Your business activity is only good for your ability to monitor and control them. For example, production teams will be lost without a control process that allows them to measure and improve their management performance.
The management control process is essential for any business to remain sustainable. When you monitor using software and control your production process, you can see what works and what does not.
What is a control process in business management?
The control process in running a business is when managers determine, measure and refine their business activities and manage cost control.
By using a control process, a company can navigate changes in the supply chain, customer demand and other variables that affect the company’s livelihood. This is a critical task in maintaining any tax business.
Through the management control process, a company can know exactly whether the plans are moving in the right direction and are fully implemented. If these plans do not work and get the company off course, they can repair the ship and stay on course.
Project management software helps you measure performance. ProjectManager is a cloud-based tool that does this in real time. You can see the difference between a planned and an actual effort with the live ProjectManager dashboard. The dashboard collects production data, automatically covers the numbers and then displays the result in easy-to-read graphs and charts. Try ProjectManager today for free!
Control of process steps in business management
There is a five-step control process that will help you define, measure and direct your business activities – whether it is manufacturing, packaging, shipping or any other business process.
If you do not implement a control process, then you are not really managing your business processes. You can not lead your workforce without control of the process.
For organizational control that leads to the fulfillment of your company’s goals and strategic plans, follow these five steps:
1. Set performance standards
You need a goal for your business, but you also need guidance for your team to keep working toward that goal. Without such standards, they may deviate from the plan, whether intentionally or not.
Standards are like goals imposed on a specific department or team member. They must achieve these standards through collaboration, teamwork and joint effort. However, to ensure compliance with these standards, you must have criteria to measure them against.
By setting rules that you can measure with, you can judge or rate performance to maintain standard results. It helps management understand how production is progressing, and whether it is on track or in need of adjustment. Meeting standards on which performance can be based means that work does not have to stop to get a picture of its progress.
There are two sets of standards: tangible (or specific) and intangible (or abstract). The first is measurable; You can see it and count it. The latter can not be seen or counted. A tangible standard will be time, cost, profit, expenditure, output, etc. Intangible standards are manager performance, employee attitude and the like.
2. Measure performance
Standard setting allows performance to be measured using a control function. By measuring this performance, you can quickly catch and correct any deviation from the plan before it goes off track and runs production into the ground.
The measurements are easier when dealing with tangible standards that can be seen and counted. It is naturally more difficult with intangible standards. By definition, it is difficult to measure intangible performance in an information system because it cannot be quantified.
One way to make up for this shortcoming is by looking at the manager’s performance through the eyes of his staff. How does the staff view their work? Is morale high? How is the communication between the team and the manager? Is the team loyal to each other, to its manager and to the company?
Although these are intangible standards, together they paint a picture of manager performance. All of these questions speak to the manager’s ability to successfully manage his team. Formulate the standard for measuring what teams are doing, what their expected performance is, and so on. You can collect this data regularly by reports, whether weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.
Related: Free progress report template
3. Compare actual performance against performance standards
Once you have a baseline for the performance of your teams during production, packaging, delivery, etc., you can compare the actual performance to the planned performance and determine the extent of the deviation. This is called variance, or the difference between actual performance and goals. Schedules can be very helpful when it comes to different analysis.
ProjectManager has online Gantt charts that allow you to set concrete milestones and project stages so you can see at a glance whether you are before or after the schedule. In addition, the Gantt is updated in real time when your team finishes its work. Take a free trial and build a schedule in minutes.
![Gantt chart with a schedule for analyzing business performance](https://www.projectmanager.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Templates_Marketing_Gantt.jpg)
The manager should look at this data and accept or reject the result. It depends on the deviation and the impact on the business. If everything goes as expected, it’s great, but there’s more likely to be some deviation. It is up to the manager to determine if this gap is such that it can be ignored or acted upon.
4. Share of deviations
This brings us to the next step: where you analyze data using accepted limits. If the standards are not met, the manager needs to understand if more control is needed – or if perhaps, the standard itself needs to be changed.
If there is a gap between the planned execution and the actual execution, the next step is to understand what causes it and what its scope is. Next, you need to determine how this deviation affects the business. If the difference is just small, then it’s probably okay to ignore it. But if the gap reflects profits, hiring employees, changing or repairing equipment and other critical issues, it needs to be addressed. A gap analysis template can help in this decision making process.
5. Perform repair operations
Once you have analyzed the anomaly and determined its cause, the manager will need to establish a plan that uses corrective measures, critical point control and other means to solve the problem. This is to reduce the deviation and ensure compliance with the standard. This may include changes in processes and / or behaviors.
Some of the situations discovered in the control process may require corrective action to save the business, while others may simply be below-standard performance that needs to be corrected to improve processes and return production to schedule. Therefore, immediate action may be needed because of the urgency.
Corrective actions include a variety of activities. For example, you might change the way you do certain business. However, some operations and performance may not be able to change and may require additional resources. For example, hiring additional staff members may be the solution to correct the exception you have discovered.
It is important for managers to oversee the process and monitor the process from start to finish. This includes not only the control process, but all the actions planned to resolve the exception or reset the standards. Understanding the control process shows whether the plans are fulfilled or not, what actions need to be taken in order for them to be fulfilled.
How ProjectManager helps with the control process steps
ProjectManager is a cloud-based work management software that manages programs and monitors performance in real time to help managers make smarter decisions. Multiple project views make it easy for hybrid teams to use the tool the way they want, no matter where they are, what they do or their level of expertise.
Track progress in Ghent parades
Defining performance standards can be done on ProjectManager’s interactive Gantt charts. Milestones can be set, tasks assigned and other tags and tags added to better organize standards. A baseline has been set to capture the program, which can be used later to compare actual performance with the standards and goals set. The manager can then share the Gantt with the staff and stakeholders.
Measuring performance on dashboards
Actual performance measurement is more accurate with ProjectManager’s cloud-based reporting software. It collects data in real time and displays it on the live dashboard, which can also be shared with stakeholders. Reports are a way to dig deeper into the data. Teams can provide status reports to update their performance while performing their tasks, and managers can generate reports on variance, workload, time sheets and more.
Workload management and resource reallocation
Resource management tools help you analyze and take corrective action. Workload is one of the standards that can slow down production if too few team members assign too many tasks. The ProjectManager color-coded chart shows you who has been over-allocated, and then you can reallocate resources directly from the workload chart. Once the workload is balanced, production will increase and so will team morale.
ProjectManager is an award-winning software that helps control the process. It has features that will help you plan, monitor and report performance. Multiple views of the project make it accessible to anyone from management to team members. It is perfect for hybrid teams looking to improve their work management. Try ProjectManager today!