PMIS 376: Managing, Monitoring, Evaluating and Reporting Workflow Tasks Performance
The execution of capital projects requires the implementation of many project management processes to ensure that project’s contractual obligations are fulfilled by the authorized project team members. For each process, there will be pre-defined document template and workflow to detail the review and approval tasks that project team members need to do to complete the process. Delays in completing the review and approval as was originally planned could provide the contractor with the grounds to claim for delays.
With the considerable volume of review and approval tasks that need to be performed on daily basis by many project team members, there will be always high chance to the risks of failing to notify a team members of assigned tasks, failing to perform assigned tasks in a timely manner, failing to perform assigned tasks as per the assigned sequence, failing to comply with the approval authorities levels, failing to report on delayed tasks and failing to delegate tasks to other project team members when needed. Those failures could delay the review and approval duration to exceed to the allowed review and approval duration stipulated in the contract. The contractor could claim for this delay and request and extension of time for the project’s completion date and associated prolongation cost.
Project management information systems (PMIS) like PMWeb can help organizations in reducing the likelihood of those risks by automating the distribution of the review and approval tasks in accordance with the predefined workflow for each process. Unlike generic collaboration solutions, PMWeb default input forms as well as user defined custom forms will have a field for the project schedule activity linked to the process for all schedule sensitive processes. The activity will be selected from the project current schedule activities list imported from Oracle Primavera P6, MS Project or PMWeb Schedule to determine the latest completion date of process review and approval before it starts impacting the project schedule.
For each PMWeb default input forms or those created using the custom form builder, a review and approval workflow will be assigned. Those company-defined process workflows could be specific to a project, portfolio of projects or the enterprise as an overall.
The review and approval tasks that are part of each workflow needs to be assigned to the roles defined for executing the capital project. A project team member can play more than role as well as a role could be specific to a project team member or to multiple project team members. Those roles will be aligned with the PMIS security and access permission levels assigned to the project team members.
Since it is quite possible that a project team member might take a vacation during the project’s execution, get replaced or simply assigned a new role, the workflow tasks assigned to him/her needs to be re-assigned to a different project team member. PMWeb allows delegating the tasks assigned to a specific user either temporarily for a predefined period or get replaced permanently.
The next step is to build the workflow for each process by dragging and dropping the roles into the sequence that needs to be followed in performing the review and approval process. Of course, PMWeb allows multiple reviewers at each step if this is needed. In addition, branches can be added to the workflow steps which will be associated with predefined rules to activate the decisions needed to initiate a branch. PMWeb also allows setting the escalation rules if a workflow get delayed by certain number of days. In addition, PMWeb allows defining Business Process Managers (BPM) who will have the authority to change the predefined workflow steps after it actually starts.
For each workflow task, PMWeb allows to define the duration needed to perform the task, it also allows determining if other PMWeb users as well as non-PMWeb users need to be carbon copied (CC) on the task notification, whether the project team member will be notified via email, on-screen message or both when he/she are due to perform a task, to whom the document needs to be resubmitted or returned when it get rejected, workflow task type, notes, multiple reviewers rules like anyone can approve or all must approve, who should be notified on the taken action and what to display for the taken action.
Should the workflow have decision branches, PMWeb allows defining the rules for those decisions. Those rules could the financial approval limit assigned to a project team member, whether a process has schedule or cost impact, who should be involved in the review and approval process depending the process category or specification section among many others.
PMWeb workflows provides different options to notify a project team member of tasks assigned to him/her. The most common approach is via email where PMWeb allows customizing the email notification message which will be received via MS Outlook or any other selected email platform. The task notification email will include a hyperlink to the project management process to allow accessing the relevant project management process. PMWeb email notification allows attaching forms, report and other documents to the email to allow the project team member to review all relevant and supportive documents even when the project team has no direct access to PMWeb platform or even internet connectivity after downloading the emails.
In addition, all tasks that need to performed by each project team member will be automatically displayed on PMWeb home page when the project team member logs into PMWeb. The user can click on each workflow task to drilldown to the relevant project management process where he/she can review and take the desired action.
Although PMWeb is a zero-foot print application which means that all PMWeb modules and processes can be accessed from any mobile device, PMWeb mobile app provides the option to access and action all assigned workflow tasks, either online or offline. The mobile app provides a lighter version for those on the move to review, be in locations with limited internet connectivity and need to take timely actions on their assigned tasks.
The actual details of all workflow tasks actioned by the project team members will be automatically captured on each transaction. This allows viewing all actions taken including actual dates of those actions as well as comments made by the project team while taking those actions. The details of those actions can be also printed on the output form which is needed to enforce formal communication.
By having details of all workflow review and approval tasks for every project management process transaction captured in a single repository, the organization can generate a consolidated report to monitor and evaluate the performance of the project team members. The report will highlight due as well as delayed review and approval tasks which can be grouped by process, project team member among others. The report can be configured to show delayed workflow tasks in red, while those that are most late in cyan and those that are still within acceptable time frame in green.
When there is a need to justify a claim submission or counterclaim for delayed approval the project team needs to analyze the details of actual review and approval dates for the processes under question. PMWeb can be used to create a report that will display the planned and actual dates and durations for the processes under review. This will help in comparing the variance between the actual duration took to review and approve the process with the allowed review and approval duration as stipulated in the contract agreement for that particular process type. In addition, the report will display the project schedule activity linked to the process under review along with the as-planned and as-built-dates for the activity.