Project controls — What is it?
When asked what is that I do, often times I am unable to give a short answer without getting a confused look. I notice the confusion especially when I use the term “project controls” in my response. This made me search on the internet on what it is people think of when “project controls” are mentioned and how this term is defined. Though not all of them, some of my search results were confusing as well. Here is my quest to formulate what project controls are, their role and their importance in today’s world.
So what are project controls?
Let me tell you a story. In the 1800s, there lived a Maharaja (The King) in the kingdom of Travancore (Modern day Kerala, India) who was very fond of travelling. Having been inspired by Gothic Architecture from many of his European trips, the King invited a British Architect to design a new traveler’s lodge in his nation. Excited about the royal opportunity, the Architect accepted the invitation. Within a fortnight, the Architect visited and studied many palaces and other traditional buildings, temples and forts across India to understand the culture and ethnic design elements before starting his new design.
Meanwhile, in order to accomplish this project, a Minister (Project Manager) was duly appointed who was in charge of executing the royal vision. The minister called for a meeting with other ministers, advisors, master builders, the Maharajah himself and the Architect. At the meeting:
1. The King shared his vision for this project and a proposed date to open the project for the public.
2. The Architect presented his conceptual design.
3. The group discussed sustainable design and construction strategies for the project.
4. The group was on board and fully aware of the scope, and understood their individual responsibilities and the deadline.
This event essentially marked the NTP (Notice to Proceed) for our Royal project.
While the Architect made progress on his design, the Maharaja’s minister requested one of the advisers for assistance who was helping him on other projects in the Kingdom as well. Having grasped the Royal scope of work, the advisor started his job meeting with the Architect to understand his initial design, what it entailed, and analyzed how it met the king’s vision and sustainability goals. After thoroughly studying the design, he:
1. Identified and estimated the quantity of materials and the number of man-hours to build it.
2. Looked at other concurrent projects in the Kingdom to understand available man-power.
3. Referred to historical weather data and analyzed the current political situation in the Kingdom to gauge risks.
4. Verified that the King’s proposed grand opening was realistic and feasible.
5. Used his analysis to factor in contingency for time, materials and man-power before creating the budget, a time line (schedule) along with milestones spanning across the project.
6. Set an internal milestone 3 weeks prior to the King’s proposed grand opening.
The advisor presented his findings to the Minister. The minister scrutinized the findings, identified the main elements and risks, and made corrections and edits based on his expertise. This essentially became part of the Minister’s project management plan. So now we had a set date and duration of 14 months for the project. In order to meet the Royal deadline, the master builder was asked to mobilize and break ground while the design was in progress. Simultaneously, the Minister checked on the design progress and got the Architect’s buy-in to start building the project. He scheduled periodic site meetings with the rest of the team to monitor progress and discussed outstanding issues if any. Remember, the advisor was also part of these progress meetings.
2 months had passed by. The design was now 80% complete and the master builder was working at full steam. At this time, the Maharajah requested an update from the minister. The minister along with our advisor’s support explained to the Maharajah the current state of affairs as it pertained to the completed design, ongoing construction and the amount of money spent on labor and materials. (The Dollar was used as the currency for the purpose of narrating this story)
Design Progress
Construction Progress
4 months had now passed and the Maharaja requested a performance and forecast update. With his current knowledge of concurrent projects, present performance of the master builder, the weather and the political scenario, the advisor forecasted 9 more months and $60,000 more to complete the project.
During the next course of 9 months, the minister, advisor and the rest of his team monitored progress, assessed the quality of work, met with the rest of the team, and continuously improved the action plan to mitigate risks and stay on track without compromising the quality of work.
After all this, did they make the deadline?
The advisor promised what they could deliver and delivered more than what they had promised. The project was now complete 2 weeks before the scheduled deadline and on budget. The Maharajah was happy and so were his subjects. :)
In this story, the minister played a wise project manager’s role and used his past experiences and paid attention to the current performance to effectively manage the project. All that the advisor and his team did in this story can be collectively called “project controls.” Project controls is not just a job title but a collection of multiple project functions encompassing:
1. Project planning
2. Design analysis
3. Labor and material estimating
4. Scheduling
5. Risk analysis
6. Monitoring, measuring key performance indices (KPI) and
7. Forecasting
Project controls are part of successful project management. Depending on the size of the project and the work environment, this could be a few peoples’ jobs to a several people multi-disciplinary function. Be it construction, oil and gas, IT, telecommunications, infrastructure, transportation, automobiles, manufacturing or pharmaceuticals, project controls play an indispensable role though it may be questionable on how many are effectively using it. In short, it is a support function within any industry to plan, execute, manage and mitigate cost and schedule issues and any risk events that may impact the successful completion of a project. If you think about it, each of us use project controls on a daily basis even in our personal lives and personal projects, though we don’t call it project controls.
Now that we know what project controls are, why are they important? Starting from predesign through planning, execution, monitoring, closeout and operation, project controls play a vital role throughout the project life cycle. At the planning stage, they:
1. evaluate scope
2. identify risks
3. estimate labor and materials and,
4. prepare a baseline schedule
This effectively becomes a cost and resource loaded baseline schedule. Planning is half the battle. As the saying goes, “proper planning prevents poor performance (The 5 Ps).”
During the execution and monitoring phase, a project controls specialist keeps track of the scope, cost and time to analyze:
1. how much work you earned (earned value) vs. how much work you planned (planned value)
2. where you are at the present (actuals), compared to where you’re supposed to be (planned)
3. what lies ahead that can affect the project (2 week look ahead, potential risk elements)
4. how scope change can affect time and cost (Time Impact Analysis and change management)
5. where you’re going to end up (forecast), compared to where you said you would end up.
Effective Project Controls through tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) provides an early warning system on known and unknown parameters allowing the management to implement corrective actions before it’s too late to meet the end goals.
Are there software programs for project controls?
Depending on which project controls element is used, there are plenty of options for cost estimation, risk analysis, scheduling, forensics, etc. It doesn’t matter which tool you use. What matters is how you use the tool, whether you pay attention to the indicators and what corrective actions you take.
So, what is it that I do for a living? :) Apart from being active with Sustainability education at GBRI, in my current position as a consultant at MTA Capital Construction, one of my main responsibilities is to track and prepare the key performance indicators (KPI) dashboard for the East Side Access (ESA) program. Designed to bring the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) into the Grand Central Terminal (GCT), the $11B East Side Access is one of the biggest transportation projects in the United States undertaken by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
Interested in learning more about Key Performance Indicators? Read the next article “KPIs: Show Me the Numbers” or watch GBRI’s course on project controls and KPIs.
As you can see, this story was narrated through the eyes of a project controls person. What’s your story? Do you effectively track your project? Do you know the status of your project in terms of cost and schedule? What tools do you use?
Originally Published at LinkedIn.com
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