Control of the current, preliminary and final: why and how is conducted

The effectiveness of management is determined by the achievement of the goal, at all stages of the movement to the result, the manager must monitor and supervise the process, resources, and environment. Control is one of the most important functional functions of the manager.

The concept of control in management

Management is necessary in order to effectively organize activities, rationally spend resources and achieve the set goals. Management traditionally distinguishes five basic functions: planning, organization, motivation, control and coordination. Each of them has its own specifics and significance. So, monitoring, current or strategic, is an important activity of the manager in comparison of the results of working with the plan at all stages of the production process, checking the results for compliance with standards and norms, and eliminating emerging deviations.

The importance of control is explained by the need to remove uncertainty about the state of affairs in the company and the progress of the production process. Also, control is an indispensable condition for successful activity. It allows you to assess the situation and prevent the emergence of crises. Control and supervision are necessary, but they can take many forms and perform a number of functions. Depending on the management style in the organization, control can be concentrated in the hands of one manager, usually senior management, or delegated to several employees.

Monitoring functions

Control is an unpleasant moment for the manager as well as for the performer, but it is necessary. In management, it is customary to talk about several basic control functions:

- Evaluation of the environment, external and internal. During the control the manager collects information and removes uncertainty in the question of understanding the current process. The control allows to detect negative and threatening factors in the external and internal environment and to find opportunities for their elimination or accounting for the performance of activities.

- Responding to deviations. The manager controls to be aware of all the details of the production process and to be able to react to changes and deviations. Control allows you to notice in time mistakes and threats and quickly rebuild the production process.

- Allocation of resources. Tactical and technical control allows the most rational use of available money, equipment, find the right place for the competence of employees. At the same time, control allows us to identify reserves and use them productively.

- Maintaining feedback. The interactive control function is that in the course of its implementation, interaction is established between all elements of the system, between the manager and the executor.

- Evaluation of the work of staff. In order to competently motivate employees and effectively pay for their work, it is necessary to build a clear assessment system, in this manager helps control at all stages of production.

Types of control

The complexity of the oversight process leads to the fact that there are several control qualifications.

By the frequency of the procedures are allocated:

- Preliminary control. Prior to the commencement of work, actions should be taken to track and evaluate key resources: material, human, production. Its purpose - to prevent the possibility of negative consequences of the actions of performers. It allows you to make adjustments to the plan even before its implementation and before making mistakes.

- Current monitoring. It is carried out during the execution of works, its purpose is to identify at the stage of appearance and to prevent errors and deviations. It is aimed at monitoring compliance with norms and standards. Current monitoring requires constant information flow and prompt correction of errors.

- Final control. It is carried out at the stage of summing up the results and evaluation of achievement of results. The main purpose of this type of control is to prevent similar mistakes in the future. The data obtained during this stage becomes the basis for the creation of new plans.

Based on the frequency of conducting monitoring actions, strategic, tactical and operational control is singled out . According to the functional affiliation, experts call financial, production, marketing and personnel types of control. Still it is possible to allocate on the basis of an orientation of actions external and internal kinds of the control.

Strategic and tactical control

The most important tool for implementing the company's plans is strategic and tactical control. The task of these types of management activities is to monitor the correctness of plans and actions. Strategic control is the systematic verification of the correspondence of global goals, strategic programs and actions. The objectives of this activity are: determining the correctness of selected long-term goals and the correctness of the way to achieve them, identifying potential opportunities for the company. Tactical control is connected with checking the achievement of short-term, immediate goals. His instrument is technical control, which is aimed at identifying the strictness of the conformity of the production process with regulations, standards and regulations.

Control at the stages of preparation

The entire management process is permeated with control stages. There is a tradition of gradual classification, in this case it is distinguished: preliminary, current and final control. Each of them performs its functions and has distinctive features. Preliminary control precedes the commencement of work, it is an integral part of planning. Its goal is to create conditions for effective production start-up. At this stage, the readiness and competence of the staff, the availability of necessary resources, the documentation of the activities are assessed.

Control current, in contrast to the preliminary, on the time of flow coincides with the production stages. Its main function is to improve the workflow. The manager constantly monitors compliance of all production operations and actions of contractors with approved plans and standards. Sometimes this stage is also called "intermediate control", which emphasizes its main feature - the identification of shortcomings and deviations on the way to the goal. It is applied to the assessment of the solution of both current and strategic tasks. Of particular importance is the final or final control. It is very different from other stages in its tasks and flow.

Final control: specificity

The final stage of the production process involves several important tasks. This is the identification of the degree of compliance of the goals and results, the assessment of the work of the staff, the compilation of a list of miscalculations and errors, so that they can begin a new planning stage. Final control should be conducted according to established criteria, so that performers understand how their work is checked and how this will affect the payment of their labor. This type of supervision is connected with the evaluation of the expenditure of resources, with the determination of the effectiveness of the strategy and tactics and an assessment of the correctness of the decisions made earlier. The results of this stage are extremely important for the future of the organization, as its results can avoid mistakes when creating plans for the future.

The control procedure

Control, current and final, are carried out according to one algorithm.

At the first stage, information is collected, then the evaluation criteria for each operation and process are formulated, and the objectives and methods of control are further defined. This is the preparatory stage. Further, the control enters the stage of proper evaluation of the process and actions. The last stage is the analysis of the information received and the formulation of conclusions, it is synonymous with final control. As a result of all these actions, a managerial decision must be born.

Principles of control

The manager in charge of monitoring, current, strategic or final, should remember the basic principles of its conduct. These include:

- Timeliness. There should be some time between the control procedures, it should not be too frequent, so that the employee does not feel that they do not trust him. But also should not be spent too seldom that the employee did not have an impression of lack of control.

- Flexibility. It must adapt to the current conditions.

- Economical. His goal - to save resources, so he should not require large investments.