An effective and easy-to-use project management system is a vital asset in every project manager’s toolkit, particularly in the construction industry which does not tolerate inefficiency. This is especially the case today, with client confidence at an all-time low following some high-profile project crises, and overruns now considered the norm rather than the exception.

In an attempt to regain control, and restore public trust, AEC firms have sought to bring order to their project management activities by investing in specialist software. Unfortunately, by choosing incorrectly, some organisations have failed to see the improvements they so badly need.

Avoiding a poor fit

Often, this is because they have invested in generic project management solutions, shoehorning these onto complex and highly variable construction projects, only to find they leave too many ill-fitting yet vital areas excluded. A typical example is the firm that relies on the often very basic ‘project’ module of a standard enterprise resource planning (ERP) package. This falls down because it does not provide real-time information about the health of a project at any given time – the critical output needed for project-based engineering firms.

In other cases, the implementation and use of overly complex project management software can be cumbersome and expensive. As a result, its full functionality may never be fully exploited and the firm will fail to experience the full benefits.

Unfortunately, getting by with the average firm’s medley of Excel spreadsheets and makeshift in-house systems aren’t a realistic option either, especially given today’s competitive pressures which demand rapid, problem-free project delivery. Even with the best professionals deployed on the job, firms can rapidly come unstuck if their activities are not governed by tight scheduling, resource planning and workflow, combined with real-time project health monitoring.

Matching the tool to the job

So how does a project manager choose a system that is right for their needs? In the construction industry, the idea of managing teams and workloads using software may seem a curious proposition, yet specialist project management tools designed specifically for this trade can work wonders in turning a firm’s performance around, as users of the technology have found.

Consider some of the challenges facing the AEC industry:
· Teams are increasingly dispersed, and accounting and project management departments managed separately, in silos, with the result that key project information is fragmented and cannot be easily reconciled
· The need to be able to adapt and respond to frequently changing parameters, from changing timelines to changes in the scope of projects
· The need to be efficient and rapid, yet accurate and without compromising on quality
· The need to be able to work on different aspects of a project, or even different projects, concurrently, to make the best use of people’s time, as well as tools and materials.

The resource planning capabilities of a good project management system should enable firms to more effectively balance the process of managing project budgets and resource workloads. This enables them to enhance their profitability by reducing budget overruns and maximising the use of resources across projects.

The advantage of foresight

It’s all very well managers being able to pour over spreadsheets at monthly meetings to assess how a project is progressing against expectations, but this is a relatively passive, after-the-horse-has-bolted approach to conducting a review.

Imagine, by contrast, the benefits of a scenario in which the project manager is automatically alerted to potential issues or problems, in a timely enough fashion to allow remedial action to be taken – keeping the project on track.

This requires resource planning and financial management information to be drawn together, so that the interaction between these critical dimensions can be monitored for impact on the project.

Sadly, all too often, such information is difficult to come by. Even if the data has been recorded somewhere, the chances are it is difficult to track down, and is not up to date. (It is not uncommon for time sheets to be several weeks behind, with the result that project teams cannot present a picture of the current ‘state of health’ of a project. The best they can do, perhaps, is to cobble together a picture of how things looked 6-7 weeks ago.) As well as looking poor to senior company directors, not to mention the client, this hardly enables companies to move swiftly if they spot problems.

Early intervention

The good news is that the latest project management tools integrate this information automatically, and present it to project management teams in a highly visual way, allowing early, proactive intervention where this may be needed.

This also enables firms to keep clients in the loop much more easily, enabling project teams to better manage customer expectations, and to agree on timely trouble-shooting measures.

Better still, this highly visual representation of the latest project data can be transmitted and shared easily over the web, without requiring on-site team members or clients to have access to the same software, or even be in an office. In an ideal scenario, the information will be piped quickly to those needing to take action wherever they happen to be, on whatever mobile device they have with them.

Cross-project benefits

All of this allows the project-focused firm to more effectively leverage its greatest asset - its people – while gaining complete visibility of all projects, clients and resources.

With a consolidated, cross-project view of progress, resources and costs, project managers are also able to save time, because they are now able to make changes across projects and resource assignments, and to see the impact of those changes instantaneously.

And, once resource planning functionality is integrated with broader project management and financial management capabilities, project managers can gain from real-time insight into employee billing rates, actual labour charges and other vital information needed to bring projects in on time and on budget.

Essential features

Other features to look out for in a good project management package include the ability to view projects holistically, in an easily digestible, at-a-glance format, ideally harnessing ‘traffic-light’ indicators that flag up potential problem areas using colour coding, leaving no doubt about the interpretation of the project’s current status.

Inventory management capabilities are critical, too, allowing firms to track inventory and materials by location, value inventory for costing purposes and assign inventory to project invoices.

Reporting features must allow for the latest Earned Value Reporting criteria, while provision must be made for the latest tax requirements, financial reporting standards, electronic transfer payment standards, and specific international data entry formats.

Finally, consider the number of projects your firm typically has on the go, and whether the software enables sorting and prioritisation by client, using customer relationship management (CRM) features. It may be important, too, that the software integrates easily with existing business systems used by the company, so look out for a package based on a standard, current operating platform, not forgetting web and mobile support.

Project visualisation in action

One firm hoping to reap these business benefits through a real-time project management system that’s been designed specifically for the AEC industry, is top UK architectural practice Swanke Hayden Connell International.  The organisation is in the early phases of deploying specialist software package Deltek Vision.

By gaining fast, real-time access to critical project data, the firm will be able to manage its financial and project accounting, billing, time and expense and resource planning across its entire project portfolio, across both its Sheffield and London offices. Meanwhile, a visualisation feature gives the firm’s senior executives an at-a-glance, top-line summary, enabling them to keep abreast of developments across the firm as they are unfolding (rather than several weeks after the event).

Previously, the company had been accessing data from three different sources across the company - a cumbersome and inefficient way of doing business, according to Neil Tullis, the firm’s director of finance. Now, however, all managers will have much better project control, be able to reduce manual data entry and ultimately boost the profitability of their projects. As a result, the firm now intends to roll out the software to its offices in Paris, Moscow and Istanbul.

Managing client expectations

Being able to analyse data on the fly, spot trends and make forecasts is clearly highly valuable, too, enabling firms to quote more accurately for business, and better manage client expectations.

The right software will also give a firm a new insight into how the business as a whole is performing at any given point – across all projects, yet with the ability to drill down into specifics as required. This gives managers the ability to monitor progress based on any number of criteria - such as the number of products overall made in a given week, in addition to data on how project X and Y are performing against budgets and deadlines.

As AEC firms strive to claw back customer confidence, and separate themselves from those that have clearly lost control and which are giving the industry a bad name, the right project management tool can make a vast difference. The key is to find the tool that fits the job, and not the other way around.