Data is how we make decisions, and decisions are arguably the most important thing we do on projects. The sequence of decisions we make determines the success of projects, whether we make the right decisions that lead to success, or the wrong decisions that lead us to expensive mistakes to fix later during commissioning. This constant stream of decisions, and the quality of the decisions we make on projects, will determine project success.
This means having an intelligent infrastructure system for gathering, collecting, analyzing, and displaying information is a priority for all projects. Systems that make access to quality information easy are essential, so we are not forced to make decisions based on gut feelings alone.
Some project teams are running an Excel empire – they’ve built tracking spreadsheets that create the “allusion” of a data system, but are only scratching the surface with the bare minimum of information. The reason that people use Excel spreadsheets is because they’re incredibly flexible, they can change, and there is not a huge investment.
The downside is they can be broken very easily. They’re hard to organize. You have to update them manually, and this is not an efficient use of data. Using Excel spreadsheets becomes a constraint on projects, and a lot of project teams don’t even know they are suffering from this bottleneck.
This data deficiency is understandable – projects are busy, and most people will typically prioritize doing almost anything else rather than taking time to upgrade and maintain their data systems. Projects are busy, and there is a long list of higher priorities rather than improving data systems on projects. Besides, projects are typically a one-time effort – why would you want to go through the effort of setting up better data systems, when the project will end in a few years anyways…
However, the risks on projects are just too great not to invest in better data management systems. There is just so much data generated on projects these days, and you need a system to sort through all this data, analyze it is real-time, and push high-quality data to you so you can make fully informed high-quality decisions. It’s the only way to be able to keep up with projects, avoid delays, and make data-based decisions on projects, rather than just relying on your gut. The vast majority of decisions being made on projects are just being made by gut-feelings. And it doesn’t matter how good you think your gut is, it’s not going to be better than data.
Many project teams realized that they can’t just keep chicken scratch notes all around their office trailer and think that’s somehow going to result in having good data to make good decisions for projects. They’re investing in the best data systems they can get to make project completion as efficient as possible, and so they can make informed decisions to avoid project failure.
But many other project teams do not have high-quality data for commissioning. They either don’t have data in general, or the data that they do have is not correct. And when they don’t have any confidence in the data that they do have, this is just as bad. Basically, many project teams can’t use data on projects to make decisions, and instead make decisions based on people’s opinions or their own incentives they want to achieve on projects, which may or may not align with delivering high-quality systems during commissioning.
If you’re still tracking commissioning using Excel spreadsheets, then it’s safe to assume that you are making the vast majority of decisions based on intuition and not data. Because if you were making all your decisions based on data, then you would have good data systems and good reporting, which an Excel spreadsheeted is just not capable to provide.
There are over 25 different CMS Software systems available on the market to help you manage your commissioning data. Some are more powerful than others, and some are tailored for specific industries to manage specific commissioning workflows. Choose the right CMS software to give you high-quality data, and you’ll be in a much better decision to make high-quality decisions on your projects.
TLDR on this process
#1. It is OK to have an Excel empire in the beginning, but overtime you will need to transition because data is going to be one of the biggest constraints of your projects, and probably quickly depending on the size of projects.
#2. Invest in the proper data systems at the start of projects, because there won’t be a time later to catch up. The data systems to choose from are all listed in the member’s area of the Industrial Commissioning Association. Become a member here: https://icxa.net/join
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