The Control Function at the Tactical Level

CHAPTER 9: The Control Function at the Tactical Level

9.1 Overview of Control

Control as a function of management has both positive and negative characteristics. In its positive aspects, it is the purpose of control to secure and maintain the maximum productivity from all of the resources of the organization. In a negative sense, it is the purpose of control to prevent or reduce unacceptable performance. Control techniques and actions are intended to insure, as far as possible, that the organization does what management wants it to do.

Common meanings of the term "control" are to direct, to influence, and to restrain. In administration and management, the concept of control includes all of these common meanings and more. Control consists of:

1. Defining the objective or setting some type of standard.

2. The standard must be observable or measurable.

3. Comparing actual performance to the standard set. Comparing to the standard creates a variance.

4. Analyzing the difference from the standard by the observable performance or determining the cause of variance.

5. Applying corrective action where needed.

The basic purpose of management controls is to insure that the organization is working toward the fulfillment of the goals set by management. Without these controls there is no way of ascertaining whether persons in the group are working toward the objectives of the organization or if they are even aware of these objectives. The effective control of the technical function also entails securing maximum results from minimum dollar expenditures.

Managers with experience have often stated that the function of controlling can be most stressful at times. In some instances, the manager must exercise forms of negative behavior by telling or ordering the technical worker or staff that performance or actions are unacceptable and must cease and or be corrected. In the technical organization, where creativity and innovation is vital to the success of the activities, having to exercise negative almost Taylor-like managerial behavior can often create ill will for all concerned. Never the less, a manager will find situations where “follow the rules” or else creates conflict.

As pointed out earlier, since the major product of the technical group is primarily ideas, new concepts, or evaluations, our major productive force is the mind of the worker. The salary of the technical professional constitutes better than 75 percent of the cost of doing technical work. It is therefore obvious that the primary factor that we must control is the utilization of the staff's time.

Most organizations strive to effect this control through either an annual budget, current approval of individual projects, or both. It is literally impossible to control costs. One can only control the actions of persons who incur costs. On the other hand, control of projects without relationship to the costs being incurred provides no method of evaluating the profitability of the effort. For these reasons, the only adequate approach seems to be a control system oriented from both a budget and manpower utilization approach. In order to insure maximum profitable achievement, the control system must provide the means of continually evaluating the progress and value of projects that are being pursued against costs that are being incurred.

The essence of the control process can be broken down into the mechanisms for transmitting information and the judgment process of making decisions based on this information. Thus, one important aspect of the control system is the process of providing management with the necessary information and data needed to:

1. Indicate work progress as compared to a standard (the project’s planned schedule.)

2. Properly relate technical performance, cost, and schedule. Compare the status of the completed work to what the plan stated to be completed. (This is why a plan is needed up front!)

3. Supply managers with a practical level of summarization. Evaluate the actual activity to the planned activity and summarize appropriately.

To control any process, one must start with an objective. The customer and the organization doing the work on a technical project must agree on the common objectives of the end product. During the project life the technical objective may change, especially early in the program, but further along both the task content and the specific requirements must stabilize for effective project completion. Initially, both the customer and the group base their estimates of the required task effort on considerations of the perceived size of the job and on assessments of the technological effectiveness of the personnel assigned to it.

Project managers continuously try to state what progress has been made, but no particularly relevant measurements are available to verify or deny such statements. Even a system of detailed project milestones that show the subtasks required to complete a task has potential failings because of the uncertainties inherent in the invention-innovation process. Nevertheless, companies do and should go ahead in their planning efforts to map out such a set of project linkages or milestones that must be met before the job has been completed. The technical managers can use this approach effectively by accounting for three indices of project performance: technical accomplishment, elapsed time, and accumulated expenditures. The managers must also include human factors, because technical progress, measurement, and control all depend on the people factor and are subject to motivational influences.

Too many organizations ignore the motivational factor in the design of control systems. The management control system that is being designed should be predicated on minimizing motivation problems by avoiding excessive control techniques that adversely influence these problems. The organizational environn1ent must encourage openness, initiative, and innovation in the individual scientists and engineers, because they will then more likely supply the real progress needed by management.