The flow of information in projects can be a significant driver to project success, or to project failure. As in all projects, there are different layers of communications and each requires its own approach, skills, and tools. Communicating work directions to the construction crews is simply telling them what to do, when to do it, and identifying other parallel work that may impact their own. The construction trades are generally skilled enough they can determine for themselves how to do the job.

1. Failures in Construction Due to Ineffective Project
Management Information Systems
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
Introduction
“Companies risk $135 million for every $1 billion spent on a project, and new research
indicates that $75 million of that $135 million (56 percent) is put at risk by ineffective
communications, indicating a critical need for organizations to address communications
deficiencies at the enterprise level.”
The flow of information in projects can be a significant driver to project success, or to project failure. As
in all projects, there are different layers of communications and each requires its own approach, skills,
and tools. Communicating work directions to the construction crews is simply telling them what to do,
when to do it, and identifying other parallel work that may impact their own. The construction trades are
generally skilled enough they can determine for themselves how to do the job.
Communicating information to the owners or financers requires a completely different approach. Their
interests are in the overall project status, completion forecasts, and risks. Project managers in all fields
and perhaps more so in construction, are neither trained in effective communications nor do they have the
time to identify the detailed information needs of all stakeholders and create custom formats for each on.
So how do they approach communications? They use the default reports built into Primavera, Prism,
Aurora, or whatever the scheduling tool is.
Rather than spend precious time customizing the reports, project managers operate on the philosophy that
if some information is good, more is better. More dials, more color, more data on the screen to the point
where there is so much clutter on the dashboard that it is impossible to tell quickly the status of the
project.
Performing organizations should have, but virtually never do have, a pre-defined format for exactly what
data is presented and how it is shown. This lack of standards allows the project manager to selectively
report the project in the best light, glossing over schedule slippages, cost overruns, and increasing risks. If
the project is high priority or appears to be running into problems the situation is made worse by upper
management asking for more and more reports and more frequent updates without adding the resources
needed to implement the change reporting requirements.

2. The Project Information Management System (PMIS)
PMI describes the PMIS as follows: The project management information system … provides access to
tools, such as a scheduling tool, a work authorization system, a configuration management system, and
information collection and distribution system, or interfaces to other online automated systems. It consists
of the tools and techniques used to gather, integrate, and disseminate the outputs of project management
processes. It supports all aspects of the project from initiating through closing, and can include both
manual and automated systems.
A core competency for a project manager throughout a construction project is to assure that the proper
information is flowing to the stakeholders in the most effective and efficient manner possible. In the
middle of a construction project this is not a high priority for a typical construction project manager when
day to day work has to be juggled and arranged. He, or she, will simply utilize whatever approaches were
quickly decided on at the beginning of the project. To a person in this position, communicating with the
trades working on site is of much more immediate importance than a schedule update to higher level
management.
Unfortunately the performing organization often pays little more attention to the information being
presented them than the project manager does. Management tends to assume that the project manager is
giving them accurate, unbiased, and thorough information. This assumption continues until they become
aware of a major problem on the project that they feel they should have known about earlier. At this point
their trust in the project manager is lost and they will start demanding additional information, which
forces the project manager to spend more time communicating and less time managing.
A much better approach is to set up an effective project management information system (PMIS) at the
beginning of the project that the project manager can easily utilize and that gives the management in the
performing organization the information they need. If the PMIS is set as a standard then they are
receiving consistent information from all projects and that it provides them the early warning data they
need for effective decision making.
The PMIS, which can be managed centrally by the PMO for all projects or dedicated to a specific
program, should be both thorough and efficient. It should include not only regular status reports but all
documentation related to the project, keep them under configuration management, and make them
accessible to all who are authorized access to them. For a construction project this can include
architectural and engineering drawings as well as shop drawing control logs, procurement control logs,
subcontractors’ prequalification’s control logs, change control logs, RFI logs, etc.
Project management academics, theorists, and bloggers know what should be done. Experienced project
managers also know how to effectively communicate. But when a construction project is started out there
is little time or priority to setting up an effective PMIS. The project manager is willing to adopt whatever
the controlling organization already has in place. But unless there is an effective PMO to develop and
maintain the PMIS, it often does not exist. Management expects the project managers to know how to
communicate, but they are often much too busy to spend time developing the most efficient approach for
their project. There are other priorities.
The end result is that the existing PMIS is often not used effectively and communications on a project
ends up being very poor. Figure 1, shows a proper communications flow and should be the core element
of a successful project information system.

3. Figure (1)
The communications flow illustrated here demonstrates how the information is first identified and how it
is delivered to the project’s team members without any discrepancies. A single source of the information
should be identified and this will vary depending on the information being communicated. There should
be a single source of approval before information is distributed to avoid duplication or wasted efforts.
This avoids the common problem of different sources of information delivering different messages. The
same message should be delivered whether the information comes from schedule reports, Earned Value
reports, weekly budget reports, or status meetings.
“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.”

