The Art of Project Information Management

The Growing Challenge of Project Information Management

Engineering and architectural projects today generate more information than ever before. Emails,
images, meeting minutes, contracts, specifications, changes to contracts, orders, mark-ups,
quotes all of this information about a project, or that discusses more than one project, adds to
the complexity as each snippet of information may become vital to the success, or failure, of the
project. The management, tracking and sorting of project information is a vital skill and one that
requires effective management tools and methods.1

Industry Challenges
The Many-Headed Hydra of
Project Information Management
The universe of project information contains models,
drawings, emails, mark-ups, submittals, transmittals,
meeting minutes, images, contracts, specifications,
change orders and other documentation created in the course of
designing, building and operating
any facility, large or small. Every
business project generates an
incredible amount of project information; information that will need
to be tracked and catalogued if
it is to be used to improve current
and future business. 2
Addressing the basic needs of
organising, finding, tracking, sharing, monitoring and reusing technical project information and communications takes time and
effort. People and processes depend on that information. More than being a smart way of doing
business, efficient project management is the only way to do business. 3
But more and more, the burden of prima facie information management falls to the individual,
and this leads to the serious problems of time-theft, stove-piping, accountability & visibility, the
erosion of corporate knowledge, longer lead times for orientating new team members, poor visibility of project issues for senior management, and the possibility of greater exposure to risk from
reduced process control. 4

Diana White & Joyce Fortune, Current Practice in Project Management an Empirical Study, International Journal of Project Management,
Volume 20, Issue 1, January 2002, pp1-11, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263786300000296
2
Harold R. Kerzner, Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling and Controlling, 2013
3
Angela Clarke, A Practical Use of Key Success Factors to Improve the Effectiveness of Project Management, International Journal of Project Management,
Volume 17, Issue 3, June 1999, pp139-145, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263786398000313
4
Mark Weiser & Joline Morrison, Project Memory: Information management for Project Teams, Journal of Management Information Systems, Volume 14, Number 4,
Spring 1998, http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40398295?sid=21105532088193&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3737536
1

Why this is of concern

The Costs of Getting it Wrong
Managing information takes time; time which once spent
cannot be regained. Time spent managing information is
time not spent designing, collaborating or planning. Poor
information management means excess time looking for
or filing project information.
Managing information requires processes. Even with
company-wide processes, individuality creeps in and the
resulting differentiation in file storage, naming protocols,
version control, and so on, leads to stove-piping of information a file emailed to most of the stakeholders for a
project is not necessarily the same file that will be used by
all stakeholders going forward. Information stove-piping
will create a disconnect between vital elements of the
project and the processes they need to work effectively
with architects, engineers, construction, owner organisations, and remote team members disconnected from their
processes and from their financial and resource data, successful project delivery becomes a near-impossible task.5

Project Information Management Software

Slaying the Hydra
Architecture, engineering, construction,
and owner organisations need
to be connected to each other;
information management
systems should make information management easier, not
add to the administrative overhead, while still allowing auditing
and reliable efficient document
searches and cataloguing.

Losing Control
Poor project information management reduces accountability and visibility, potentially creating a whole host of problems
with fraud and, just as importantly, the perception of how
potential fraud is managed.
Poor project information management obfuscates and
makes difficult audit trails,
transmittals, submittal and RFIs,
increasing the headaches and
time costs of doing business.
When project information management is not done well, corporate and project knowledge
is lost during employee turnovers, and the orientation and
assimilation of new team members on any project is made less
effective.
Process control will be lost
without good project information management, leading
to increased risk, and senior
management visibility will be
reduced, removing its ability to
influence change and guide a
project.

Document management is
about storing structured
information, and many
existing systems can meet
these needs. Document management systems
burden the user with check-in and check-out procedures
to document changes and searching is only as good as the
metadata applied during these document lodgement procedures. The real problem lies in managing and sharing dynamically changing, ad-hoc information of the sort exchanged
every day countless times via emails and document sharing
using the hand-held devices used almost habitually and ubiquitously by a tech-savvy industry.

5
Georg Distere, Management of Project Knowledge and Experience, Journal of Knowledge Management, Volume 6, Issue 5, 2002, pp512-520,
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/13673270210450450

Businesses need a solution package that will allows information management to happen smoothly
and intuitively, and the industry is beginning to take advantage of on-line, web-based and smart
systems for managing project information. 6
Minimal effort and drop-and-drag-ease are terms spoken of wistfully as engineers, architects
and project managers recite their wish-lists for tackling the problems of information management,
as is the requirement to use a business existing IT environment and so leverage off the existing IT
infrastructure and skill sets organic to the business staff.
Smart-systems that offer the integration of multiple devices for information input and access, indexing all project files including emails and their attachments are able to meet this need, not
just in small bites, but in one all-encompassing solution that doesnt force customers to change
the way they do business. The effective solution is one that takes existing business practices and
makes what is already present work effectively.

Newformas information management software is just such a solution.

Newformas software allows users to locate up-to-date project information and plans anywhere &
on any device. By deep data indexing all files, searches take mere seconds to locate documents
without users having to spend time inputting metadata. Newforma software finds search terms in
more than 200 industry file formats, including emails and their attachments, as well as in the BIM
object properties of DWG and DWF files.
Redundant and/or duplicate files are removed across the network to eliminate version control
issues. To assist with auditing, Newforma will locate and file project information on a server, even if
the project has been active for years.
Too much information is a problem almost unsolvable without the right tool. Architects, engineers and project managers need a smart system in order to do effectively manage information
and do business. The Newforma Project Information Management software gives increased accountability and visibility, accurate audit trails, preserves of project knowledge, accelerates the
orientation and assimilation of new team members, increases visibility to senior management on
all project issues, and reduces exposure to risk through project process control. In short, it is the
smart system best suited for to meet the complex needs of project information management.

Mustafa Alshawi & Bingunath Ingirige, Web-Enabled Project Management:

an Emerging Paradigm in Construction, Automation in Construction,
Volume 12, Issue 4, July 2003, pp349-364
6