Are you aware of the status of your project? Are your decisions based on information?
Data exploitation involves reporting, data analysis, mining and visualisation. These are terms that describe the work of providing decision-makers and stakeholders with an up-to-date snapshot of the situation from different data sources.
As a term, I think “snapshot” is an excellent way to describe the perspective and need of the information user. The term aptly expresses the goal of understanding the whole, to see the forest from the trees.
A snapshot is not a measure of one thing, or a report compiled from a single source of data. The big picture is formed by combining several different perspectives into indicators and graphs that show not only the current status of each issue, but also the longer-term change and situation in relation to the objectives.
From the perspective of a large infrastructure project, the issues to be included in the snapshot include:
- Project timetable status,
- cost recovery in relation to budget,
- the state of procurement and contracts,
- the risks of the project and the related measures and impacts,
- safety and safety impacts on third parties,
- the success of the project’s communication.
Snapshot data is compiled from several different systems
The way in which the project is managed in terms of information management is essential for the creation of a snapshot. It is normal that, for example, risk management and communication monitoring are the responsibility of consultants using the tools and methods best suited to the application area. Scheduling, site monitoring and cost management may be carried out in different information systems. The calculation of the snapshot metrics therefore requires data from several different systems, possibly managed by different organisations.
Several different systems present two technical challenges:
- How can the information be compiled into a common snapshot?
- How is data from different systems combined to calculate timely and reliable metrics?
The challenge of security and access management when data is produced and used by users from different organisations
Several organisations are involved in the projects as contractors, suppliers, consultants, but also as commissioners and other stakeholders. Different project roles have different needs for data input and also for data exploitation.
Ensuring access to the same snapshot for users from different organisations requires the project’s IT system to manage software licences and user access rights smoothly.
Access to project systems by people working in different organisations can be challenging, as they use their own organisation’s hardware, user IDs and software licences on a daily basis. Users’ devices are managed by the IT department of their own organisation.
If the project systems are located in a technically separated environment, users may have to pay for other licences for tools they may already have in their own organisation.
Defining and building information security is also a challenge. For example, combining price and contract data from different contractors across a project to calculate project-level metrics requires granularity in access management. Price data classified as confidential in contracts must not be visible to the wrong users.
Good experiences with project-specific cloud environments
Cloud environments are flexible when a project-specific technical platform for the project’s own systems is needed. Setting up a cloud-based environment is fast and does not incur costs. When different parties are involved in a project, project staff can be added to the cloud environment. Each user can be assigned rights and licences as required. This also makes it easy to allocate the costs of the project and allows the costs to be flexible over the course of the project according to the number of users.
In the future, guest access will become more common in cloud environments, so that users will be able to log in to the project’s cloud environment with their own organisation’s usernames and use the systems with their own organisation’s licenses, which they have already paid for. To some extent, this is already the case today.
In a project’s own cloud environment, all changes related to, for example, user management, security configuration and license acquisition can be implemented quickly and agilely, as only the requirements of the project define the environment.
Software as needed
Microsoft’s cloud environments offer a very comprehensive range of tools and software can be deployed as the project requires. Project Online and Microsoft Project can be used to manage schedules and costs.
Microsoft’s new Planner and Power Platform provide a wide range of tools to easily build the right set of functionalities to manage your project.
Certain aspects, such as risk management, are best handled by application-specific tools, such as Safran’s Risk Manager.
A snapshot system will not work without a good BI and reporting tool. Power BI is a comprehensive tool for collecting data from different systems and organisations, aggregating data and calculating project KPIs. Power BI can produce visual dashboards for different user roles.
Information technology is only a tool for the realisation of a snapshot. It requires a good business understanding of the information needs of different roles to develop understandable and informative metrics and graphics. The end result is a common and up-to-date understanding of the state of the project and the direction it is heading.
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Webinar on Tuesday 27 August 2024 at 10:00:
Microsoft Power Platform and Snapshot Portals 2024: Status quo and future
Welcome to a free webinar where we will discuss the current state and future plans for snapshot services for large-scale investment projects in the Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem. The webinar will provide concrete examples of how Microsoft Power BI and other Power Platform tools can improve project monitoring and information sharing with stakeholders. Register for the webinar here (opens in new window).