One of the key requirements in delivering capital projects is managing the formal communication associated with the everyday project management processes between the different entities that are part of the project. Those are the hundreds of processes that relate to project communications, schedule, cost, contracts, quality assurance, quality control, health and safety, risks, and issues among others.
Project owners are usually the entity that will be impacted most when the content of those formal communications are not readily available to be monitored, reviewed, and acted on. This is true because the project owner is the only entity that will have contractual agreements with the other entities involved in delivering the project including project management consultants, engineering consultants, contractors, and suppliers. Therefore, when any of those entities cause harm to another entity when needed formal communications are not performed as per the project management plan and related contract agreements, the project owner will become the entity liable for those actions.
Therefore, the project owner should always demand having access to a real-time single version of the truth report that details the status of every formal project communication. Those are usually logs and registers for which the content will be captured from the information included in those communications. PMWeb Project Management Information System (PMIS) comes ready with many of those logs ready to use plus there is the option to customize the output in the desired form and format. Most of those logs and registers allow drilling to the specific record from which the information was extracted.
This PMWeb report will be automatically generated from the project management input forms that either come ready with PMWeb or those created using PMWeb Visual Form Builder. PMWeb ready-to-use forms include safety incidents, requests for information, minutes of the meeting, daily reports, snag list, submittals, transmittals, contracts, potential change orders, change orders, progress invoices, timesheets, risk register among many others. For the default forms, there is no limit to the number of additional fields that can be added in the form for which the values could be text, numeric, currency, Boolean, lists among others. In addition, some of the default forms have built-in formulas to calculate the values of other fields like for example the progress invoice.
In addition, some of the default forms can be used to generate other default forms for example the potential change order can be used to generate the change order when the potential change order is approved or generate the next record for example minutes of meeting and interim progress invoices. Further, some of the default forms as links to the project schedule activity that could be impacted by the formal communication such as RFI, meeting minutes, daily reports, timesheets, submittals, drawings among others.
PMWeb Visual Form Builder allows creating all additional forms that might be needed for managing the other project management processes. Those could include work inspection requests, non-compliance reports, no objection certifications, work permits, site access permits, lessons learned, confirmation of verbal instruction, site work instruction, substantial certificate, mobilization, and demobilization checklists among many others. The Visual Form Builder allows adding all needed fields as well as multiple tables to capture the needed information.
For both PMWeb default forms and newly created forms, access rights for each form module and fields within each form can be established to ensure that forms are only accessed and completed by their intended individuals who could be representing the different entities involved in the project.
In addition, PMWeb allows attaching all supportive documents which are usually uploaded into the PMWeb Document Management repository. In addition, links to other relevant PMWeb records and imported MS Outlook emails can be also added. This will ensure complete transparency into the content of each formal project communication.
In addition to capturing the content for all project management processes in the designated default form or custom-created form, most capital projects would require that all formal communications be printed to be wet-signed and stamped to be formally shared with the other project entities. The output form for those communications could differ from one project owner to another as well as from one project to another. PMWeb allows designing those forms as per each project’s project management plan requirement. The output form can be designed to include the list of all attached documents as well as the status of workflow tasks assigned to the form.
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 controls services to over 100 projects with a total value over the 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 information systems 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.