[AC] Why Project Health Control?
Project Health is all about visibility and communication.
A healthy project in our definition is one where the deliverables are clearly defined and their status known precisely on a day to day basis. The processes used in our project health control system serve to feed that definition continually. And those processes are followed mainly by staff dedicated to the Project Health Control function. There are some processes for the whole project staff to follow, but these relate to accessing the PHC lists and feeding information about the changing status of deliverables and on problems that arise while doing the work.
Staff see PHC as something both useful to their daily work and easy to feed with update information. The data gathering, organising and analysis work that is done by the PHC consultant is specialised and is done by a combination of site based personnel and remote admin staff.
Management see PHC as a window into the workings of the project. The dashboard views alone offer a valuable insight on project progress, but with the feedback mechanism in place and working, for a PHC enabled project it's like 'having eyes and ears everywhere' on your project. An immensely useful tool for project control and risk and issues management.
A common objection to implementing the PHC process relates to the perception that something 'extra' has to be bought by the project to 'help' with its successful delivery. Something that is not necessary as projects just work, don't they?
This is a dangerous assumption, when we consider that for a project near the 'death' end of the Project Health scale, cost escalation is inevitable, and the date for achieving revenue is certainly going to be pushed further out.  
 
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