Those involved in executing linear capital projects such as highways, pipelines, metro, rail, and transmission lines among others usually use tools like TILOS, and Turbo-Chart among others to monitor, evaluate and report the schedule and quantities of work performed. Nevertheless, having a single version of the truth of the project performance status goes beyond schedule and quantity of work. It needs to address other project success measures including budget, adjustments, awarded contracts, approved, pending, and potential changes orders, risks, quality, safety, and issues among the many other aspects of managing capital projects.
Using Project Management Information Systems (PMIS) like PMWeb, those involved in managing those linear projects can have all of the project management processes managed using the same platform. All those processes will have their input forms, workflows, output forms, and reports to ensure that the right information is captured by the right project team member at the right time. In addition, all related documents for those processes will be uploaded and stored in the PMWeb document management repository so they can be attached to their relevant records. In addition, PMWeb can import the project schedule information by default as well as import data from third-party applications that might be integrated with PMWeb.
By having all of this data and documents on a single platform, PMWeb business intelligence reporting tool as well as third-party data visualization and business intelligence applications like MS Power BI, Tableau, and Qlik among others can access this trust-worthy auditable data to generate dashboards and reports to communicate the performance status of those projects as well as any other information deemed to be necessary. Those dashboards and reports can be projected or program specific well as they can be an enterprise dashboard to report on the different projects’ portfolios that the organization has.
Those dashboards will be designed to enable the stakeholder to drill down to view more information on the selected project. For example, for the program dashboard displayed above, the stakeholder can drill down, either by using the map display or the project scorecard, to each project dashboard to view more details about the project performance. This could performance details for the current period as well as the performance trend for the past 6 months. The project progress report will also include a narrative description of the achieved progress as well as details of the pending issues that need to be resolved to avoid project delays and cost overruns. The dashboard will also include pictures of the project’s progress.
Should the stakeholder require additional detail on the project schedule, budget and cost, quality, health and safety, risks, and issues among others, the project dashboard will be designed to enable the stakeholder to drill down for this information. For example, the stakeholder can drill down to the issues report as this is one of the most important reports that details all issues that must be resolved as soon as possible to mitigate their negative impacts on the project’s objectives.
Of course, those who need more details on the project’s schedule performance can view the updated project schedule reports which are saved as a PDF printout of Oracle Primavera or MSP Schedule or as a PDF file of the TILOS or Turbo-Chart linear schedule. Those reports will be uploaded and stored in the PMWeb document management repository and attached to the PMWeb monthly progress form. For the TILOS or Turbo-Chart report which is usually a one-page report, it can be saved as a picture to be embedded income one of the dashboard pages. The main objective is for the stakeholder who is keen to monitor, evaluate and report on the projects’ performance, to be provided with a single access point to have at any time, anywhere using any device to have access to a 360-degree, real-time single version of the truth of how the project, program or projects’ portfolio are performing.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with more than 35-year service record providing project management and control services to over 100 projects with a total value of over US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education, and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, Telecommunication, and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA, and London Business School, London, UK.