The Report Is Not the Truth: Dashboards, Risk, and the Illusion of Project Control

Thank you, Orion. I'm happy to be here and join you for this, session

Let's say that I was a bit of lucky 'cause my first job was with a major contractor in Egypt in, and Africa, which is the Arab Contractor Company.

The company was an official sponsor of the Egyptian government projects in infrastructure. I remember the first project I worked in, it's worth around, 200 million 200 million, USD or something like that. from that point, it was easy for my CV to attract positions that requires a person who can deal with a project with, like, a nine-digit budget.

The same advantage which attract a big engineering firm like Egis to call me later to work in a major project in Saudi Arabia. And from that point, I became like a, a major project guy, like if, if we can say

yeah.

Yeah. I will start with the similarities. My observation about the, my obs- my observation about this, that there is a strong trend happening now in the project management field, approaching to minimize the human input into the project management process, in project management process, especially in large and major projects. They, there are a serious, attempting to out- automate the input and output itself, and even the final decision.

This is happening all over the world in construction industry. Whether it's good or bad, but it's happening. Actually I cannot say there would be a change in, project control from one region to another, I cannot compare my work in Egypt during 2008 to 2010, where each project was, allocating only one planner with a tool like Primavera P3, if you can remember it. P3 was the only and the main tools being used, and where the project team see the time schedule was like a wonder of the project.

I can compare that to the current setup of the project control now. when a project control team includes the scheduler, planner, project control manager and risk manager, and sometimes they, like, some companies are reporting, like hire a reporting manager. It will be like something like, like you are comparing one apple to 10 apples, but my observation about this is that the project control process has become less efficient than the past. Yeah, this my take about that, and this serious thing.

Yes, because actually, now we are focusing more on the process itself. For example, like we have one planner or o- one have a project control manager, like it's, like one guy who's doing it or maybe two. They are more focused to process what the team needs, like in the support of the team.

You have like a direct contact between the project control manager and the planner with the project management, with the project manager directly and his decision. Now, like in the major project w- and the, the set- the new setup of the project now, it becomes like we have a department of the project control management.

What did the department of the project control management do in a project? They are processing to improve the, project management or project control management process. Like we are now competing ourselves to be the best in this, in this kind of management or this, like discipline of project management rather than working to achieve the project completion date or achieve the project quality or achieve the purpose of the project.

So more like now we are working in a like a separate business other than the project management itself. This is my take and, yeah, and this is like I observe. I'll, I am start to observe this a lot in many projects.

See, one of my early managers, an Arab contractor, told me once, "Ahmed, we are part of a project team. We are not produce shop drawings. We are or we are not producing a design paper, or neither we supply construction material or even build something in the site or supervise it, we only produce, like, reports. And that we are paid for. Our clients are paid for these reports, are paying us for these reports." So I still remember his words after, like, 20 years of now. during COVID, I had this, some uncertainty about my job, like most of the people. Then I started to be more active on LinkedIn, just, I start to craft something like, draft some basic dashboard.

And I never thought that it might do something except making me visible to recruiter and hiring manager, just I'm publishing something, so will other people will see me, then I will get a high chance to, get a, a new job or something. But, but what happened is that I found my posts increasingly got more attention.

I received so many calls, not only from recruiters but from vice presidents, directors and portfolio manager. They saw something in me can solve what exactly my old manager told me one day. PMC can work thousands of hours behind the screen. l- all the team work behind the screen.

But they paid for the reports, and it must be a, a good one. It represents the, the, the presence and the effort of all the team, and show a great image of a company. From that point, I learned that I have something different from what being produced in the average market, and that's, this is the first step l- that ma- makes me go through this route.

Actually it's easier to say who isn't. In major projects, the project management organization chart is divided into teams. planning team, commercial team, procurement team, and design management team, and site supervision team. And it varies depends on the the nature of the project.

Who is presenting the report? The project control manager. Who is responsible for explaining the projec- the, the reports?

The report should go to the concerned people from the counterpart, whether the counterpart is the client or the higher consultant. For example, if you are a contractor, you need to report to the project management consultancy. Or if you are working like a project management consultancy, then you have to report to the to the client management team.

So w- most project control manager do a very basic thing. They let each team, like procurement team, site management team, design team each team to prepare their slides or the reports and then, like they stack i- in a single PowerPoint or PDF and throw it to the client or, the higher consultant. "Here it is."

And of course you can expect a lot of chaos and disturbance in this report. Sometimes you find information contradicting each other. That's why management software started to emerge to solve this chaotic environment.

Like Oracle or you will find like Blue Col or something. They are trying to make like environment to collect and to organize this chaos so the information will be like, filtered and, reviewed so many times before it comes like in the report. However, up to the moment I see so far still there is a big gap in efficiency, to be honest, and this is my opinion about it.

I came from two major projects in Saudi Arabia. One in, a private environment, and one in a governmental environment.

