Seminar - Kit Manivong - Intelligent Project Management Information System (IPMIS)

Wednesday, August 6, 2003, 1.10 - 1.50 pm
Civil Engineering Lecture Room 3

Abstract

The aim of this research is to develop an experimental intelligent project management information system that will facilitate holistic decision making on capital projects. The objectives to be achieved are as follows:


To conduct fundamental research on multi-criteria decision making in capital projects, and to develop an hierarchical decision model that places benefits to stakeholders and community interests at the core of decision making, in addition to the usual resource and financial considerations;
To develop an intelligent function - such as learning functional relationships between the different level variables and indicators of the decision model, monitoring project information and associating patterns of data with opportunities/risks; and
To embed the decision model and the intelligent function into a project management information system to demonstrate the effectiveness of holistic decision making.


Capital projects, such as infrastructure, mining and industrial projects, are typically managed in 3 distinct phases: formulation (or conceptualisation), implementation (including design, construction and commissioning) and operation (including decommissioning and recycling). While some projects, such as software or R&D may have different characteristics compared to capital projects, the reality is that all must go through an evolutionary process requiring repeated cycles of planning and analysis.
Traditionally projects have been planned by promoters with the assistance of consultants, implemented through a variety of delivery methods, normally employing independent contractors. These approaches may well work if the original assumptions and the environment surrounding the project remain unchanged, if all the parties throughout the separate project phases understand and endeavour to satisfy the promoter's needs without losing vital information as the project passes from one phase to the next, and if the community and stakeholders' interests are reflected in the project formulation, development and operation phases. However, history has shown this is seldom the case. Often, information integration is lacking, with decisions made during the early phase not reflecting the downstream construction and operational requirements, or errors creeping in due to the dispersion of responsibility and differing perceptions and objectives of the parties involved, or changes occurring in technology, the market and business climate that detract from the utility of the eventual facility.

One major weakness in the traditional approach has concerned poor inclusion of the stakeholders (defined as those who have an interest in the project, even though they may not have a direct contractual relationship with the project sponsors). Stakeholders are often considered a nuisance and their interests treated as constraints standing in the way of achieving project objectives. Consequently, projects have suffered serious set backs due to political, social, environmental and community challenges and through statutory processes. Despite their vital influence on the eventual fate of a project these factors are often ignored by typical project management systems, which tend to concentrate on the management of time and capital expenditure, not on these pertinent issues.

Project failures are not just related to experiencing delays or cost overruns as typically portrayed in the project management literature or the media. More significantly, failures tend to affect the relevant commercial and operational fundamentals, project fitness for purpose, adaptability, acceptance by the community and users groups and other vital characteristics. This explains why leading researchers and practitioners have sought to re-engineer project planning and implementation processes using information pertinent to the whole of life and employing integrated criteria for decision making throughout project life cycle.

The IPMIS is a decision tool and has to operate in real time or when a significant change in the input variables or base information is experienced. The project model is to process the entire information on a holistic basis aiding in identification of sub-optimal solutions or areas of risks or other violations. The prime focus of the project manager is to manage the project towards optimal outcomes, while considering not only the interest of project promoters but equally the interests of the host community and wider stakeholders. The criteria for optimisation are both quantitative (such as financial criterion of return on investment) and qualitative (such as environmental, social, sustainability, quality), so project decisions must be judged from a variety of angles, not just quantitative financial analysis. It must also address the whole of life information, not just the implementation phase. The project model thus consists not only of hard functions, based on well established theories, but also soft functions that are derived from previous problem solving experiences.

The need for holistic analysis of projects and integrated (strategy-based) project management has been recognised widely. The subject of what constitutes effective criteria for decision optimisation is the focus of research at many institutions across the world. This research builds on the current body of knowledge.