Marrying Construction Program Control Software and Processes
For many municipalities and government agencies, construction projects programs and projects are hitting a fever pitch. Deadlines are looming and time is of the essence.
All the while, these initiatives are under the increasingly watchful eye of the public, elected and appointed officials looking to make sure that those in charge stay on budget, account for every penny and still achieve the intended outcomes on time.
Managing it all and meeting expectations can be daunting, which is why program managers are implementing program control software platforms at a record pace. The question, though, is in how well those systems are meeting the needs.
Countless news reports litter the media with tales of counties and cities facing significant cost overruns for a wide variety of initiatives. Program and project leaders are often finding themselves caught between a gargantuan rock and extremely hard place. They want to do the right thing, but the data received from program control technology isn’t providing enough information to make strong decisions in a timely fashion.
There is a solution, and its not necessarily one that requires a complete—and expensive—overhaul of the software platform. The key is to ensure that the system is set up in a way that aligns with operational processes and procedures to provide the right information at the right time to make the right call. Here’s how:
Outline Your Decision Making Process
To leverage any program control software to its maximum potential, it’s crucial to outline your decision making process first. A typical diagram looks like this:
Note the primary and secondary influencers. It is not enough to simply take data in its raw form and determine a correct decision. Many additional steps are required in the decision making process. The data must be placed in proper context to become usable information that, with the right understanding by program and project managers, can turn into knowledge. The user can only formulate correct decisions by applying data in the right manner.
Be Mindful of the Intended Goals
Program and project control software applications will service a wide array of constituents, each with their own priorities. Understanding the factors involved in meeting these separate priorities collectively should be the main focus. From there, interdependencies will be easy to spot and can be highlighted in a dashboard format that will allow the making of good decisions that will positively impact multiple departments.
A good example is in the invoice approval process. Typically, payments to vendors are made through an enterprise resource planning or financial accounting system. Only after doing so is the data entered into the project cost system through an expensive post-implementation integration or time consuming manual duplication of data entry.
This runs counter to the need by program managers to evaluate these expenditures against budget before cutting a check, thus preventing the potential for significant cost overruns. The right technology solution would conform to this process by ensuring that approving an invoice cannot be done unless a contract is in place and has budget available.
Test Your Business Processes Before Making Holistic Changes
Often times, program and project managers may not know all the levels of interdependencies for an initiative. This is particularly true for multi-year, multi-layered, complex bond initiatives and can be further compounded by compliance regulations. Configuring program control technology platforms is expensive and time consuming enough that it’s imperative all requirements be incorporated the first time around. Consider testing such changes on one or two new projects before going all in. Also consider migrating the raw data for historical projects to a central warehouse to avoid the costs of migrating it to the program management information systems. The data warehouse will enable integrated reporting on the whole portfolio.
The benefits of evaluating processes first and technology applications second can significantly lower program costs. It also can ensure full transparency of efficient management to the public and, in the long term, foster greater confidence and acceptance of repeat bond measures at higher ratings and lower interest rates. It can also make you the standard by which other initiatives are measured.
About the author: John Turner is the Vice President of Marketing at Gafcon, a program management firm specializing in the program management of large scale education, government and commercial construction projects. He can be reached at jturner@gafcon.com.