4. Lack of Information Management System and collaboration
As mentioned in the previous part of this technical paper about Information management system and as
illustrated in Figure (1), we have to iterate again that performing organization and project manager
accordingly should ensure that all project stakeholders are using up to date information’s, By giving all
project team members the best quality information when they need it, team members become more
productive and are able to support project success without loss of control. A lack of availability of an
integrated information system with proper communication process will lead to the lack of the information
provided by it which consequently impact the project success and lead to its failure. A glaring example of
lack of information management system is that most of project team members use email to communicate
project updates and data like shop drawing control logs, procurement control logs, subcontractors’
prequalification’s control logs, RFI logs, etc., and the biggest complaint here is that project information
resides in each project team member’s email box, so if new information or updates relevant to any of the
aforementioned control logs exist there will not be any centralized view of the current information.
From the above it is obvious without a well defined communication process and project information
management system to regulate project information and communication this will contribute to project
failure. The following findings will show the effect of lack of projects’ 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 projects on time, on budget, and within goals).”
It is also obvious that performing organizations lose significant amounts of money due to ineffective
communication. A missing or poorly designed information management system will affect the project
success and increase the risk and threats to the performing organization and their strategic plans.
Here a question arises about the relationship between the project’s information management system and
“Construction collaboration” terminology.
Effective construction collaboration between the project’s stakeholders and/or performing organization
team members provides a full sharing of project information and knowledge. Sharing information will
replace the project data held by individual team members with a centralized and robust storage of data
and information related to the project. The data can now be accessed by stakeholders with the appropriate
authorization level. The main feature of effective construction collaboration is the communication and
information management that it facilitates.
Establishing an effective project information management system
As mentioned in earlier sections, a project manager usually spends more effort to introduce a variety of
colored reports to top management to show-off his communications abilities without giving timely and
accurate reports that reflect how the project is progressing, neglecting the fact that all these silly reports

5. are consuming a lot of effort by the project’s team members which consequently impacts project progress
and ultimately can lead to project failure.
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 the project’s 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 and consequently reduces time and effort being spent to obtain timely and accurate status.
Figure (2) shows a cause-effect diagram illustrating the requirement of having an Integrated Information
management system globally accessible across all stakeholders with regular updates and data.
Figure (2)
This diagram shows that the main challenge for any performing organization is to have a cohesive project
information management system that globally accessible by all project stakeholders with regular updates
to assure the project success. The objective is to have an effective communication process.
A PMIS is often thought of as just a software tool that the organization buys to track schedule. But it is
actually a system of tools and processes to collect data, analyze it, and communicate it. Schedule and cost

6. tracking tools are part of it, but so are the project manager’s weekly status updates, the IT infrastructure in
the organization, and the communications tools. If the project manager puts on a hard hat and walks the
construction site to collect information on current status, he’s collecting information that will be fed into
the software tools and analyzed to understand where the project is. The earned value management reports
are part of data analysis and reporting.
As in any system, the more effectively the tools and the manual process work together the more effective
the entire system is. A construction project manager that is using the desktop version of MS Project 2007
to manage a set of 5,000 activities will quickly find the tool is completely inadequate for the job. The
tools, processes, and approaches must be appropriate for the project’s size and complexity.
The PMIS is part of the project’s overall control approach. While the project manager should take
advantage of the tools available in the organization he should be most interested in making the PMIS as
effective as possible for the project. 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. The right tools, data, and processes are crucial in successfully managing
projects.
Conclusion
The goal of this technical paper was to gain a better understanding of effectiveness of project
management information system (PMIS) in construction, and its contribution in adequate decision making
using proper information flow throughout the project stakeholders, which is 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.

7. About Authors:
Essam Lottfy PMP, CCP is a Construction Manager-MEP at Trojan general contracting in Abu Dhabi,
UAE. He received his BSc. degree in Electrical Engineering (Major) and Power Distribution (Minor)
through Zagazig University, Zagazig, 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. He does claim 13 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. During his employment tenure with his past employers
Suez Canal Electrical Distribution Company, United Engineering & Trading Company – ENTRACO,
and TROJAN General Contracting, he has successfully managed various projects, in addition enhancing
the process capabilities and organization performance as well. Essam Lotffy is actively pursuing potential
opportunities in the project management field, where a room of growth and opportunities for
advancement exists.

8. Frank Parth, MS, MSSM, MBA, PMP is the President of Project Auditors LLC, a past member of PMI’s Board of
Directors, and is currently on the core management team for PMI’s PMBOK Guide version 6. Mr. Parth brings 35
years experience in project and program management to his teaching and consulting work.
He had a first career designing satellite systems for the US government and in 1993 he set up a consultancy and
began consulting in program management and systems engineering. He has created PMOs for several Fortune 1000
companies and for companies internationally. He consults to clients in multiple industry sectors, including telecom,
construction, high tech, chemical processing, utilities, government, healthcare, mining, financial services, and
aerospace. He is currently supporting Saudi Arabia’s Saline Water Conversion Corporation in improving their
project management processes and in developing a PMO.
Mr. Parth teaches project management courses throughout the world and has taught over 4000 students worlwide in
preparing for the PMP certification exam. He is a guest lecturer at USC’s Marshall School of Business, the
University of California, Irvine, and at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the UAE, is an accomplished
international speaker, and does pro bono teaching of project management in Vietnam.
He has co-authored or contributed to multiple books in project management and has published numerous papers in
project management and systems engineering. 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