Progress Report
It is important to monitor progress at various key points as tactics are being implemented Progress reports are preliminary evaluations on which planners can make strategic modifications as they further implement the program. Such midcourse corrections can keep the project functioning at peak efficiency. In this way, the plan is used as a written guideline rather than a rigid rulebook.
Consider this analogy of an interactive computer travel map for a cross-country road trip. This mapping program receives hourly weather updates and daily progress reports on highway construction projects. It also monitors traffic jams around congested urban areas and newspaper reports of tourism-related events. Before you leave on the road trip, you map tentative plan,indicating your goal (travelling cross country) and your objectives (stopping at various points of interest along the way to the destination). A rigid use of your plan would be to follow the map with no deviation-- after all, you've planned this trip for along time and you shouldn't be distracted by unscheduled changes. However ,a more effective use of the map would allow the computerize mapping program to alert you to an interesting community festival only a few miles off the scheduled route or to travel delays resulting form snow build-up on a mountain pass