Regardless of the capital construction project size, type or location, project owners need to have an evaluation of the performance of contracts who are involved in their projects’ delivery. This monthly or quarterly performance evaluation will address the contractor’s schedule adherence, budget adherence, quality control, health, safety, and environment (HSE) practice, and management capabilities. Under each of those categories, there will be several criteria items for which the contractor performance will be assessed as Action Required to change the lack of performance, Attention Required to improve performance, current performance Meets Requirement, Valued Performance, and Outstanding performance.
The evaluation of the contractor’s performance will be usually carried out by the supervision consultant, project management consultant, and project owner representative. The weight of the performance evaluation carried by those individuals might not be equal for all. For example, the supervision consultant might have 20% weight, the project management consultant might have 40% and the project owner representative will have the balance of 40% weight to bring the total weight to 100%.
In addition, the different performance evaluation criteria under each category will have different weights depending on their importance for evaluating the contractor’s performance. Nevertheless, the total weight of all performance criteria should equal 100%. This will become the basis for assessing the achieved performance for each of the five project management categories.
Using a Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb, the project owner can implement a business process to formalize the Contractor Performance Evaluation process that will become standard across the complete projects’ portfolio. PMWeb custom form builder will be used to create the template for the Contractor Performance Evaluation. To avoid biased scoring, the template will not display the weight factor assigned to each performance criteria although this can be easily added if needed. In addition, each individual who will be part of the contractor performance evaluation process will fill his/her criteria scoring in a separate form. This will ensure that the given score values are kept confidential until the final Contractor Performance Evaluation report is generated.
The Contractor Performance Evaluation template will include the Project Name, Contractor Named, Appraisal Name, Appraisal Date, and the status of the Contractor Performance Evaluation submission. Other fields and tables can be also added like for example a table for Lessons Learned items.
Similar to all types of business processes created using PMWeb, the Contractor Performance Evaluation business process can be also be attached with its supportive documents. Those could include drawings, specifications, equipment catalogs, pictures, test results, among others.
In addition, links to PMWeb records for all types of relevant business processes managed in PMWeb can be also added. For example, those could include safety incidents, progress invoices, schedule updates, non-compliance reports, work inspection requests, site work instructions, and others.
It is highly recommended that all supportive documents, regardless of their type or source, get uploaded and stored on the PMWeb document management repository. PMWeb allows creating folders and subfolders to match the physical filing structure used to store hard copies of those documents.
For example, there could be a folder for Contractor Performance Evaluation with sub-folders for each period where the performance evaluation was carried out. This will enable assigned access permission rights for each folder or sub-folder.
As with any other project management business process, there is the requirement to formally submit, review and approve the Contractor Performance Evaluation. Accordingly, a workflow will be used to formalize the submission, review, and approval tasks. The assigned workflow will map the submit, review and approve tasks, roles or roles assigned to each task, task duration, task type, and actions available for the task.
Since the Contractor Performance Evaluation process will be carried out during the project life duration, the project owner can also access a report that details the contractor’s performance trend as an overall as well as against project management category which includes schedule adherence, budget adherence, quality control, health, safety, and environment (HSE) practice and management capabilities.
In addition, there is also the option to compare the performance of the different contractors involved in delivering the project owner’s projects portfolio. The report can compare the contractor’s performance at the project level, each project management category level as well as each performance criteria level. This will enable to benchmark the contractors’ performance and identify any outstanding or below requirement performance of a contractor or group of contractors.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with 40-year service record providing project management, project controls services, and project management information systems to over 200 projects with a total value over the US $100 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education, and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment, Hospitality, 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 40 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 300 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 Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (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.