They were like two billion something project. And, i- in the governmental project, they, hired the most advanced, management system it could be in the world. They hired Oracle with Aconex, and they get, Primavera EPPM, and make, a link between Primavera itself, EPPM system, with the connection with the Power BI.

So you can imagine that the, in their portfolio, in their setup and portfolio, what, what's being happened is just if any planner at any project will update the schedule, the report system itself, it will be completely, completely updated. Like it's very, very huge, system. And what happens, the efficiency of this system, it's like, goes to one, one report or one dashboard goes to the CO.

When we are making decision, no one using this system. Like we are in now in executive meeting. What they need? We need, "Please, Ahmed, can you prepare for, can you prepare for us one report to tell us about it, one, two, three?" Okay, guys, you are, like, spent, like, a million dollars or something.

Maybe I, I don't know, I don't know the budget, but you spent a lot of money in this system. So what's the benefit of it, and why you ask me to organize this chaos? Yeah. In, in, in my conclusion about this, it's still the human factor needed in the construction environment. I guess because it's very cha- chaotic.

It depends on the trust and the human interaction. Still we need that

And by the way I will say something. After, like, after, like, we practice the tool and we exercise how we're gonna work with this in the project, after, like, one or two months this tool turns out it's just like a communication tool.

Like, we are using this tool just to communicate between each other. It's not even like a normal communication. It's just for, it's for official communication. We'll send email by this tool. It's not for the schedule update. It's not to ga- not to gather the information for the, like procurement.

Because actually, no one give any attention to classic reports. You know, these daily, weekly, and monthly report.

Instead, they are more, more interested in executive reports, scenario reports, and focus reports. The common thing among, among all of these special report that they help making a decision, not only showing information. And this, this is the part I love the most about ava- about, doing dashboard and reports.

Yeah. They love the most when visualizing the root cause of any issue or a challenge. When I do something in visualization, this is your decision, and this is how it comes if we da- do this scenario.

Like it helps them take, the right decision. And in most cases and many times I lose their interest when it's starting to justify my numbers. Yeah, they always, like I always hear from them Ahmed, can you please skip over this, and let's make like a technical decision, tech-technical decision for it later on?

But please, let us know what exactly you mean by so and so, and so and so." So they are more lean to know the reason and the impact of the decision they need

Yeah.

It happens a lot, and this is what I meant by, scenario reports. And this comes on contrast when visualizing the impact of their decision on a project time or cost against visualizing the right decision impact on the project. You need to put both scenarios, like in a dashboard, on a report or something like that.

It- like you put them in the same scene for th- to see and boom, yeah, all is clear. You don't need a lot to, to explain on or to make a, a threat or shout. Just visualize it. Whatever decision you have, n- just visual- visualize the decision. Put what- for- from whatever tools you have, then just put them on the screen and let it see.

You will find your decision, you need to make, and this is the right decision you need to take. And here it is the impact, and you need to decide. You got me here? At this moment, then you will get really what the, what you need to do.

In fact, there will be always a gap again. I said that, why management software and AI? I said that many times that management softwares and AI will struggle with us.

I came from a school that said if your report or schedule is not reflecting the site condition Then it is useless. If your report and the schedule doesn't reflect the issue and the progress of the site, so it is useless.

And this word is being said to me many times during my early work in the project management. That was like twenty years ago. I used to listen this a lot from my manager, from the ex-manager. It's from the project manager themselves in the site.

However, in major projects where a certain process is developed to reflect monitoring information, then it is expected to find this gap. In governmental projects, they lean more to to the outputs of the process. Like they need to take always, they need to, to rely or more trust, give more trust to the in...

to the outputs of the process. Simply because of the audits. Because, actually in governmental projects which mostly, and in most time they are major projects, of course governments will invest most of the time in billions of dollars. There will be audits, but in private sector, you have more tolerance to deviate from the process or eliminate it at all.

In some projects, I, I can eliminate the process at all. I will just go to the client, and I tell them simply, "If we are going to through, through this process, that will happen. I need to eliminate this process now.

And this is the output I can promise you with this output. But if you are going through the process, of the project management process, you are already agreed with you about it in some, on some state or some, period of the project or some phase of the project, then it might possible that will happen and that will happen."

For myself I'm, yeah, it's obvious that for myself, I always reflect the true story irrespective what the process say. But this need to be like this need a high trust and credibility from the project management and the client. Like I said, I will go to my project manager or project control manager or the project manager, project director or the portfolio manager and the client.

I will tell him simply what I will do. I will do one, two, three. This is maybe deviate from our process, but the output it will be one, two, three, four. And this does does not come easy, by the way. But in governmental projects, yeah, it's another, it's a different process. We have, there will be audit.

There will be audit on this one. So irrespective what i- what is the right thing, you have to follow the process, and you will always find the gap. I guess now, the question is how to make a management process or the management, system reflect exactly what is the nature and the environment of the construction industry, industry look like irrespective the client or the, the owner of the project.

