Scheduling and Stage Gates
PMWeb has its own scheduling functionality; and is also integrated with both Microsoft Project and Oracle’s Primavera P6 scheduling tool. This allows Users to continue to use specialist external scheduling, including analytics such as Acumen Fuse in conjunction with PMWeb's in-built features.
PMWeb also has powerful Stage Gates functionality that can be used for many purposes. Stage Gates can be used, for example, to manage milestones and deliverables for projects that do not yet have formal schedules. PMWeb reporting then allows information on progress from multiple sources - including projects with or without formal schedules - to be aggregated for portfolio and program-level visibility.
Scheduling
PMWeb helps construction professionals, facility owner / operators, and property managers effectively manage the Plan-Build-Operate life cycle of their portfolio and programs. PMWeb sets a new standard for usability combining the power of Enterprise class software with the ease of use of Excel and Word. The powerful Scheduling Module features:
- Gantt Charting, Critical Path Method (CPM)
- Drag and Drop to group and sort schedules
- Portfolio, Program and Project Scheduling
- Integration to P6 and Project for collaboration
- Maintains multiple schedule revisions for "what if" analysis
- Claim analysis and cash flow
- Resource availability - matching supply and demand of resources
- Integrated time sheet for reporting actuals
- Compare plan to actual schedule performance
Portfolio to Program to Project
- Top down Portfolio and Program scheduling
- Bottom up Project Scheduling
- Drag and Drop to easily create dynamic groups
Portfolio
Project Schedule with Interactive Gantt Charting
More information on PMWeb Scheduling
Stage Gates
The Stage Gate method, first popularised in the 1980s, was originally designed to standardize, and to bring more discipline to, the research and development of new consumer products. Soon, technology leaders such as NASA, General Electric and General Motors adopted Stage Gates.
The Stage Gate process is made up of stages and gates:
Stages are comprised of any number of activities which shape and define the project. Stage activities can occur in sequence and/or in parallel, with the goal of creating predefined deliverables.
Gates are evaluation points where the decision is made to continue the project (go) or end it (kill), based on an evaluation of the stage deliverables and other criteria.
The diagrams above relate to higher-level activities; however the Gating process can be applied at all levels through the project lifecycle – for example, gates in the design process such as having all Authority approvals in place; and gates through Quality Management on site at Witness Points and Hold Points.
The goal of Stage Gate management is to commit fewer resources to the early stages of the process and to rigorously examine the results of each stage to determine whether or not the project should proceed or be stopped. Weak projects are identified, adjustments are made to strengthen them and failing projects are cancelled or shelved.
It was perhaps inevitable that these large, successful manufacturers would adapt the principles of Stage Gate development to effectively design, construct and operate their own infrastructure projects. Just as inevitably, administrators across all industries are adopting Stage Gate management to design, build and operate their own projects.
PMWeb's Stage Gate feature organizes and automates stage gate management in one, integrated platform. All PMWeb records, attachments and emails can used in conjunction with stage gates and the Visual Workflow platform automatically brings transparency and ease of use to the entire process.
Any system that claims to automate Stage Gate Management should possess these characteristics:
- Global access - Web based with no plug-ins or apps required
- Workflow for accountability
- User-defined stages with clearly defined deliverables
- Ease of use guarantees that the system will be adopted
- No duplicate data entry - seamless integration with all of the other project management functions
- Enterprise level security to control access across the project team
- Metrics that add objectivity to gate reviews
- Global search to pull together the many different types of data