Timing of control activities in project planning

This paper deals with the timing of monitoring and control in project planning. The need for monitoring and control actions arises because projects are dynamic in nature and because of changing environments. The monitoring of the project deviations from the planned schedule due to environmental changes allows the generation of proper feedback to enable corrective actions. After having reviewed the main reasons that suggest the opportunity to use structured approaches to project control, we make a proposal for the quantitative determination of the time instants when the monitoring and control actions should take place in order to effectively manage the projects. The proposal is based on the definition of an Effort Function. The quantitative analysis of its concentration allows the allocation of the monitoring and control activities.