quality:

1. In order to avoid the cost and time of re-work, extensive inspections will be conducted

at the time of completion of every work package to verify the deliverable of that

particular work package.

2. All the raw materials received at project site will be inspected by quality team at the

time of receipt.

3. In case of non-conformance found in any inspection, the material would be returned to

supplier.

4. In weekly progress review meetings, quality team will provide the results of their

inspections.

5. Based on the information provided by quality team, decisions would be made to attain

the minimum quality standards.

The following tools and techniques would be used for quality management:

Benchmarks acceptable within the industry

Cause and effect diagram for any issue in quality to indicate its root cause and taking

corrective actions

Control Charts would be used to ensure the project is with in control limits

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Pareto Charts using cumulative frequencies including both line and bar graphs to

represent the project data

Check sheets for collecting and analyzing the data

Quality Control Process Flow Chart:

Control Risks:

The development of risk management performance metrics is essential to risk monitoring,

evaluation and control success. The establishment of a management indicator system that

provides accurate, timely, and relevant risk information in a clear, easily understood manner is

key to risk management. The team would identify specific indicators to be monitored and

information to be collected, compiled, and reported.

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Risk team would identify the risks prior to start of project and during the execution phase.

Qualitative analysis for all of the identified risks would be performed. The probability of

occurring each identified risk would be given an impact weightage and then is multiplied with

its probability of occurrence. All the risks with low and medium risk scores would be kept in

watch list and their qualitative analysis would be done on monthly basis. The risks with high risk

scores attained in qualitative analysis would be further analyzed in quantitative analysis. Based

on the results in qualitative and quantitative analysis, contingency reserves would be

maintained for risks.

Following tools and techniques would be used for risk management:

1. Probability and Impact Matrix

2. Brainstorming

3. Risk Breakdown Structure

4. Delphi Technique

5. Expert Judgment

Following would be the objectives to monitor, evaluate and control risks:

1. Systematically tracking of the identified risks

2. Identification of any new risks

3. Effectively manage the contingency reserve

4. Capture lessons learned for future risk assessment and allocation efforts

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Reports:

A risk register will be maintained and continuously updated during the execution of projects.

Any new risk identified will be included in risk register and any risk that has been closed will be

also updated. For newly identified risks, appropriate amounts would be recommended for

approval from management in lieu of contingency reserves. Those risks that are likely to occur

with high and medium risk scores will be discussed in weekly review meetings.

Conclusion:

This continuous monitoring and evaluating process will give the project team and stakeholders

a valuable knowledge about the Project Health, and will highlight areas that require special

attention and may need changes. With this proactive approach project manager will anticipate

to the most common problems, avoiding budget overrun and delays.

It will be important to consolidate the information of the knowledge areas that will require

special attention i.e., Scope, Time, Costs, Quality, Risks, Communications and Stakeholders.

Instant view of the project status will result in anticipation to issues and decisions based on

relevant information. The overall process of MEC will be of great significance to the project in

terms of:

As a result of an effective monitoring, evaluation and controlling of all the important

aspects of the project, the delays in schedule and budget overruns can be avoided

Productivity would be enhanced by minimizing the necessary time to generate

reports and gathering information from different sources.

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A well informed and motivated team would result in better coordination of all

project work that will result in successful completion of project.

Efficiency parameters to define improved contractual agreements.

By using MEC practices, all the measured and analyzed processes would be

improved.