Methods for effective project controlling

Maintaining an overview of one or more projects is one of the difficult challenges in the project management. There are different perspectives from which projects and project progress can be evaluated. Project controlling therefore knows a few methods for this.

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Project controlling with milestones

The analysis of project milestones creates an overview of the project's progress. Anyone who knows project work knows about the constant struggle with the schedule. In order to be able to control it at all, the project must be divided into meaningful milestones that build on each other. The start and end dates for each milestone are set. For more complex projects, the dependencies between the milestones are also defined. The milestones of a project can generally be represented graphically via Gantt chart represent. But even a tabular work breakdown structure lives from the defined milestones. The milestone analysis is also one of the most important instruments of project controlling.

Do the target and the actual match?

Plans are directed into the future and are ultimately caught up with the present. This is therefore the point in time when the target state is compared with the actual state. In the target-actual comparison, the project controller is classically oriented to previously defined Budgets. These can relate to parts and/or the whole project. All internal and external costs and revenues of the project are included. If project controlling detects deviations between target and actual, countermeasures must be taken or the plan is adjusted.

With traffic lights all at a glance

As humans, we are calibrated to certain signals. A red light immediately triggers increased attention in many people. That is why traffic light functions are also good for pointing out deviations in the project. So-called balance views with their colour coding of green (regular progress), yellow (critical progress) and red (progress exceeded) provide a good overview in project controlling.

The post-calculation of projects

Once a project is completed, the Post-calculation the established evidence of success. The economic efficiency determined in the process does not serve to reassure. The project post-calculation also provides important information about weaknesses and strengths of the project organisation. In this way, mistakes can be avoided in subsequent projects and successes can be built on.

The strength of MariProject: project evaluations in detail

In MARIProject all project-related data comes together: Planning times, costs, yields, ascertained performances, material used, etc. You get current, secure data in fractions without much effort. Project evaluationsbecause all the data exists uniformly in the system.

Included as standard: More than 200 evaluations: Degree of completion, remaining capacity, comparison of expected/actual project hours, employee utilisation, project turnover, etc.
In addition, it is possible to openly define company-specific evaluations, such as a contribution margin calculation per project or a dashboard for plan/actual hour comparisons per customer.

Real-time analyses even with large amounts of data (Big Data)

Large amounts of data also accumulate in small and medium-sized enterprises. For example, in order to be able to analyse data in a targeted manner for the range of products in retail, a solution such as SAP Business One on HANA of interest.

Furthermore, for the daily evaluation of extensive projects, as is the case in the plant construction or in engineering offices are the order of the day, SAP Business One on HANA is a good solution. Because this version includes specific tools for the generation of visualised dashboardsThese allow you to keep a close eye on the development of your projects. For example, the dashboards have proven themselves in the evaluation of Maintenance orders or in product development proved to be very beneficial.

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