Chapter Five

Project Monitoring, Evaluation and Control

The Project Monitoring, Evaluation
and Control
Project Monitoring, Evaluation and
Control
 Even projects that are well designed, comprehensively planned, fully resourced
and meticulously executed will face challenges. These challenges can take place
at any point in the life of the project and the project team must work to
continually revisit the design, planning and implementation of the project to
confirm they are valid and to determine whether corrective actions need to be
taken when the project’s performance deviates significantly from its design and
its plan. This is the purpose of the Project Monitoring, Evaluation and Control
Phase.
 Not surprisingly, the three principle categories of activities taking place during
the Monitoring, Evaluation and Control Phase are:
 Project Monitoring
 Project Evaluation
 Project Control
What is Project Monitoring, Evaluation and Control

 Project Monitoring
• Monitoring is a continuous assessment of project implementation in relation to agreed schedules and use of
project inputs based on planned expectation. It ensures that input deliveries, work schedules, targeted
outputs and other required actions are proceeding according to plan. Monitoring provides managers and
other key stakeholders with continuous feedback on implementation, i.e. identifies actual or potential
successes and problems as early as possible to facilitate timely adjustment to project operations
 Project Evaluation
 Evaluation is a process of determining systematically and objectively the relevance, efficiency,
effectiveness and impact of activities in the light of their objectives. It assists decision-makers by providing
information about any needed adjustments of objectives, policies, implementation strategies, and other
project elements. It also examines whether the assumptions made during project formulation/appraisal
stage are still valid or changes are required to ensure overall project objectives are being achieved.
 Project Controls
 are the data gathering, data management and analytical processes used to predict, understand and
constructively influence the time and cost outcomes of a project or programme; through the
communication of information in formats that assist effective management and decision making.“
 Project control is the tasks required to ensure the project is completed on time, on budget, high quality,
and all the other critical success factors are met. Fortunately for most of us
Monitoring, Evaluation and Control
 Before examining each of the three categories of activities in the Project Monitoring,
Evaluation and Control Phase in detail, it is first important to differentiate between
them.
 Progress Monitoring tracks the operational work of the project. It answers questions
like
 “Have activities been completed as planned?”
 “Have outputs been produced as anticipated?”
 “Is the work of the project progressing as projected?”
 At a fundamental level it is a passive process, it changes nothing. Instead, it tells
the project manager where the project performance is in terms of money, time,
risk, quality, and other areas of project progress.
 At its core, the goal objectives, timing and activities of project progress
monitoring are perhaps best identified via the following table
The What, Why, When and How of Monitoring
What A continuous review of project progress at the activity and
outputs levels
Identify necessary corrective action
Why Analyze current situation Identify issues and find solutions
Discover trends and patterns
Keep project activities on schedule Measure progress against
outputs
Make decisions about human, financial and material resources
When Continuous
How Field Visits Records Reports

If you were to examine the indicators found in the project logical framework,
progress monitoring activities primarily correspond to the lower two levels
of the logframe (activities and outputs). The following table provides some
potential monitoring indicators from three different programmatic areas of
intervention (agriculture, microfinance, water).
 Examples of Monitoring Indicators
  Agriculture Microfinance Water Example
Example Example
Outputs – ‘The Number of farmer Number of clients Number of new water
tangible groups created receiving and correctly systems installed and
products or - competence of using credit functioning properly
services’
trainees Number of clients
participating in savings
programs

