In modern project management, project controlling plays a central but often underestimated role. It covers much more than just financial monitoring and encompasses all aspects of project implementation.
Effective project controlling goes beyond analyzing key figures. It includes methods and processes for the continuous monitoring, evaluation, and optimization of project performance. From the planning phase to completion, it provides decision-relevant information and enables proactive risk management.
In this blog, we will take a closer look at the various dimensions of project controlling.
What is project controlling?
Project controlling is an essential part of project management that monitors and manages planning and compliance with budgets, deadlines, and goals. It includes both operational and strategic controlling, where operational project controlling focuses on individual projects or several concurrent projects and strategic project controlling supports long-term decisions regarding project selection and prioritization.
Why is project controlling important?
Project controlling is crucial for project success, as it monitors and manages costs and progress at every stage. By identifying and responding to problems and delays early on, risks can be minimized and project success rates increased. This helps to complete projects on time and on budget by identifying and addressing inefficient communication, a lack of change management, and inadequate expertise.
Focus on the most important goals
The main goal of project controlling is to reconcile planned and actual project progress by meeting agreed-upon costs, expenses, deadlines, and results. The project plan serves as a central tool for comparing target and actual data and identifying deviations at an early stage.
5 benefits of project controlling
Project controlling is the key to successful project management. It not only ensures targeted planning but also helps to use resources efficiently and promote motivated teams. Here are five benefits that project controlling offers your team and projects:
🚀 Achieving project goals
Project controlling ensures that set goals are met on time. Deviations in schedule, budget, or quality are identified early and can be corrected quickly. This keeps the project on track and ensures goals are achieved.
💡 Optimized resource utilization
Efficient resource use is key to project success. With clear controlling, the right resources are allocated specifically to the most important tasks. This ensures the project runs smoothly and helps avoid delays.
💪 Boost employee motivation
Transparency and clear communication are crucial for motivating employees. Project controlling ensures that all team members understand their role in the project and how their performance contributes to overall success. This increases commitment and the motivation to deliver the best results.
⚠️ Early fault detection
By regularly monitoring key metrics, potential errors and delays can be identified early. This gives the project team the opportunity to react quickly and keep the project on track for success before major problems arise.
🔄 Better coordination
Project controlling ensures smooth coordination between individual work packages and team members. As a result, the entire team can work together efficiently, and management always has an overview of progress and potential adjustments.
Requirements for successful project controlling
For project controlling to be effective, certain requirements must be met. Transparency in all areas and precise planning are central to this. Here is an overview of the most important points:
Digitalize Project Controlling - With ZEP
A precise Time tracking and efficiency Project controlling are critical to project success. ZEP provides a tool that combines both. Working hours can be booked directly to projects, tasks, or customers—flexibly and synchronized in real time. With custom hourly and daily rates, ZEP ensures error-free billing and helps you keep a close eye on your project budget at all times.
But ZEP offers even more:
Mobile time tracking
📱 Book working hours directly to projects, tasks, or customers
With ZEP, your employees can easily book working hours directly to projects, tasks, or customers—whether they are in the office, on the road, or at a client site. Mobile time tracking via computer, tablet, or smartphone enables flexible recording that is always up-to-date and fully documented through real-time synchronization. By storing individual hourly and daily rates for each employee, you ensure precise, error-free project controlling. This solution offers maximum transparency and efficiency in time tracking and billing, especially for project-based companies.
Comprehensive project controlling
📊 Project planning, management, and tracking
ZEP is a central platform developed specifically for the needs of project-based companies. With a user-friendly interface, you can structure tasks, assign responsibilities, and monitor project progress in real time. ZEP integrates seamlessly into your existing IT infrastructure, optimizing overall project controlling without adding administrative burden. ZEP also enables precise project planning: manage planned hours, store project rates, and upload documents directly. This gives you a clear overview of your actual expenses at all times, allowing you to compare them against your planned budgets.
Extend project structure
🔧 Create and adapt main projects and sub-projects as needed
With ZEP, main projects, sub-projects, and detailed tasks can be customized and divided into any number of levels. Precise allocation of roles and permissions establishes clear responsibilities and efficient workflows. Additionally, proposal data can be transferred directly to projects, reducing errors in project controlling and accelerating processes. This ensures you always maintain an overview and can manage even complex projects with precision.
Automatic tasks & evaluations
⚙️ Automate workflows and evaluations
Missing time entries or incomplete project reports? ZEP optimizes your project controlling with intelligent workflows. Employees are automatically reminded of missing entries so that no billable time is lost. Reports can be generated from numerous templates with just one click—quickly, clearly, and without manual effort. This ensures you always have a clear overview of projects, working hours, and budgets, allowing you to manage your resources effectively.
{{blog-cta}}
How does project controlling work? Methods, processes, and more at a glance
There are various procedures and methods in project controlling that can be applied depending on project requirements. The choice of appropriate measures depends on factors such as the scope and importance of the project, the size of the company and the project team, and the relevant KPIs and metrics.
Below, we show you a few examples of how you can effectively implement project controlling:
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
The foundation for all plans and performance measurements is thorough project planning, which typically utilizes a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) . The WBS details the underlying structure of the project by dividing it into sub-projects and individual work packages. This logical combination of elements enables effective prioritization resource allocation and time planning, which is particularly beneficial for backward scheduling.
Earned Value Analysis (EVA)
Earned Value Analysis (EVA), also known as performance value analysis, tracks project progress against its completion value. Key figures such as project planning, the actual costs and the degree of completion are taken from project planning and set in relation to each other. The EVA is particularly useful as it makes it possible to compare deadlines with the services provided and to assess both costs and completion dates during the project.
