Fit-out and refurbishment projects are in growing demand not only to address the branding and image requirements of an organization but also to comply with regulations for work areas, restaurants, movie theaters, play areas, public areas, and other types of regulations that organizations need to comply with to have a safe and licensed space. In addition, fit-out and refurbishment projects are also considered capital improvement programs as they will increase the valuation of the refurbished assets.
Daily Progress Observation Reports is one of the common practices that is used to provide project stakeholders with an overall status of how the fit-out or refurbishment project is progressing. The report which will be usually done by the project management team members will report on all key activities and observations made at the different spaces within each floor level of the project. Usually, different team members are assigned to the project’s floor levels or groups of spaces. The report will detail the progress achieved against the fit-out or refurbishment tasks for each building system. Pictures of actual progress need to be also captured.
The captured progress data in the daily observation report will be associated with data captured from other business processes like those for Non-Compliance Report (NCR), Work Inspection Request (WIR), Request for Information (RFI), and Issues to provide the overall progress performance report. The progress report will usually include the floor plans of the fit-out or refurbishment project to provide the reader with a better understanding of the reported project’s performance status.
The performance report shown below displays an example of the fit-out and refurbishment tasks progress data captured from the different project team members for a specific day or any selected period. The report allows viewing the progress details of any period by selecting the “To” to “From” period in the selection slicer. In addition, can display the progress data for all types of works or a specific building system and task again by using the slicer for the “System Task”. For each reported progress item, the report will capture the details of the reported progress as well as display a picture of the reported progress. The report will also summarize the pending Non-Compliance Report (NCR), Work Inspection Request (WIR), and Request for Information (RFI) associated with the task for which the progress is reported. Finally, the report will also display the floor plans of where the fit-out and refurbishment works are being performed. The sample interactive building floor plans visual was created by Rafique Shaikh (https://www.linkedin.com/in/srumumbai/) using the Synoptic visual for MS Power BI.
Using Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb all business processes required to manage a fit-out and refurbishment projects will be monitored, evaluated, and reported on. The PMWeb Inspection module will be used to capture the details of the daily progress information. To be able to use the Inspection module, the data fields that need to be used to capture the progress data need to be defined first. Most of the data defined for the daily inspection observation will be listed with predefined values. The only two fields that will require input from the inspector are the details of the progress for each reported task and the estimated percent complete which is an optional field.
The next step is to add the Daily Progress Observation Report for each specific date capturing the inspection category, description, inspection date and time, inspector name, building number, and floor level. The inspection will also have the fields required to capture the progress at each space within a level for all types of tasks that need to be reported on. This will also include the option to take and attach pictures of the reported progress.
To provide the Daily progress Observation Report reader with a better understanding of the location of the reported progress, the PMWeb inspection module allows uploading a picture of the floor plan where inspection will be carried out. The project team can select the space at the floor level to add or link the captured daily progress information for each activity. The progress template for each space will be identical to the progress information captured on the main page of the inspection form.
Similar to all other managed business processes managed in PMWeb, pictures that better explain the progress observation comment, as well as all other relevant documents, can be attached to the record. Details can be added to the picture to better explain what is being viewed. In addition, links to other relevant records managed in PMWeb can be also linked to the reported progress. For example, those could include all related Non-Compliance Report (NCR), Work Inspection Request (WIR), and Request for Information (RFI) records.
It is highly recommended that all those 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.
As with any other project management business process, if there is a requirement to formally submit, review and approve the Daily Progress Observation Report, 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.
When a Daily Progress Observation report is initiated, the workflow tab available on the inspection template will capture the planned review and approve workflow tasks for each Daily Progress Observation transaction as well as the actual history of those review and approval tasks. PMWeb will capture the actual action data and time, done by who, action taken, comments made, and whether team input was requested.
To ensure having a comprehensive and meaningful progress report for fit-out and refurbishment projects, the progress of other relevant business processes need also to be part of the report. Those could include for example the number of submitted as well as pending closure for the business processes of Non-Compliance Reports (NCR), Work Inspection Reports (WIR), Requests for Information (RFI) and others. Similar to the Daily Progress Observation, the template will be used to manage those business processes. Some of those templates like the Request for Information (RFI) are readily available out of the box in PMWeb.
Nevertheless, for the many other business processes like Non-Compliance Reports (NCR), Work Inspection Reports (WIR), Disruption Events, Engineer’s Instruction (EI), and others that are not readily available in PMWeb, the visual custom form builder will be used to create those templates. Each template can be created with all the required fields needed to ensure proper and comprehensive management of the relevant business process.
The interactive Daily Progress Observation report will enable the report reader to select and view progress data for the whole project, floor, or space. When a progress transaction for a specific space is selected from the progress table, the location of the associated floor space will be automatically highlighted while all other areas get shaded. This will enable the reader to have a better understanding of the reported progress.
Similarly of the report reader selects one of the spaces at a floor level, all progress details for that space will be filtered out and displayed in the progress table. Other visuals that are part of the report such as the donut visual that show the number of pending closure Non-Compliance Report (NCR), Work Inspection Request (WIR), and Request for Information (RFI) records will be automatically updated to reflect the made selection
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.