Making good business decisions is a critical part of every project’s well-being. In a McKinsey Global Survey on the topic, only 20 per cent of respondents say their organizations excel at decision making. Further, a majority say much of the time they devote to decision making is used ineffectively.
A variety of factors account for this ineffectiveness leading to a lag in dealing with unplanned project events. Among them are the following:
Poor organization. Decision-making and procurement processes do not have the speed and scale required.
Inadequate communication. Inconsistencies in reporting mean that subcontractors, contractors, and owners do not have a common understanding of how the project is faring at any given time.
Flawed performance management. Unresolved issues stack up because of lack of communication and accountability.
Missed connections. There are different levels of planning, from high-end preparation to day-by-day programs. If the daily work is not finished, schedulers need to know—but often don’t—so that they can update priorities in real-time.
Insufficient risk management. Long-term risks get considerable consideration; the kinds that crop up on the job not nearly as much.
These problems are serious, systemic, and all too common. Unplanned events are part of project life. What sets high-performing projects apart is the way they manage events, turning challenges into learnings and improvements, and fast-tracking resolutions. When a project has no formalized system, it relies on individuals to identify and process issues and impacts. This creates vulnerability for immediate issues management and impedes wider project visibility of recurring or major issues.
To combat this, Harvard University advocates for Data-Driven Decision Making; the process of using data to inform your decision-making process and validate a course of action before committing to it. The primary aspect of Data-Driven Decision Making is the timely availability of quality information.
The ability to gather, process and act on relevant information is referred to as Time to Decision.
Time to Decision is the summation of time it takes to:
- receive information from a field event (data latency),
- the time required to analyse the event (analysis latency),
- the time required to decide to intervene (decision latency).
How can you improve your Time to Decision?
E7 provides project and organizational leaders with a daily clear line of sight across project performance drastically shortening the Time to Decision. Simple, easily understood dashboards present insights into project performance that high light variances and areas of concern with drill-down support that all members of the project team can collaborate around. These intuitive dashboards quickly become the focal point for collaboration that drives challenging conversations around best actions to drive optimal project performance.
The key to shortening time to decision is having real-time availability of quality information from the field. Dashboards connected to the systems capturing schedule, progress, daily cost/timesheets and events, updated as information is entered in the field, provide unparalleled access to project insights. Traditionally, a Power BI dashboard is connected to the schedule and cost management systems that are updated on a monthly basis, resulting in “real-time reporting” on a monthly basis. E7 solves this problem as it captures daily updates to ensure the shortest Time to Decision possible.
Contact E7 when you are ready to minimize your Time to Decision with real-time availability of quality information.