Project 'pressure gauge' takes heat off programme managers

BuildOnline UK today launches the first ‘heatmap-based' programme management system. Designed to give project managers a real-time ‘pressure gauge' to assess progress, the on demand technology will help users avoid delays and track escalating budgets by flagging issues using a coded traffic light system.

Developed in partnership with BNP Paribas, the enterprise-class programme management system is targeted at project managers of mission-critical projects, such as the Wembley Stadium rebuild.

BNP Paribas is the first customer to use Programme Management and is deploying the technology to transform and refurbish 2,200 of its retail branches. To achieve the goals of this programme within time and budget, BNP Paribas selected the BuildOnline platform to manage all the documents and collaborative information around each of its projects. Their two main goals are to provide all parties with access to up-to-date documentation and enable rapid communication between the BNP Paribas project teams (about 300 members) and external project managers.

With the introduction of this module, Programme Management and project teams can now collaboratively forecast, plan, track and monitor project progress across an entire portfolio of projects. Reporting business management dashboards provide a summary of project progress, from which users can easily drill down into individual tasks to identify delays and bottlenecks. Managers can compare planned progress versus actual, and forecast expected project workloads with other participants.

In addition to the graphical heatmap, Programme Management has a number of features, which take it beyond the conventional project management tools, allowing users to collaborate, coordinate and control information across the entire project supply chain.

Execute and manage projects within one environment: Project tasks and deliverables can be created to manage the entire workflow of a project. Project teams have access to a personalised dashboard of project-related activities that they need to complete, plus instant access to the collaborative document management capabilities that they need to complete tasks. This provides managers and team members with a single integrated environment to execute, manage and monitor the project.

Standardise project best practice: Standard project-types such as bid-management can be designed as off-the-shelf templates which project teams can use to get started quicker while complying with company policies. Organisations can design templates to standardise project processes, deliverables, tasks, dependencies, timescales and business roles.

Improve visibility and problem diagnosis: With large numbers of activities and projects, it is virtually impossible to track each task, dependencies and risks. With Programme Management, managers can see in real-time the status of each task within each project, the duration versus estimates and forecast the expected workload for a specific team.

"BuildOnline enables simple document organisation and a shared environment without constraints, neither geographical nor document size, as well as a more effective information exchange," said Benoit Spaety, Real Estate Services Manager, IMEX Real Estate Services, BNP Paribas. "Through its integration within our organisation, and compliance with our business processes, BuildOnline allows us to enhance the quality of each of our transformation and refurbishment projects and we plan to store over 500,000 documents on the system. This solution will also help to provide global visibility over project progress while eliminating delays."

"The deployment of a practical project management and cost control solutions suited to this type of solution has enabled an implementation within time and budget," said Philippe Cimon, Organisation & Quality Manager, Real Estate Services Manager, IMEX Real Estate Services, BNP Paribas.

Since delivery, BNP Paribas is consistently using BuildOnline in support of all its projects. In the last six months, 150 branch projects have been integrated into the system300 projects that had begun before the deployment of BuildOnline will be integrated onto the platform over this summer.

"Project teams still spend too much time fire-fighting and not enough time focused on proactive collaboration. This system has been developed working closely with a key customer to provide a single environment to enable them to execute, manage and plan a large number of concurrent projects. By integrating the worlds of project execution and management, project teams and managers now have real-time visibility into their portfolio of projects," said Mark Suster, CEO, BuildOnline. "Our use of heatmap technology is the first of its kind in this space and has captured the imagination of companies across vertical industries who constantly strive for project nirvana - running to time and on budget."