Creating a monitoring and evaluation (M&E) plan for a construction project is crucial

for ensuring its success and identifying areas for improvement. Here’s a structured
outline you can follow:

1. Introduction

Project Monitoring: What It Is and

Why It’s Important
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Published in Apps on 01/11/2023, last updated 01/06/2024.

Successful project management has never relied on a “set it and

forget it” mentality. In order to run efficient projects, PMs need to not
only launch said projects, but monitor and track their progress. While
project monitoring is regularly overlooked or viewed as just another
box to check off on the PM’s task list, it’s a vital part of the project
lifespan.

In this post, we’ll cover:

 What project monitoring is, and why it’s important

 How to monitor projects easily and effectively
 Project monitoring tips and best practices you can implement
today

Let’s get started.

What is project monitoring?

When considering the project management process, project
monitoring (also referred to as “project monitoring and control”)
comes as step four — following initiation, the planning phase, and the
beginning of execution. Once the project execution begins, project
monitoring also commences. But, what exactly is project monitoring?

Project monitoring involves tracking a project’s metrics, progress, and

associated tasks to ensure everything is completed on time, on
budget, and according to project requirements and standards. It’s
also about making sure work doesn’t go beyond the initial project
scope. Project monitoring also includes recognizing and identifying
roadblocks or issues that might arise during the project’s execution,
and taking action to rectify these problems.
Project managers are typically responsible for this process, like many
other aspects of project management. Depending on the organization
— and the project — the project monitoring and controlling process
can involve a number of status reports, regular meetings, and
keeping tasks up to date in the team’s project management software.

Why is project monitoring important?

To put it simply, the success of a project relies on complete and

dynamic project monitoring. Careful project monitoring empowers
PMs to gather valuable data regarding how a project is going — and
to use this data to make intelligent decisions. But there are some
other key benefits PMs and their project team can get from project
monitoring.

Better quality control

One of the biggest challenges in project management is ensuring that

a project hits all requirements that were established during the
project planning phase. That’s because PMs need to constantly
evaluate a project’s progress and compare it to those requirements.
Project monitoring is essential for doing that.

Hitting deadlines

When no one’s carefully monitoring a project’s progress — or

its dependencies — it’s easy for one deadline to slip, then two, then
more. Even if you have a regular stand-up, those deadlines might still
go unnoticed. That’s why project monitoring and control is such an
important part of getting a project across the finish line on time.

Monitoring team workloads

A project’s success is dependent on your team being able to

consistently deliver, and they can’t do that if they’re overworked. At
least, not in the long term. One of the key benefits when
implementing project monitoring is being able to more closely monitor
workloads and ensure no one’s overworked.

Faster reaction to variance

Variance describes any situation where your project deviates from its
plan. That can mean going overbudget, slipping on deadlines, or
going beyond the project scope. With project monitoring, a PM is
more likely to pick up on any variance before it becomes a bigger
problem.

Easier management of the project budget

Keeping a project on-budget is both a key responsibility of project

managers and a benefit of project monitoring and control. Without
proper monitoring, it’s too easy to just keep adding costs to a
project’s tab, and all too easy to go over-budget. Project monitoring is
a great way to avoid that.

Encouraging accountability

In project management, accountability is just about encouraging both

team members to be transparent about their work
and stakeholders to be clear about their requirements. Project
monitoring is the best way to ensure these match up and everyone’s
clear on what needs to get done.

Now that you understand what project monitoring is and why it’s
beneficial for project management, it’s time for a high-level overview
of the project monitoring process.

How to monitor projects

In order to implement the project monitoring and control process
effectively and efficiently, there are a number of commonly accepted
elements involved.

Project baseline confirmation

Before you actually get started with any active monitoring, the PM will
want to understand the project’s scope, budget, and timeline. This
helps provide a benchmark for success throughout the completion of
the project.

Work monitoring and control

This involves keeping stakeholders up to date as well as regularly

assessing the status of the project, the quality of the deliverables,
and measuring these against baseline goals and metrics.

