Global Project Controls and Management Systems: Adapting Your PCMS Program for Success

This document presents a set of tools and resources to help organizations assess their overall project controls and management systems (PCMS). CII established the Global Project Controls and Management Systems Research Team (RT) 244 to provide an update to CII members. As part of this review, RT 244 reviewed a number of project controls practices, conducted a survey of CII members’ project controls implementation performance across a range of functions and project phases, and developed a suite of tools and guidance to aid with project controls implementation. This CII Implementation Resource contains a portion of that guidance with respect to seven project controls functions as well as 13 broad trends that are having an impact on PCMS implementation. The research team also produced three companion resources: PCMS Interfaces Management Tool, Best Practice Forecasting, and Learning and Development for PCMS. Each of these is a stand-alone resource, but when combined with this document the group of four publications presents a broad set of tools and recommendations with which organizations can comprehensively address their PCMS programs.

A central finding of RT 244 is that project controls principles remain fundamentally sound and unchanged; what has changed in the past few decades are the project and industry conditions that affect execution. RT 244 developed a set of 13 trends affecting PCMS, explored their implications, and developed a consolidated set of recommendations for improvement. These trends and recommendations are contained in this publication and provide useful starting points from which both to assess project controls systems and to target performance improvements. Additional resources for specific recommendations are detailed and reviewed.

The set of trends and recommendations is accompanied by the PCMS Functions Self-Diagnostic Assessment Tool. Seven PCMS functions (estimating, planning, scheduling, cost control, change management, progressing, and forecasting) are defined and a set of evaluation questions is associated with each function. These questions are presented in a simple Yes/No answer format, where Yes represents good practice and No suggests an action item for improvement. The set of questions across the seven functions provides a detailed review of functional performance; questions are meant to expose typical weaknesses and hence most companies taking the assessment will likely find several areas for improvement. The set of functional questions together with the broader trends and recommendations provide a holistic assessment and recommendation program that will help organizations achieve superior PCMS performance.

The recommendations discussed below reflect the research work of RT 244, which consisted of 16 industry members with a combined 489 years of experience, 330 of were devoted to project controls. Recommendations were developed in the context of existing project controls literature and were externally validated with industry experts outside the research team.