Whether we like or not, many of the regulations enforced during the Covid-19 virus breakout in 2020, will become part of doing every type of business regardless of the industry it belongs to for years to come. The post Covid-19 imposed restrictions could include travel, attending large meetings, office size, social distancing among other restrictions. Some of those restrictions and requirements could impact individuals who are above the age of 60, also known as seniors, more than others.
Projects in general which always require building teams to manage the different phases and processes needed to deliver a project will be impacted the most. But unlike other type of projects, engineering and construction projects will be even impacted further. Engineering and construction projects usually require having team members representing different entities, who could be located at different parts of the globe and who have proven successful track-records in delivering engineering and construction projects. Some of those individuals will be usually older than 60 years of age or might become older than 60 years by the time the project is completed.
The wisdom of those senior project team members is always required when it comes to make many of the important decisions needed during the project duration. Those individuals usually play a critical role in reviewing the key project deliverables and communications to enable them to recommend the actions to be taken. Nevertheless, if those senior project team members lack real-time access for trust-worthy every project’s data that provides the information needed to build the knowledge on the different project’s matters, then they will not have the insight to make better and faster informed decisions.
Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb, organizations can ensure having a single web-enabled platform to capture and manage the data from the different project management processes needed in delivering capital projects. In addition, a Business Intelligence (BI) and Data Visualization application like MS Power BI, senior project team members can dice, slice, analyze and visualize the captured data to provide the insight for making better and faster informed decisions.
The input forms, whether those are ready to use or those created using the custom form builder, will ensure the quality of the everyday captured data. In addition, all supportive documents will be attached to the captured records as well as links will be added to related records and imported MS Outlook emails. Finally, the pre-defined workflow will enforce accountability in accordance with the authority approval levels for the captured everyday data.
The data captured from those processes, also known as datasets, will provide the real-time information on the different project management processes. Using a business intelligence application like MS Power BI, the data captured in PMWeb will be extracted, transferred and loaded. Those data sets can be scheduled to be automatically refreshed to maintain its almost real-time values.
The reported project information can be specific to the dataset of a single project management process or can be information that relates to a specific combination of different data sets. Those different datasets are linked to each other through the common fields that exist in those datasets. For example, those could include cost account, project schedule task, contract number among others.
This reported project’s information can then be consumed by the senior project team members to create the many tabular and graphical reports as well as dashboards that will give them the insight to make better and faster informed decisions. For most organizations, many of those reports are standardized to make them readily available to authorized project team members. MS Power BI as well as business intelligence applications allows the user to create new measures, model the data, identify trends, forecast future results, apply queries among others to provide the additional intelligence on the reported information. In addition, MS Power BI allows applying “R Script Visuals” and “Python Visuals” to further improve the analysis of the reported information.
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 in excess of 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 in 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.