Track, Report, Change, Plan, Track
As discussed in Chapter 3, the planning, executing, and controlling phases are a cycle within themselves. It is important to consistently update the project plans based on the actual occurrences. During the execution of a project, the actual work is being done. It is also the time that most issues will arise.
No matter how much you plan, or manage the plan, issues will arise. It is part of the project management process. If you expect that they will happen, then they are much easier to deal with than when you expect everything will go smoothly and it doesn't.
You should communicate with your team at regular intervals to get results from them. However, do not wait to do this in the project status meeting. Talk to the individuals prior to the status meeting so that you are prepared to deliver the right message. Also, if you wait until a status meeting to get updates, you are conditioning your team to only communicate once per week. Team members will forget to work on an issue or task, see the meeting on the calendar, and then try to scramble at the last minute to show progress. If you ask on a constant basis, but are not consistent in the elapsed time between progress checks, it conditions the team to move forward.