Change control integration

As you know by now, even the most organized projects can require
changes now and then. You must be keeping track of resource
considerations (budget, timeline, etc.) throughout the monitoring
process. Ensure you’re creating and recording ongoing
documentation and any required follow-ups regarding project
changes.

Scope verification

Before you started working on your project, you likely defined

its scope; how much work you planned to get done. In order to keep
a record and ensure stakeholders and your team are on the same
page, it’s important to secure documentation related to each phase of
the project’s completion. This shows that the project is accepted at
each stage of execution.

Schedule and cost control

This is where schedules and costs are monitored closely. When you
think of project monitoring, this is most likely what you think of first.
Deadlines are tracked and followed up on if necessary, and budgets
are consistently watched. Updates to cost and timeline estimates are
made here.

Quality control

A project can be done on-time and on-budget, but if it’s not what the
stakeholder wants or the quality of the work is poor, it’s of little value
to anyone. Quality control is an essential part of the project
monitoring process. This is where specific project results
and deliverables are looked at in comparison to established quality
standards. If issues are found, changes are requested and made.

Performance reporting

This is like a report card for the project. Performance reporting

consists of collecting and sharing any data related to project
performance in relation to baseline goals and standards. Here you’ll
create and find status reports, progress notes, and future forecasts
(using collected data).

Tips and best practices for project monitoring

Upon understanding what the project monitoring and control process
generally includes, you’ll want to know how to best implement your
new knowledge. Here are some tips and best practices for the project
monitoring process.

Use the right project monitoring tools

While the monitoring process can feel overwhelming, the right tool
can definitely help. Whether you want to use Trello, which lets you
view and combine timelines along with a Gantt Chart all in one place,
or something like Wrike which offers multiple, customizable
Dashboards to track processes, there are many options when it
comes to monitoring your projects with with project management
software.

If you know you’ll want to use more than one tool, Unito offers a
streamlined solution. When projects span multiple tools, it can be
tough to track performance and ensure everything’s going the way it
should. With dozens of deep integrations for the market’s top work
management tools, Unito ensures you can monitor projects no matter
what tool they’re in.

Effectively track KPIs

Monitoring a project without knowing what you’re monitoring for can

be a fruitless task. To ensure the success of a project, you’ll need to
track some key performance indicators (or KPIs). These act like
milestones along the course of the project and help make sure
everything is on track.

Recognized KPIs include your project objectives (ie. a project that is

on-time and on-budget), quality deliverables (if the quality standards
are being met), effort and cost tracking (resourcing and budget), and
project performance (changes in the project and number and
importance of issues that arose).

Encourage effective communication

Trying to determine a project’s status without proper communication

methods is a challenge. All of your team members and stakeholders
need to understand the procedures, goals, and expectations prior to
the project starting — and how to communicate these to you.

Whether it’s through marking a Wrike task complete or participating

in weekly check-ins, it’s always a good idea to have a
communications plan in place throughout your projects.
Conduct a retrospective

Not only does a project post-mortem let your team members air any
grievances, but it provides you with valuable information you can use
to fine-tune future projects. Once the project is complete, take time to
schedule an hour or so to run through the project.

This is where you’ll reflect on any issues that arose, any deadlines
that were missed, or anything else worth mentioning that came up as
you monitored the project.

The biggest challenges of managing any project

If project management was easy, everyone would do it. As a project
manager, you need to keep everyone aligned, keep projects inching
toward the finish line, and constantly field questions from
stakeholders. But another part of the job is putting out fires and
dealing with common project management problems as they come
up. A few are speed bumps, others might force a slight course
correction, and some might bring your project to a screeching halt
until they’re fixed.

Here are eight of the most common project management problems

and explore how they’re dealt with.

Project management problem #1: scope creep

Your project’s scope determines how much work is going to get done
and sets clear expectations for stakeholders. It’s also a great
reference tool for when you need to say “no” to additional work that
falls outside your project’s scope. But whether that scope is clearly
defined at the beginning of your project or not, you’ll inevitably run
into this first project management problem: scope creep.

