Fundamental Purposes of Control

The 2 fundamental objective of control are:
1. The regulation of results through the alteration of activities.
2. The stewardship of organizational assets.

Physical Asset Control
Physical asset control requires the control of the use of physical assets. It is concerned with the task of asset maintenance, whether preventive or corrective. Even the timing of maintenance or replacement as well as the quality of maintenance is also maintained. If the project uses considerable amounts of physical equipment, the PM also has the problem of setting up of maintenance schedules in such a way as to keep the equipment operating condition while minimizing the interference with ongoing work. Physical inventory, whether equipment or material, must also be controlled. It must be received, inspected, and possibly stored prior to use. Records of all incoming shipments must be carefully validated so that the payments of the suppliers can be authorized. The same precautions applied to goods from external suppliers must also be applied to the suppliers from inside the organization. Minor details such as project library, project coffee maker, etc. must be counted maintained and conserved.

Financial Resource Control
The work of accountants for conservation of financial resources has resulted in an excellent tool for financial controls. It is difficult to separate the control mechanisms aimed at conservation of financial resources from those regulating resource use. Capital investments control work to conserve the organization’s assets by insisting that certain conditions be met before capital can be expanded and those same conditions usually regulate the use of capital to achieve the goal of high return on investments. The techniques of financial control, both conservation and regulation are well known. They include current asset control, project budgets as well as capital investment controls. These controls are exercised through a series of analyses and audits conducted by the accounting for most of the part.

The importance of proper conformance to both organizational and client control standards in financial practice and record keeping cannot be over-emphasized. The parent organization, through its agent, the project manager, is responsible for the conservation and proper use of resources owned by the client or owned by the parent and charged to the client. It is not possible to define in general, what might be required for any given project. The firm should however make sure that it has legal counsel competent to aid it in meeting this responsibility. The mind-set of the conservationist is often antithetical in the mind-set of the PM, whose natural intention is to use the resources rather than conserving them. The PM however has no choice but to live with it. The warring attitudes must be merged and compromised as best they can.