Benefit analysis (NWA)
The Benefit analysis (NWA) is a more subjective method for evaluating and deciding on projects, particularly when objective criteria such as financial indicators are not sufficient. In the NWA, relevant criteria are first selected and weighted, with a total weighting of 100 percent. Each project then receives points for each criterion, based on a fixed rating scale (e.g., 1-5). The weighted points are summed up to calculate the utility value, with the project with the highest utility value winning the decision.
Traffic light controlling
Traffic light controlling, also known as a traffic light system or traffic light method, offers a clear and distinct way of evaluating the status of tasks in a project. The progress is visualized using the three traffic light colors green, yellow, and red, which makes it immediately clear at which points in the project it is becoming critical. This method is particularly useful for time management and is ideal for projects with many deadlines, as it allows for ongoing and up-to-date assessment.
Milestone trend analysis (MTA)
With the milestone trend analysis, you can check whether all specified milestones and their deadlines are met or whether delays occur that could jeopardize the achievement of goals. Milestones are defined, and an earliest and latest target date is set for each one. During the course of the project, you regularly create forecasts of the expected achievement of the goals and visualize them in a diagram that shows the reporting dates on the x-axis and the predicted target dates on the y-axis. The resulting trend curve provides information about the further course of the project.
Cost trend analysis (KTA)
The cost trend analysis (KTA) compares the actual costs with the originally planned costs of the project and estimates the remaining costs until the end of the project. Through this comparison, the project controller can determine whether there are significant deviations and identify risks at an early stage. Based on this analysis, a forecast is made about the further course of the project, which supports project management and helps to make necessary adjustments.
Risk analysis
Risk analysis is a central method in project controlling, which should be carried out and documented regularly. It is used for assessment, evaluation and prioritization of risks by assigning values between 0 and 9 and the probability of occurrence in percent. The risk indicator results from multiplying these values and helps to classify the risk into categories such as low (0-3), medium (3.1-6) or high (6.1-9). This classification enables targeted management and action planning to reduce risks.
What KPIs are there?
For project controlling, key figures defined at the outset are crucial in order to monitor the progress and success of a project. Depending on the project, different key figures may be relevant. The following parameters are usually used as KPIs:
- Project goals: Monitoring whether the set goals are being achieved.
- Performance progress: Measuring progress compared to the planned time frame.
- Quality of service: Evaluation of the quality of services and results provided.
- Dates and milestones: Compliance with deadlines and important milestones in the course of the project.
- Project costs/finance/resource usage: Control of spending, budget utilization, and resource allocation.
- Project environment: Analysis of external and internal factors that influence the project.
- Project risks: Identification and evaluation of risks that could jeopardize the course of the project.
- Social relationships and cooperation: Evaluation of communication and collaboration within the project team.
These processes are essential for project controlling!
In project controlling, certain processes are vital to ensure effective planning, monitoring, and management. The standard “DIN 69901-5:2009-1: Project Management Phase ‘Management’” defines 15 essential processes for project controlling, 6 of which are mandatory. Here is an overview of the key processes:
These processes are critical to ensuring that all aspects of the project are effectively monitored and managed, providing a solid foundation for communication with stakeholders and team members.
What are the typical challenges companies face in project controlling?
Project controlling is a complex process that goes far beyond mere monitoring. This presents typical challenges for companies, such as precise planning and ensuring comprehensive transparency. However, when these requirements are met, teams benefit from early risk identification, clear objectives, and simplified communication with stakeholders. It also enables a transparent analysis of performance, costs, and punctuality, as well as providing well-founded decision-making tools for various alternatives.
Conclusion
Effective project controlling is essential for the success of modern companies. It goes far beyond mere cost monitoring and includes the holistic management of projects—from planning to completion. By using suitable methods such as earned value analysis, milestone trend analysis, or traffic light reporting, companies can identify risks at an early stage, optimize resource usage, and lead projects to success in a targeted manner.
The biggest challenges lie in precise planning, creating transparency, and consistently applying controlling processes. Modern project management software such as ZEP can make a decisive contribution here: it supports detailed budget planning, enables efficient resource management, and provides important KPIs for well-founded decisions in real time.
Ultimately, project controlling is not an end in itself, but a powerful instrument for continuous improvement. It enables companies to learn from experience, optimize processes, and constantly increase the success rate of their projects. In an increasingly complex and dynamic business world, effective project controlling is becoming a decisive competitive advantage.
FAQs
What are the roles in project controlling?
What makes for good project controlling?
What is the difference between project controlling and project management?
Project controlling is an essential part of project management, but focuses specifically on monitoring and managing budgets, deadlines and goals. While project management covers the entire life cycle of a project, project controlling focuses on the continuous review and optimization of project performance. Project controlling provides project management with decision-relevant information and enables proactive action risk management.
What are the prerequisites for successfully introducing project controlling?
A successful introduction of project controlling requires a clear project definition, detailed planning, transparent communication structures, qualified staff, and suitable software tools. In addition, all stakeholders must understand and actively support the importance and benefits of controlling.
How often should project controlling methods be applied?
The frequency of applying project controlling methods depends on the project's duration and complexity. In principle, weekly status updates, monthly trend analyses, and intensive checks at critical milestones should be carried out. Continuous monitoring is more important than rare but extensive analyses.
What does it cost to implement professional project controlling?
The costs for implementing professional project controlling vary depending on company size and the chosen software solution. Typically, costs range from 2-5% of the project budget. This should include software licenses, training costs, and the time required for setup and ongoing maintenance. The ROI usually becomes apparent after just a few months through improved project efficiency.