Activities – Number of staff visits Number of staff visits Number of

‘Tasks or actions to farming communities to villages Number of communities
taken to Number of training bank training sessions- organized for water
implement sessions organized competence of trainees system installation
project
interventions’
Project Control
 Project Control involves establishing the systems and decision-making
process to manage variances between the project plans (in terms of scope,
cost, schedule, etc.) and the realities of project implementation. It also
involves establishing how project variances and changes are managed,
documented and communicated with stakeholders.
 The Project Monitoring and Evaluation Plan
 A crucial element of a comprehensive implementation plan is a monitoring
and evaluation plan which identifies the system for tracking and measuring
project progress, performance and impact. The appropriate time to develop
the formal Monitoring and Evaluation plan is after the project is approved for
funding but before the start-up of project activities. However, the
preparatory work that contributes to that plan will start long before this
point.
Project Control
 Strong project design makes it easier to create and align comprehensive
monitoring and evaluation systems. The Monitoring and Evaluation Plan expands
on the initial progress indicators provided in the logical framework and the
project proposal; and provides additional details for each of the levels of the
project logical framework. While the format of project monitoring and
evaluation plans varies, the plan usually includes the following information:
 What indicators are being monitored and evaluated?
 What information is needed to track the indicator?
 What are the sources of the information?
 What data collection methods are appropriate?
 Who will collect the information?
 How often will it be collected?
 Who will receive and use the result
Project Control
 Strong project design makes it easier to create and align comprehensive
monitoring and evaluation systems. The Monitoring and Evaluation Plan
expands on the initial progress indicators provided in the logical framework
and the project proposal; and provides additional details for each of the
levels of the project logical framework. While the format of project
monitoring and evaluation plans varies, the plan usually includes the following
information
 What indicators are being monitored and evaluated?
 What information is needed to track the indicator?
 What are the sources of the information?
 What data collection methods are appropriate?
 Who will collect the information?
 How often will it be collected?
 Who will receive and use the results?
Project Control
 What type of data is the project trying to collect?
 Quantitative methods focus on the breadth of the intervention, providing objective
and reliable information that allows for generalization of results to a wider
population. The most commonly used quantitative method is a standardized
questionnaire that is administered to a random sample of individuals or households
within a target population.
 Qualitative methods focus on direct and in-depth interaction with participants,
providing rich and detailed data. Commonly used qualitative methods include
participatory rural appraisal techniques, focus groups, community or key informant
interviews, and observation.
 What is the acceptable level of cost and complexity for data collection?
 The cost and complexity of data collection can vary considerably based on the
method of collection used to collect the information. The graph below provides a
comparison of multiple data collection methods (quantitative and qualitative) in
terms of cost and complexity.
 Project Evaluation Approaches
 When planning for project evaluation activities to include in the Project Monitoring and Evaluation Plan, organizations
should choose their evaluation approach based on their learning objectives. Three evaluation approaches that are
extensively used in the development sector are the final evaluations, mid-term evaluation, and ex-post evaluations.
 Final evaluations

 are often mandated by a funding agency or required by a development organization’s own policy, would be
conducted towards the end of project. Common questions might include:
 Did the project succeed at accomplishing the outcomes, goals and impact desired?
 Was the project relevant, effective and efficient?
 Does the project have the potential to be sustainable in its operations and impact?
 Is the theory expressed in the logical framework upheld?
 Mid-term evaluations offer the advantage of answering many of the same questions posed through final evaluations,
but also provide the opportunity to supply suggestions to improve the project efficiency and impact while the
activities are still underway.
 Ex-post evaluations examine project impact at a defined period of time after project completion, sometimes a year
after the official close of the project. Sometimes called a sustainable impact evaluation, an ex-post evaluation
measures the extent to which project outcomes and impacts have been realized through participant ownership. Ex-
post evaluation findings can be an especially useful way of using evidence to advocate an improved development
approach. For example, an ex-post report was used by one development organization to help convince a donor to
support numeracy and literacy training within a microfinance program
 Project Changes: Tolerances and Issue Escalation
 A question that needs to be answered when managing issues is whether the proposed project change is within
the span of authority of the project manager? If the issue and the proposed change are within the authority of
the project manager, then the next step will be for the project manager to take action to resolve the issue. If
the project manager does not have the authority to implement the proposed change, then it needs to be
escalated to the next level.
 Tolerances are a key part of being able to work autonomously as a project manager. Having a tolerance means
the project manager has a certain amount of flexibility with regard to project constraints. In practice, this
means that the project can be over a bit or under a bit and not have to continually go back to project board
(or sponsor) to request approval for project changes.
 The two most frequently used tolerances are budget and time, although they can be in any of the following
areas:
 Time Tolerance - the amount of time by which the project completion can be later or earlier than the planned
date.
 Cost Tolerance - the percentage, or a cash amount, by which the project can be over or under the planned
budget.

Scope Tolerance - is measured as an agreed variation from the product description, and any potential
variation should be documented in the product breakdown structure.
 Risk Tolerance - provide a benchmark for which risks you should be escalating to the Project Board.
 Quality Tolerance - ranges that define acceptable performance for a product, documented in the product
descriptions.
 Benefits Tolerance – ranges of acceptable performance of the project at the outcomes level.