PMProject-M8
← All stages

Stage 04

Monitoring & Control

Detect drift early and change course while it is still cheap.

PMBOK view

Performance measurement, change control, variance analysis, risk review.

Agile equivalent

Burn-up and flow metrics, retrospectives, backlog re-ordering by evidence.

You are here if…

  • Scope keeps growing without anyone approving it.
  • You suspect the deadline will slip but cannot prove it yet.
  • Reporting looks green until the week it turns red.

What to do

Track a trend, not a snapshot

1 hour to set up

A burn-up or completed-per-week line makes slippage visible six weeks before a RAG status does.

Enforce the change gate

Per change

Every scope change gets a written request with an impact on date, cost or quality. No impact statement, no approval.

Re-score the top risks monthly

30 min/month

Close the dead ones, promote the growing ones, and report only the top five upwards.

Run a real retrospective

60 min

One improvement, one owner, one deadline. Ten actions with no owner is the same as zero.

This is the stage where most of my client work starts. Book a free 20-minute consultation — free, no obligation.

Where it usually goes wrong

Status is green right up until it is red.

Report forecast completion dates, not percentage complete. Percentages hide the truth.

The steering committee discusses instead of deciding.

Send decisions-required ahead of the meeting; the meeting exists to answer them, not to hear news.

Download and use now

Ready-to-use files from my own projects — no email required.

Task List & Market Setup TrackerA working task log with type, priority, status, owner and a dated decision log — plus a market/setup overview sheet for rollouts.Excel workbook (.xlsx) · Run it as the single list in weekly delivery meetings; the log column becomes your audit trail for steering reporting.Risk Analysis TemplateA working risk register: short name, risk description, customer impact and internal impact scored, mitigation, status and comments.Excel workbook (.xlsx) · Fill it live in a 90-minute risk workshop, then re-score the top risks at a fixed date instead of letting the register go stale.

Templates for this stage

Decision Log & Change Request FormThe anti-scope-creep pair, with a built-in escalation path.Risk Analysis Workshop KitA 90-minute facilitation script with register and probability/impact scoring.Steering Committee CharterMandate, membership, decision rights and an agenda that produces decisions.
Next stageClosing →

Work with me

Sometimes the fix needs a person, not a template.

I am Tigran Zakarian, a senior project manager with 13 years of end-to-end delivery for clients such as H&M Group, TV4, SEB and Clear Channel. I work on exactly the situations described across this site: rescuing drifting deliveries, setting up governance that people actually use, and facilitating the workshops that unblock decisions.

Projects & programmes

  • Interim / rescue project management
  • Programme & multi-team delivery ownership
  • PMO, governance and steering setup
  • Product ownership & backlog clarity

Workshops

  • Risk analysis workshops
  • Planning and prioritisation sessions
  • Decision and stakeholder alignment
  • Retrospectives that change something

Talks & training

  • Educational talks and keynotes
  • Hybrid PMBOK + Agile training
  • Kanban / flow ways of working
  • Team coaching for new PMs
Book a free consultation tigran.zak@gmail.com LinkedIn