The project monitoring and control phase is where you become the watchdog over the project via data that is collected from project, technical, and frequent status meetings, including the identification of risks, issues and action items that may be identified as the project evolves.

It is important to accurately keep record of changes that have occurred to the baseline over the life of the project. These changes will be very important when you are assessing what modifications to your processes, in conjunction with lessons learned sessions with stakeholders, are required to improve subsequent projects.

Tools that should be utilized and continually updated include:

		A Change Management Log to record those changes
		An Action Item Status containing action items that you will most likely assign and track in your frequent status meetings. This continuous status will afford you the opportunity to keep your foot on the neck of individuals to ensure they complete these action items accurately and in a timely manner
		Record risks in a Risk Management Log capturing the risk, impact on the project, probability of occurrence, timeline, the response and action completed to resolve any risks before they become a threat to completion of the project within budget and schedule
		Issues are one of the most critical aspects accounting for project failure. First of all, utilize a form to collect pertinent data on any potential issue, and then add all issues to a issue management log to ascertain the status of any issue at a glance
		Keeping track of project milestones is another critical factor. Identify all project milestones in a project milestone status form, and continually update same with any changes to that baseline, including the milestone/task status
		Whenever the project manager or technical managers hold meetings, the minutes of these meetings should be documented in a meeting summary for wide dissemination
		The risks, issues and action item status will all be displayed in a project status report to ensure that all stakeholders are continually aware of the status of these items