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Application of Integrative and Predictive Project Planning and Control Systems

This second key concept of the project management discipline requires that

• Each project be planned and controlled on an integrated basis;
• Including all contributing functional areas or organizations;
• Through all of the project life cycle phases: conception, definition, design, development/manu-facture/construct, installation/initial use/operation, post-completion;
• Including all the elements of information (schedule, cost and technical) pertinent to the situation, together with proven earned value[13] techniques with cost and schedule variance reports; and
• Using currently available Web-based project management software systems.

Integrative means that all phases of the project and all the elements of information mentioned above are logically linked together. Predictive means that the system forecasts what will happen in the future based on the current plans, and estimates, with the actual physical progress and reported expenditures constantly updating the schedule and cost baseline for the future forecasts.

Most organizations are faced with the need to plan and execute many projects simultaneously using common resource pools, creating the need to use one common project planning and control information system for all projects. Effective application of the powerful computer-supported project planning and control systems available today requires using one integrated system (usually consisting of project-oriented subsystems that are properly linked together) for each and every project within the organization to:

1. Define and control systematically the project's objectives and scope.
2. Evaluate and proactively manage individual project risks together with the aggregate project portfolio risks.
3. Define and control the specification, quality, configuration and quantity of intermediate and final products (or deliverables) of the project.
4. Systematically define and control the work to be carried out using the project/work breakdown structure (P/WBS) approach.
5. Estimate the labor, material and others costs associated with the project's deliverable products and related work elements, and each summary element in the P/WBS.
6. Plan and control the sequence and timing of the project deliverables and related work elements using a top level project master schedule plus an appropriate hierarchy of schedules.
7. Authorize and control the expenditure of funds and work hours required to execute the project.
8. Provide the information„regarding both a) actual progress and expenditures and b) forecasts in the future„required by project managers, department managers, functional task leaders and work package leaders on a timely and reasonably accurate basis.
9. Continually evaluate progress and predict and mitigate problems with quality, cost, schedule and risk using earned value project management methods.
10. Report to management and customers on the current status and future outlook for project quality, cost and schedule completion, including post-completion reports.

With regard to the earlier statement that only one corporate system be used, there are times when customer demands or other factors may require that a specific project planning and control system that is different from the corporate system be used for a particular project. In such cases the different system must be capable of linking with and providing summary information to the corporate system so that all project information, and particularly the time-related resource data, can be viewed on an integrated basis for the total company.

An Overview of Project Management Systems: There are many ways to define and depict a project management system. Cleland[14] has defined an overall project management system consisting of five subsystems (planning, information, control, human, and facilitative organizational subsystems) and two additional elements (techniques and methodologies, and cultural ambiance). Tuman[15] presents detailed descriptions and analyses of project management information and control systems from several perspectives, reflecting his long experience in developing and implementing computer-based systems for project planning and control. He defines a "project management and control system" of broad scope, as shown in Table 3, including both technical and risk information and control systems, in addition to a project information and control system.

However one defines such systems they all consist of

• documents (containers of information) and
• procedures and software systems for preparation, maintenance, preservation, transmittal and utilization of the documents that are used for creating, planning, evaluating and executing projects within a given organization.

Table 3. Definition of a Project Management Information and Control System [16]

Table 4 presents a summary of the documents typically used for project planning, authorizing, controlling and reporting. Procedures must exist for the preparation and use of each of these documents. Computer software systems incorporating essentially all of these documents and procedures have proliferated within the past ten years and have made it possible to use one integrated information system for managing all projects within the organization.

Table 4. Summary of documents for project planning, authorizing, controlling and reporting.[18]

Key Integrative Roles

Integrated Project Team-Working

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