By Salvador Carlos Hernandez Ramirez

This article has been written to underscore a specific feature of PRISM 5.1 -- its effectiveness as a change management process tool, particularly when handling multiple contractors working towards the same project goal. It is based on actual experiences from current projects. Although this software has many other exceptional capabilities applicable to other project management knowledge areas, they will not be discussed here.

Introduction

Any organization executing projects in our days faces the challenge of handling change management processes that become more complex as the project progresses, mainly due to the fact that the number of organizations adding value to the same endeavor has to increase in order to get the job done on time.

Furthermore, change management agents spend most of their efforts trying to stay on top of changes by acquiring a fine understanding of the scope of work, the schedule and the cost involved so as to exercise good and fair judgment on changes as they are acknowledged and communicated to the organization.

There are three things, I believe, which must be taken into consideration when operating PRISM under the rapid-changing environment that exists in mega-projects -- a unique numbering system, regular data integrity audits and a consistent approach to communicating changes. Each will be discussed below.

 A unique numbering system for the change management process

PRISM allows the user to name any string of characters for the change ID. This is simple for small and medium size projects, where a good practice is to engage only one EPC company for the job and the commercial relationship is one client to one service provider that takes care of everything. Here the code used to identify changes is rather uncomplicated -- one where the string of characters will be modified as a consecutive sequence while changes are being captured, where N is the preceding number assigned to any given change:

• EWO-001 (Extra Work Order #1)
• EWO-002 (Extra Work Order #2)
• EWO-003 (Extra Work Order #3)
• EWO-N+1 (Extra Work Order #N+1)

Therefore, there is no need for a code that identifies which engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm is proposing a change.

However, when executing more complex and larger projects, just as when investing, it is best to diversify and segregate the scope of work into smaller, more manageable pieces. This lessens the risk exposure of the project while increasing the likelihood of completing the job in on time.

When engaging multiple EPCs, engineering and procurement are often executed from those firms' home offices, which most likely are scattered in different geographical locations. Add the fact that participant organizations have their own change management processes, concepts and software tools that are unique and applicable to their particular business needs and it becomes clear that a unique numbering system must be developed to allow the project owner to swiftly identify the source where the change is originated.

Thanks to PRISM 5.1, each company providing services will have the freedom to sequentially increase the backend string of the code.

For instance, any change coming from a company named American Global Construction Services would have a code for change requests as follows:

• AGCS-001
• AGCS-002
• AGCS-X+1

Likewise, changes coming from International European Energy Services would result in the following coding:

• IEES-001
• IEES-002
• IEES-X+1

The first four characters reflect an abbreviation of company's name, while the last four will be the sequential increment that will grow as changes are captured.

Please note that there is a maximum of eight characters at the member database level due to merging purposes. PRISM 5.1 will add another three characters to identify project number at the end of the string of the code to all changes at the time databases are merged.

When running reports after merging the data, then, the change code will be shown as the following:

• AGCS-001.151
• AGCS-002.155
• IEES-001.151
• IEES-002-156

The last three digits indicate project/database number where the change is being originated. For instance, project 151 is where the Engineering resides; on database 155 resides Procurement, and in 156 is where Construction costs are controlled.

This unique numbering system provides the organization with a logical and sequential code that is easy to implement when raising changes in PRISM; this will help to keep changes simple and organized.

Data integrity audits as part of the change management process

As a result of the high number of team members and the speed at which changes are happening in today's projects, there is a permanent sense of urgency to reflect deviations in the forecasts. Although data entry in PRISM is as easy as using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, operators often make errors when choosing the wrong control accounts, coding the wrong cost elements, excluding group codes, or writing weak descriptions that poorly explain the situation in the notes section database.

Integrity checks in PRISM are suggested on a bi-weekly basis as a general practice. While a low number of changes would need a once-a-month audit, the 100+ changes that are seen in today's projects certainly call for at least a bi-weekly audit to keep Forecasts at Completion clean and accurate.

One common mistake that these data integrity audits pick up on is internal budget transfers that were wrongly coded as Budget Allocations, which causes PRISM to report incorrectly the bottom line of Budget Transfers when executing Cost Variance reports. To fix this issue the database operator needs to reverse either the approval of the transfer back to pending or approve the corresponding amount to balance the budget out.

Audits require the active participation of those in the role of change management agents and PRISM operators alike. Often the same individual plays both roles. Otherwise, meetings between change management agents and PRISM users should aim at identifying any missing information, such as group codes, cost accounts, origin dates, and status dates. The result is an improved consistency at which changes are raised and documented. The audits lead to fewer errors in PRISM and to a team that gets accustomed over time to look for errors before even the audit is undertaken.

Consistent communication in the change management process

Due to the vast amount of options that PRISM offers to customize change management process reports, it is highly beneficial to have a set of standard reports that are systematically communicated to management.

There are about eight reports related to change management, but I like two of them the most: Scope Changes and the PCN Registry Summary.

The former offers details with respect to the cost accounts that were impacted by any given change while grouping the cost impacts into each change. The latter offers the reader a summarized version summary of the changes grouped by category -- Scope, Non Scope, Rejected, Approved, Pending and Potentials. These two reports can be summarized at different work breakdown structure, or WBS, levels to increase or reduce the level of detail shown. Moreover, they complement each other very well.

By issuing these two reports in support of month-end cost reviews, the management team gets used to reading the content and seeing the format in which the information is being presented out of PRISM; after a couple reads, they know where the information is located and how to interpret it.

 Conclusion

The above three points presented are suggestions that were acquired while observing the change management process during the evolution of mega projects that utilized PRISM 5.1 as cost control package. These points helped us maintain a well-informed, organized team structure when handling changes to the project. In addition, we were able to incorporate the changes into the Estimate at Complete, or EAC, in a shorter period of time.

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About the author: Salvador Carlos Hernandez Ramirez works at Suncor Energy. His primary role is to ensure that change management and cash flow work practices are performed consistently across several office locations. Since June 1998 he has worked on diverse EPC projects in many countries. His previous roles have included Scheduler Engineer, Project Coordinator, Internal Consultant, Project Controls Specialist and Auditor. Hernandez Ramirez holds an MBA from Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School in Leuven, Belgium; a Construction Engineering degree from the Construction Technology Institute in Mexico City, and is currently pursuing Advanced Project Management certification from Stanford University.