Advice on selecting project management systems that work for you in a large scale setting

What does the perfect project management tool (PMT) look like?

That is the question we have analysed and worked with in Engineering companies, Construction companies and in Installation companies. Many needs are the same but their business conditions varies why the critical features of a PMT differs. Everyone is looking for a ”one stop shop” so the information about and steering of the projects can be controlled in one system. So what have we learned about this in the last few years?

1. The One stop shop vision is utopia - why?

Projects typicall rely on some applications for design work, one for registering time and accrual of costs and others for document management/control. Perhaps yet another one for estimating and one for schedule management and task allocation. So how on earth do you create a one-stop shop? It is not possible, honestly, it is not. But, do not get disillusioned. There are ways to bridge the gaps and collect information and creating a portal where you always start your daily work as a project manager. You just have to be clever when designing the architecture for it. And when doing so, think carefully about the business structure and needs for collaboration with internal as well as external stakeholders. We have been there to see it being done in a beautiful way.

2. Entering information once is not utopia - how?

When either buying and implementing a third party solution or building it from scratch a core principle to really bring value to the organisation is to ensure you support a) that infomation only needs to be entered once and b) that you are able to carry forward project master data automatically into new documents created by the project. These may seem like smaller benefits but have proven to be a great value to project managers and team members. Also, knowing that information is only entered once also builds trust in the correctness of data which is a huge win.

3. Supporting a process oriented project execution is feasible

All companies have one form of project model or another. Ensure compliance with the project model is of vital importance as the project model is built on best practice and allows companies to execute with quality and ensure profitability. Fortunately there are third party solutions that are able to provide a process driven user interface where documents and actions are presented in context of the current phase of the project. For project managers running several projects this is of great value since they quickly get a view of the status of each individual project. Not to mention the benefit for a fresh project manager taking over a project from someone that left the company.

4. Enabling seemless collaboration is tricky - but possible

They way we have seen collaboration being supported in the best way is to not build your own MS Teams copy but rather enable the project managemen system to generate a new connected MS Teams site (or other workspace for collaboration such as Autodesk Construction Cloud). The most beutiful solution is one where you allow project members to be entered in the PMT and are then transfered to the colloboration tool automatically. And changes to the team is automatically updated when changes occur. It is truly value creating for the project manager to only have to keep the project team updating in one central location.

5. Staying in control of project execution still requires Project managers

No matter how much digital support you put in the hands of a project manager they can not be replaced. Driving execution of a project can not be automated all the way even if task allocation is support. But simplifying the project managers daily life frees up time to spend on value adding activities. Such as talking to the client, ensuring the well-being of the team, identifying changes and addition opportunities and risk mitigations.

6. System solutions that meet company´s all requirements are impossible to find - why?

The way project teams are set up and what controls and actions each company believes are their secret sauce reduces the number of third party solutions that can meet those requirements. If you add on to it that all companies organize themselves slightly differently complexities arise. What we have found is that third party solution many times are poor at meeting these requirements, especially for larger organisations. For smaller companies they are normally able to meet almost all requirements. These factors explains why it almost always leads to large companies needing to develop their own solutions or, if buying from a third party, forcefully customize that solution leading to costly implementations.

7. Recommendation about how to find your bespoke project management solution

The playbook below is really the best way to approach identifying your future PMT

• Develop a clear vision statement about the future PMT and who it is for, try not to cater to many different stakeholders, rather keep the list short
• Develop the to-be project process with project administration in focus
• Develop an solution architecture ambition for how the new PMT is connected to ERP, Collaboration tools and other necessary tools.
• Decide if your will design and build it yourself or buy and customize a third party solution. Perhaps exhaust the third party options before deciding to built it yourself.
• Do a short list of the most relevant software candidates
• Persue and RFP and demo process with the vendors
• Chose the best fitting one and scope customizations needed to meet your requirements
• Contract with them
• Mobilize your best resources to provide design inputs and testing of the solution
• Pilot with a small part of the organization to make further learningsTweak the solution and load it up with all necessary templates
• Launch!