Failure in Construction Due to Ineffective Project Management Information Systems

2. Essam Mohamed Lotffy, PMP, CCP
MEP-Construction Manager, Trojan Holding
P.O. Box 7856, Abu Dhabi
UAE
esam_mese@hotmail.com
Frank R. Parth, MS, MSSM, MBA, PMP
CEO Project Auditors
P.O. Box 80688, Rancho Santa Margarita,
CA, USA
fparth@projectauditors.com

3. Essam, Biography
• Essam Lotfi is a Construction Manager-MEP at Trojan general contracting in Abu Dhabi,
UAE.
• BSc. in Electrical Engineering, Power Distribution through Zagazig University, Egypt
since 2001. Pursued and achieved his certificates in Project Management (PMP®) from
PMI-USA since 2013, and certificate in Cost Management (CCP®) from AACE
International since june-2014.
• 14 years extensive hands on experience in various aspects of projects and project
management within maintenance, power distribution networks monitoring and
supervision and construction projects as well.
• Authored, Co-Authored at PMWorld Library, PWLJ.
• Volunteered at PMI-Global Congress EMEA-2014 – Dubai, 5th to 8th May 2014.
• Technical presentation at PMI-AGC 15th International conference –Bahrain 19th to 21st
January 2015.
• Technical presentation at 54th AACEi-SF Bay Annual Western Winter Workshop, Lake
Tahoe, Nevada, USA
• Independent Project Management and cost engineering/Control Instructor.

4. Frank, Biography
• Frank Parth, MS, MSSM, MBA, PMP is the President of Project Auditors LLC, and a past
member of PMI’s Board of Directors.
• After 15 years in aerospace designing satellite systems he founded Project Auditors LLC
in 1994.
• He has created PMOs and designed effective project management processes for
multiple organizations around the world.
• Mr. Parth is a guest lecturer at the University of Southern California Marshall School of
Business, the University of California, Irvine, and at the American University of Sharjah
(AUS) in the UAE.
• He has co-authored or contributed to multiple books in project management, has
published numerous papers in project management and systems engineering, and is a
regular speaker at PMI Congresses and AACE Conventions.
• He is actively involved with PMI, serving on local and national committees and was
PMI’s Project Manager for the Standard for Program Management, 2nd edition
published in 2008. He is currently a core member of the team developing the 6th
edition of the PMBOK Guide.

6. • What is a PMIS?
• Why PMIS in Construction Projects?
• What is the impact of Ineffective PMIS?
• How to Establish an effective PMIS?

8. Manually or
Automatically
Integrated
Tools
Techniques
An information system consisting of the tools and techniques used to gather, integrate, and
disseminate the outputs of project management processes. It is used to support all aspects of the
project from initiating through closing, and can include both manual and automated systems. As
of PMBOK 5th Edition

9. Initiating Planning Executing
Monitoring
&
Controlling
Closing

10. What
to Do
When
to Do
Communicating
work directions
in construction
projects

11. Risk.
Completion
Forecast.
Overall
Project
status.

12. • Unfortunately most of project managers in
construction projects operate on the philosophy that
if some information’s is good, more better.
• More Dial, More color, more data on screen to point
where there is so much clutter on the dashboard.
• Performing organizations should have a pre-defined
for exactly what data to be communicated and
how to be communicated through the project life
cycle.

13. Is you organization using PMIS in plan
and control capital construction
projects?

15. • The core competency of a project manger through
the construction project life cycle is to assure proper
flow of information to all project stakeholders in the
most effective and efficient manner possible
– This is where the value of an effective arises.
• Communicating the required work on a construction
site is of much more immediate importance than
regularly scheduled updates to higher level
management
– A good PMIS does both
Why PMIS in Construction Projects?

16. • Management in the performing organizations tends
to assume that the information from the project
manager is accurate and complete.
• Unfortunately this assumption continues until they
become aware of a major problem on the project.
Effective
Project management Information System is the right
approach to assure proper flow of information
through the construction project life cycle.
Why PMIS in Construction Projects?

17. • The value of adopting at the beginning of a
construction project:
– With a project manager can communicate the
required works to project teams properly.
– With a project manager can give the management
and high level stakeholders accurate reports.
– With project/program mangers can have a robust
data base of all related documents required to control the
construction project.
Why PMIS in Construction Projects?

