As the Contractor is the constructor of the project, a lot of work is typically required from the Contractor. This includes the execution, preparing the engineering submittals, monitoring the procurement activities, collecting progress data, preparing progress reports, analyzing the project performance, proposing recovery measures, and creating progress presentations – just to name a few.
For these reasons, I tend to demonstrate Power BI benefits from the Contractor’s perspective because the software provides high leverage to complete most of the work on autopilot. Other benefits also include:
- Complete progress reports in seconds.
- Helps companies save a lot of money.
- Helps the user create beautiful and effective dashboards.
- Never worry about importing an XER file again.
- Works as a powerful data analytics processor.
- Make your CV stand out from the competition.
- And so much more.
However, in this article, I will explain one of the many benefits that Power BI offers to consultants in managing projects. This benefit can help consultants add significant value to progress meetings.
Here is one scenario that we are all familiar with. You are in a progress meeting and the team is discussing the performance of a certain activity (e.g. Tiles Work). As the activity is delayed, the Contractor has been requested to increase the manpower and improve the progress over the past few weeks. The Contractor confirmed that the tiles work of two floors was completed over the past week alone. The participants became happy and moved on to discuss other progress issues. How can the Consultant / Client verify the Contractor’s statement? In other cases, the participants don’t really have the answer during the meeting and must check the project control documentation/files first to get the answer.
In my experience, it is very hard to know everything about every activity out there by heart. Moreover, projects have a progressive nature which makes it harder to determine the progress status on a specific data date without checking the relevant documents first. You will often need to review the Contractor’s progress reports or import the schedule update to verify this information. The verification process is easy but takes some time. You will probably spend the whole afternoon after the meeting is over verifying what has been discussed. In some cases, the Contractor’s statements are inaccurate but no feedback was provided during the meeting.
Power BI can easily solve this problem. The consultant can immediately access the progress data of any activity within seconds to verify the Contractor’s statement. The below image is a real-life example of what it looks like and how long it takes to perform the exercise for this purpose.
You can immediately access the activity DNA and review the following information:
- Activity % complete for this week period only.
- Cumulative activity % complete achieved over time.
- Cumulative planned % for this activity over time.
- Which week has the activity actually started and finished?
- Which week was the activity supposed to start and finish as per the Baseline Schedule?
- Add any parameters to assist you with your analysis (e.g. Earned Value, Budgeted Total Cost, Budgeted Labor Units, etc). You can view them when you hover over any column as shown in the above image.
When you have such powerful tools and analytics at your disposal, you can debate inaccurate statements during the meeting. You can also highlight new progress issues that have been overlooked or haven’t been discussed in any meeting before. As a consultant, you can now request to discuss certain issues further and refuse to close them based on inaccurate statements or missing information. This way, consultants can immediately add more value to the progress meetings and help projects move forward.
This is not the only benefit that Power BI offers consultants during progress meetings. It is only an example of how speed, efficiency and convenience can add value to the stakeholders and the project.
Power BI is a free service for the most part which is something that your company will truly appreciate. All you need is a laptop to bring to the meeting. No internet connection or Primavera P6 is required.
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Regards,
Osama Saad, MBA, PMP, PSP, PMI-SP
