What role does technology play in program management?
We are in an era where we cannot do business with paper anymore. Program management staff work on projects that may require 10 to 15 years of work, with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of parties involved. Timely and accurate information flow is highly critical for the success of these long-term projects. Technology solutions are a must for these projects.
What is a digital dashboard and how does it work?
You have to be able to see all aspects of program projects in order to evaluate the health of the program. You also want to make the information available in real-time. CDM’s PMinet (Program Management Information Network) dashboard system uses charts, graphs, and gauges to display information.
For example, the status of cost, schedule, or overall project performance indicators may be displayed like stoplights, with green, yellow, or red lights. The project completion status might be displayed with gauges, or the amount of available public/private funding in a pie chart. In the past, information resided in silos of databases. CDM’s PMinet collects program information into a single place and presents it to clients and project team members visually.
PMinet also helps program staff to quickly identify and resolve potential problems because the information is in a single and central place, readily available, and is integrated with other client/program systems. So if there is a problem, the program manager or the client can see it at a glance and then drill down to greater detail or make a call to the appropriate person right away. That is the level of awareness we are trying to bring to our projects.
Why is this degree of information sharing so important?
Projects that require program management are highly visible and information intensive. They are usually publicly funded and often have a significant effect on the environment. It is really important to give our clients a dashboard overview, a snapshot view, but also to increase transparency so that they can monitor progress.
How does PMinet make a difference to clients?
Everything is completely Web-based, so you can access the information from anywhere in the world at anytime you want with secured access permissions. If you feel restless at night, you can log in from home at 2 a.m. and see the project status. Our state-of-the-art technology also allows us to synchronize and integrate with client systems, whether they are cutting edge or legacy systems.
How might PMinet expand in the future?
Right now, most of the dashboard tools are being used by our clients. In the future, information might be able to be shared with the public. We are incorporating commercially available online maps into our PMinet solution. We mark the project locations, so residents can type in their address and see the start and end dates of the project on their street. If we are working on a sewer project, there are often traffic detours, which we can display. When we are working on people’s streets it is obviously going to affect their lives, so we want to provide them with as much information as we can.
Burcin Becerik, Ph.D., specializes in implementing online collaboration and program management systems to better monitor projects and communicate among team members.