The project controller ensures the financial health of projects, making sure a company doesn’t waste money on projects with low net worth. They have ultimate financial responsibility for project activities and must balance all sides and considerations of a project.
In the world of project management, the project controller ensures the financial health of projects. Every project attempted by a company is a financial risk. The project controller’s job is to make sure a company doesn’t waste millions of dollars on a project with a net worth of just thousands. The project controller is usually the business conscience of the project manager.
Most resources in a project are for the purpose of completing the project. Only the financial part of the team has its goals measured in dollars. This job is sometimes referred to as project finance analyst. This title means that the project controller has ultimate financial responsibility for project activities.
A project is defined as a temporary collection of work tasks designed to achieve a specific goal. Projects often get out of hand, but ultimately they must have value to the company. Every project has a list of necessary tasks, called the critical path. Then there are other tasks, called associated tasks, that may or may not occur on this critical path.
An example of a critical path on a project to repair a car with a failing engine would be all tasks associated with repairing the engine. Associated tasks might be something like painting the car a new color, which isn’t absolutely essential to completing the project. The project controller would look at the process from a financial perspective, looking at the cost of the car and how to make a profit on the car. He then calculated the project margin, taking into account the project manager’s most recent expenses. This calculation forms the net worth of the project.
The project controller should be a key element in the project management process, only green lighting projects with potential for profit or efficiency. This often translates to savings and profit potential for the company. The overwhelming trend is often to spend too much on projects and focus on tangible, task-oriented goals rather than financial goals. This leaves development teams, construction teams, and researchers spending money they shouldn’t. Someone has to watch this process, and the project controller is responsible for doing just that.
While the project controller’s task may not seem very challenging, he has to balance all sides and considerations of a project. He needs to decide what funding is needed for the project to succeed, as well as determine what funding can be cut as an unnecessary expense. It’s kind of a gamble. No matter how conscientiously the project controller does its job, there is no guarantee that the project will ever achieve the success anticipated in the first place.
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