Scope creep is what happens when your project’s boundaries get

fuzzy. Suddenly, it’s not clear what is or isn’t part of your project, and
various stakeholders start piling on more work. When that happens,
deadlines become less realistic, your budget dries up, and your
teams start feeling overworked.

How to prevent it

Define your project’s scope as early as you can, and communicate it

in multiple ways. Put it in the brief, link to it in every task, and mention
it to stakeholders when they ask for more work. Use your project’s
scope as a reference point whenever someone suggests a new task.

Project management problem #2: unclear goals

Going hand-in-hand with a project’s scope are its goals. Goals

say what you’re going to do, while your project’s scope
communicates how much you’re hoping to accomplish. So a common
project management problem arises when everyone isn’t quite sure
what they’re shooting for.

As a project manager, you’ll realize this is a problem if you’re

constantly answering the same questions and struggling to keep
teams aligned. This can be a huge obstacle to making progress on
your project, since no one really knows what they’re supposed to
work towards.

Clearing things up

There are multiple ways to set clear goals at the beginning of a

project. You can use SMART goals to make sure everyone’s clear on
what success and progress look like. Combine them with key
performance indicators (KPIs) and you’ll have defined metrics the
whole team can use to track their progress.

Project management problem #3: different methodologies

Project managers usually wear a number of hats and interact with a

number of different teams. They might spend part of their day
managing sprints or iterations with the development team and then
have to translate this into the project management methodology the
marketers are using.

This can involve a ton of work.

With most tools, this is basically impossible. While some tools, like
Asana or Jira, can accommodate multiple methodologies others —
like Trello — are built around a single one. That means your project
manager is going to have to do a ton of manual work so everything
makes sense in both contexts.

How to fix this

You could try to force everyone to adopt a single methodology across

your project — say Kanban or Agile. That’s a low-cost solution, but
it’s also not going to be very popular. Alternatively, you can use a tool
like Unito to automatically sync work items back and forth between
tasks, populating projects and tools regardless of the methodology
they use.

Project management problem #4: budget

Sometimes you’re spending too much money too quickly, sometimes

you were never given enough to begin with. No matter how it
happened, running out of budget is a common project management
problem. One of the most important things to define in your project’s
brief, your budget determines what you can and can’t do. So when
you see a ton of work still left to do and no money left to do it, things
can understandably seem pretty dire.

When you run out of money for a project, there’s not much that you
can do beyond asking for more or reducing the scope of your project.
This is one of those project management problems where prevention
is the name of the game.

How to prevent budget issues

First, make sure that the budget you quote in your brief is as accurate
as possible. That means doing research beforehand, like looking into
similar projects your company has run in the past, asking
stakeholders for their input, and reaching out to the teams doing the
work. Once you’ve set the budget, ask yourself how you could
complete your project for even less money. By doing that, you leave
yourself a margin of error you can take advantage of should
something go wrong.

Project management problem #5: team conflicts

Even the best teams run into conflict once in a while. When the
pressure’s on and everyone’s trying to hit their deadlines, this project
management problem can rear its ugly head. A miscommunication
here, a missed deadline there, and all of a sudden you have a team
that’s taking sides around an issues. People stop talking, hurtful
comments slip out, or progress stops completely!

For a project manager, avoiding conflict is a top priority, as is

squashing it when it does happen. Small conflicts can be a speed
bump that threatens your deadlines. But, sometimes, a conflict can
grow to the point that someone actually ends up leaving!

How to manage this project management problem

A project manager needs to have solid conflict resolution skills to
ensure that any conflict that does arise gets squashed as quickly as
possible — and to the satisfaction of everyone involved. But
sidestepping potential conflict is important too. Make sure that
everyone working on your project knows exactly what’s expected of
them and how they’re supposed to communicate that with others.
After all, miscommunication is often the source of these conflicts.

Project management problem #6: creating multiple reports

Reporting on the status and progress of projects is a huge part of any

project manager’s job. But it shouldn’t take up a huge part of their
day.