18. Core Element of is Proper
communication Flow
Proper Communication Management
Process

19. Communication Management Process
Identify Message
Content (WHAT)
Identify Message
Audience (WHO)
Identify Message
Timing (WHEN)
Identify Message
Format (HOW)
Create Message
Approve
Message
Obtain Message
Feedback
Communicate
Message
Message
Approved
?
YESNO

20. • The flow chart illustrate how the information
is identified and delivered to project’s team
without discrepancies.
• A single source of information.
• A single source of approval before distribution
to avoid wasted or duplicated efforts.
Communication Management Process

21. “Ineffective communications is the primary contributor to project failure
one third of the time and had a negative impact on project success more
than half the time.”
Communication Management Process

22. What is the impact of Ineffective PMIS?
Lack of Information management system
Lack of
availability
of integrated
information.
Improper
communicati
on process
Project
Failure

23. Lack of Information management system
Communicating the
information's
between team
members thru
emails without any
centralized
database
Control
logs
RFI
Shop
drawing
logs
Procurement
logs
Subcontractor
logs
Daily
correspondences

24. Lack of Information management system
“High-performing organizations (those completing an average of 80 percent or more of projects
on time, on budget and within goals) create formal communications plans for nearly twice as
many projects as their lower performing counterparts (which complete fewer than 60 percent of
projectson time, on budget, and within goals).”

25. Lack of Information management system
• A missing or a poorly designed information management system will
affect the project success and increase the risk and threats to the
performing organization and their strategic plans.
• The relation between the project’s information management system
and construction collaboration arises.
Construction collaboration

26. Construction collaboration
Performing
organization’s
team members
Project’s
stakeholders

27. Construction collaboration

28. Construction collaboration
• The main feature of construction collaboration is that it
facilitates the flow of information's and proper communications
by:
• replacing the project data that is being held by individuals
with shared centralized and robust storage of data as
shown in the previous slide.
• sharing the information that is being required by project
stakeholders with relevant authorization level.

29. How to Establish an effective PMIS?
• The fact is that any performing organization should have an
effective project information management system that provides a
multi-project analysis and reporting capability to enable top
management to compare project actual status to the baseline.
• An integrated and comprehensive project information
management system improves the project’s information flow and
accuracy to eliminate redundant files and poor data.

30. How to Establish an effective PMIS?
• This will consequently reduce the time and effort being spent to
obtain timely and accurate status.
• The following cause-effect diagram illustrates the requirement to
have an Integrated Information management system globally
accessible across all stakeholders with regular updates and data.

31. How to Establish an effective PMIS?

32. How to Establish an effective PMIS?
• This diagram shows that the main challenge for any performing organization is to
have a cohesive project .
• should be globally accessible by all project stakeholders with regular
updates to assure the project success.
• is often thought of as just a software tool that the organization buys to
track schedule.
• should be treated as a system consists of tools and processes to collect
data, analyze it, and communicate it effectively.

33. How to Establish an effective PMIS?
• The Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering
(AACE) in Recommended Practice RP60R-10 offers strong advice
on how the project controls approach should be designed and
implemented.

34. How to Establish an effective PMIS?
• Assure effectiveness of .
• Assure global accessibility of real time data.
• Assure transparency, consistency and velocity.
• Assure knowledge expansion.

35. Assure effectiveness of
• Introduce interactive tools.
• Development of Behaviors.
• Creation of communication cube.

36. Assure global accessibility of real time
data
• Design information system compatible with organization
systems and new data warehouse.
• Integrate legacy tools.
• Roll-out to all stakeholders.
• Comprehensive training to all relevant stakeholders.

37. Assure transparency, consistency and
velocity
• Establish reporting tools.
• Establish Different information sharing tools.

38. Assure knowledge expansion
• Establish business intelligence channels.
• Scan & Filter business intelligence information.

39. Conclusion
The goal of this technical paper was to gain a better understanding of the
effectiveness of a project management information system (PMIS) in construction
and its contribution in adequate decision making using proper information flow
throughout the project stakeholders, a core competency for any project manager.
The study was tending to assure that the most significant approach is the setting
up and effective project management information system (PMIS) to avoid spending
more time communicating rather than managing. Every performing organization
should have standards and per-defined format for project data presentations to
prevent project manager’s form implementing best light, glossing selectivity
reports.