ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces a few basic rules and principles for getting things done on time, within budget and to the satisfaction of all the stakeholders. The control loop principle should be applied not only at the single task level, but at all other levels including work on the entire project. Manual charting methods were fine for very small projects, difficult for larger projects and impossible for big projects subject to changes. Controlling progress against the schedule requires that each manager arranges for regular checks to be made, ensuring that tasks which are scheduled to be in progress are actually taking place, and also looking at the rate of progress and the amount of work achieved to make certain that no task will run late. Individuals and supervisors often tend to be optimistic when reporting progress. One danger is that tasks are reported as finished when actually a small amount of work or ‘tidying up’ still remains to be done.