Any good tool should allow you to automatically generate the exact
reports that you need without spending hours hunting down data or
manually creating charts and graphs.

Unfortunately, since project managers often have to juggle so many

different tools, they are often left cobbling together reports by hand,
consolidating data that should have been readily available and
accessible all in one place.

What to do about this

Take as much time choosing your reporting tools as you would

picking out your project management platform of choice. You can
even consider adding a tool like Unito to your stack so you can
automatically export and standardize data from multiple tools in one
place.

Project management problem #7: Jilted communication

As project managers often hop back and forth between many

different tools, they are also often flooded with incoming messages,
alerts, and notifications. Comments on a task, reminders about
upcoming features, and feature requests flood in through separate
gates, twenty-four hours per day.

Defining processes around communication isn’t always a standard

part of the project manager’s tasks, meaning that individual team
members often use whatever communication methods best suit
them. Some might use a chat app like Slack for everything from
asking for help to giving updates on their progress. Others might
prefer communicating directly in their project management tool of
choice. Others still might use email.

It’s crucial that a project manager standardize communication across

teams so that nothing falls through the cracks.

How to fix communication problems

Ironically, it’s with more communication. Before a project begins,

make sure to spend time ironing out how the team will communicate.
Should progress updates be done in Slack? How about asking for
help on specific tasks? With all of this written out in advance, you’ll
give the team a frame of reference they can use throughout your
project’s lifetime.

Project management problem #8: juggling multiple tools

Rare is a project that can be run entirely within the boundaries of a

single tool. Whether it’s a cross-functional effort or kept within a
single team, everyone has their own preferred way to work. When
you have tasks in Asana, brainstorming in Miro, crucial updates in
Slack and important data in Google Sheets, good luck getting a
holistic view of everything that’s going on.

For project managers, this is a huge problem. Since they’re

responsible for making sure their project goes off without a hitch, they
need access to all this information. And unless they have a way to
get it all in one place, they’ll be jumping from tool to tool, losing
valuable time they could be spending putting out fires.

How to deal with multiple tools

One of the best — if not the best — ways to handle this problem
is Unito. Unito is a no-code workflow management solution for the
tools you use every day, from project management platforms like
Trello and Asana to software development tools like Jira and GitHub
— and much more. With Unito, you can automatically sync work
items between tools, meaning everyone can work from their platform
of choice. No more switching back and forth.

Keep your projects going strong

No project can run effectively without the help of careful project
monitoring. Keeping track of timelines, goals, quality of work, and
budget are all key responsibilities of any successful project manager.
And, with the right tools and some best practices, you can rest
assured that your project will be met with satisfied stakeholders
— and happy team members.

How to automate project monitoring

With Unito, project managers and other stakeholders can build

automated reports for all kinds of projects.

Project monitoring FAQ

Still have some quick questions about project monitoring? Here are
all the answers.

What is project monitoring?

Project monitoring is what project managers do after kickstarting a

project, and essentially means keeping track of progress throughout.
That means doing more than just reading reports and checking in on
tasks once in a while. It’s ensuring that deliverables are launched on
time. It’s tracking key performance indicators (or KPIs). It’s making
sure the project stays in-scope and watching out to ensure there
aren’t a ton of additional goals tacked on.

What do project managers monitor?

When monitoring projects, a project manager has to watch for quite a

few factors to ensure that everything goes off without a hitch. Here
are some examples:
  Project scope: Ensuring that the work being done matches the
scope initially set in the planning phase.
 Project progress: Making sure that the project is moving along
at the expected pace.
 Performance KPIs: When a project is first being planned, a
project manager — or a stakeholder — will usually set out the
metrics that will be used to quantify success. It’s the project
manager’s job to check on these metrics frequently.
 Resources: It’s a project manager’s responsibility to allocate
resources at the beginning of the project and ensure that
they’re being spent wisely as tasks get completed.

What are the 4 basic steps of project monitoring?

Project monitoring isn’t just about checking in on your project

management tool of choice once in a while and reporting on what you
find. Here’s the step-by-step process for getting it right.

