- 2065 Shrawan (old course) · 8 marks
Monitoring, evaluation, controlling and life cycle
Short answer
The project life cycle has four phases: initiation, planning, implementation, and termination, with effort peaking during execution. Monitoring continuously tracks progress, cost and quality. Evaluation periodically judges relevance, efficiency and impact. Controlling compares actuals to plans and corrects variances. Monitoring and controlling are intense in implementation; evaluation occurs at milestones and closure.
Explain monitoring, evaluation and controlling and the project life cycle.
Project life cycle
The project life cycle is the series of phases a project passes through from its start to its end. Each phase ends with a review (gate) before the next begins. The common four-phase model is:
Initiation -> Planning -> Implementation -> Termination
(Concept) (Definition) (Execution) (Closure)
Effort
^ ___
| / \___
| __/ \__
|__/ \___
+--------------------------> Time
| Phase | Main work |
|---|---|
| Initiation / concept | Identify need, pre-feasibility, objectives, preliminary cost, go or no-go decision |
| Planning / definition | Detailed design, WBS, schedule, budget, resource and risk plans, contracts |
| Implementation / execution | Mobilisation, procurement, construction or manufacturing, monitoring and control |
| Termination / closure | Testing, handover, final payment, documentation, lessons learned, release of resources |
Monitoring
Monitoring is the continuous collection and checking of information on progress, cost, quality and resource use while the project runs, to know whether activities follow the plan.
Evaluation
Evaluation is the periodic and systematic judgement of the project's relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability against its objectives. It may be done at mid-term, at completion (ex-post) and later.
Controlling
Controlling compares actual performance with the plan, finds variances and takes corrective action to bring the project back on track (or revises the plan).
Plan -> Execute -> Monitor -> Compare -> Correct
^ |
+----------------------------------------+
Relation to the life cycle
- Initiation: feasibility evaluation (ex-ante).
- Planning: baseline set for control.
- Implementation: monitoring and control are most intense.
- Termination: final evaluation and lessons learned.
✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)
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