Designing your project monitoring plan

That’s right, yet more planning. When first laying out their project,
project managers spend some time determining how they’re going to
monitor it. What are the metrics they’re going to track? How
frequently will they check in on progress? Where will all this
information live?

Picking a reporting mechanism

When they’ve figured out what they’re going to monitor, project

managers then establish how they’re going to do it. For some
projects, a simple word document breaking down the most recent
updates might be enough. For others, this might involve business
intelligence platforms and automations.

Recommendations for improvement

Project managers don’t just watch the project go along and report on
its progress. They’re also expected to make recommendations when
problems arise. That can mean helping find creative solutions when
resources are being burned through too quickly, for example.

Checking that guidelines are followed

Project management typically involves defined processes and best

practices, and the project manager is the one responsible for making
sure these are followed.
Why does project monitoring and control matter?

Project monitoring is labor-intensive, but more than worth it. Here are
just a few reasons why.

 Facilitates quality control.

 Helps PMs avoid scope creep.
 Keeps project costs down and allows PMs to monitor spending.
 Makes project success more likely.
 Keeps stakeholders in the loop

- Purpose:** Define why monitoring and evaluation are essential for the project.
- Scope:** Specify the project phases, activities, and stakeholders covered.

### 2. **Objectives of Monitoring and Evaluation**

- **Overall Objective:** Ensure project goals are achieved within specified time,
cost, and quality parameters.
- **Specific Objectives:** Detail what specific aspects will be monitored and
evaluated (e.g., progress, quality, safety).

### 3. **Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)**

- Identify measurable indicators that reflect project performance:
- **Examples:** Progress milestones achieved, adherence to budget, safety
incident rates.

### 4. **Monitoring Plan**

- **Monitoring Framework:** Describe the methods, tools, and frequency of
monitoring activities.
- **Methods:** Site visits, progress reports, meetings.
- **Tools:** Project management software, checklists.
- **Frequency:** Daily, weekly, monthly assessments.

### 5. **Evaluation Plan**

- **Evaluation Criteria:** Define the criteria against which the project will be
evaluated.
- **Criteria:** Quality standards met, stakeholder satisfaction.
- **Evaluation Methods:** Explain how and when evaluations will be conducted.
- **Methods:** Surveys, inspections, audits.
- **Reporting:** Specify who will receive evaluation findings and how they will be
communicated.

### 6. **Roles and Responsibilities**

- **Monitoring Responsibilities:** Assign roles for monitoring activities (e.g.,
project manager, site supervisor).
- **Evaluation Responsibilities:** Assign roles for evaluation activities (e.g.,
quality control team, external auditors).

### 7. **Risk Management**

 - **Risk Identification:** Identify potential risks that could affect project
performance.
- **Risk Mitigation:** Outline strategies to mitigate identified risks during
monitoring and evaluation.

### 8. **Learning and Improvement**

- **Learning Mechanisms:** Describe how lessons learned from monitoring and
evaluation will be captured.
- **Improvement Actions:** Detail actions to be taken based on evaluation findings
to enhance project performance.

### 9. **Timeline**
- **Schedule:** Provide a timeline for monitoring and evaluation activities aligned
with project milestones.

### 10. **Resources Required**

- **Human Resources:** Specify personnel needed for monitoring and evaluation
tasks.
- **Tools and Technology:** List any tools or software required for effective
monitoring and evaluation.

### 11. **Budget**

- **Cost Estimates:** Estimate the budget required for monitoring and evaluation
activities.

### 12. **Review and Approval**

- **Review Process:** Outline how the M&E plan will be reviewed and updated as
needed.
- **Approval:** Specify who will approve the M&E plan and when.

### 13. **Appendices**

- **Supporting Documents:** Include any additional documents or references
relevant to the M&E plan.

By following this structure, you can develop a comprehensive monitoring and

evaluation plan tailored to your construction project, ensuring that progress is tracked
effectively and the project outcomes are achieved successfully. Adjust the specifics
based on the scale, complexity, and unique requirements of your project.