Yeah. Because, you know, because in major projects you have a huge number of people. Like in my, in my last project or two projects with Elise done, like I worked with like, I can't remember my team. It's over like, 25.

They are the direct management team, 25 person. And we have like, like, like 10 person from, for the commercial team. And we have like 40 people for the supervision and engineering engineering management team. You can imagine. And this is like, this is like not, this is not the biggest project I worked on.

Like where I, when I was in, in AECOM during like, 2001, 2000 to 2021, 2022, I worked

in, in in NEOM this new development in Saudi Arabia. And our team like was, like management team, the project management team, like 500 person. You can imagine that. Wow. So what's happening now, yeah, that's really, it's really huge one. Actually like, we are struggling to find a place just to accommodate us.

It's like we need like, a, extra porta cabinet and we need a, extra mobilization. But like huge number. And by the way, this, this only was for one project, or let's say one program. Because at the time there were like more than 12 program with AECOM. And you can imagine that, each program will include like this number of, or maybe more for this, for the management team.

From this take, I realized that no one cares about the project completion rather than his own work.

In the mega project you have a huge number of the people, and each team work in a silo.

Actually I realize that, no one cares about the project completion rather than his own work interest. You find a, a direction from a procurement team, for example. a procurement team being totally compromised by a design team. Like they... you'll find the decision from the procurement team is totally compromised and like, s- like, contradicted by the, the design team.

E- even the project director has limited authority to direct the whole team to one direction, actually, the, project dire- director can have some experience in some field, but by the end of the day, there will be like a technical responsibility about the decision, and the project director will not take this responsibility.

You know, actually, I remember in my, in my last project, we reached to a point where the director from the client side, he stepped forward and said, "No, enough is enough. Direction only will come from me. Anyone who needs to do any change must come to me first."

Because, this team said something, and the other team give another direction, and, the other, the planning team is doing something, and the site team is doing something else. In some situation we need that man.

Yeah, you know actually, If I have an executive group, like an executive meeting - here I am- one thing they care the most about, this is come from private, like the private sector and from the governmental sector. They are focusing on one thing. The important part to deliver - just put the risk issues and required decisions.

You will find them 100% listening to you.

They are not looking for the critical mass analysis. .

Yeah. One word. Risk analysis tool. Mm. You have to involve risk from the day zero, so not from day one.

Actually, I spent 90% of my time reporting in scenarios that lead to decision. Most of my time in the project, it's not planning, it's not scheduling, it's not, like, following the resources on the site or the, like, make, open, in, closed, or searching for the dangling activities or delay analysis or whatever.

You know, 90% of my time is just preparing scenarios for the, decision-makers to make the decision. Yeah, they need that, especially in major projects, when you have, like, a billion-dollar project, y- you will learn the, the, Most of your work just to support the decision-making. Nothing can do better than a risk analysis tool.

If I will go back in time, let's say, I will install, like, Primavera Risk Analysis or any other software like. There is a lot now. And to be honest, still they are, not familiar enough. It's not, popular enough. most of the project control manager doesn't know, and I'm telling this, they don't know anything about how to deal with these softwares.

And now there is a trend here in Australia especially, and in Saudi Arabia, that they are starting now to hire risk managers to projects. They will be a, a site risk or a risk manager or risk analysis or risk specialist to the project

For me, it's now like a, a primary one.

Yeah. Actually, you know, I've been known now for like a dashboard guy on LinkedIn. I don't know why. But maybe because I publish, dashboard. But now I I love to work on ri- risk. It's not like about I can do work risk. I, now I see the risk now is like, like more important than planning. But I am thinking about risk as a full full integrated science or, or full integrated management application to the project.

We have to make... In each project, you have to make a quantitative risk analysis to the project. It's not enough just to highlight the risk. It's not enough now to just this high risk, low risk green light, yellow light.

It's not enough. And I come back to the schedule, the scheduling the scheduling process in the project itself. And I can prepare this, this story or not story, this like hap- mo- situation happened to me one day when, when I was preparing a time schedule just to let you know how the risk is very important now.

And I was preparing a time schedule for like a building like, like 40-something stories, a huge building in Saudi Arabia. And, the project man- I, I, I prepared the schedule in the full detail, like, the handbook of the planning. All thing is said there. And, the project manager came to me and he told me, "Ahmed, are we done?"

"Yes." I told him yes. "All thing is good?" I told him yes. "Is thing, everything is perfect? No abeen. No, no, no, blah, blah, blah." I told him, "Yes, everything is perfect." He told me, asked me, "What is the completion date of the project?" I told him like it's 1st of January, 2023, something like that. He told me, "What is the latest activity in the project?"

I told him the latest activity in the project will be the installation of the lighting features of the, floor 26, and after that we'll start the testing and commissioning. He told me, "Great, you are perfect. Now let's go to our client and inform him with, with our schedule and the completion date of the project."

I told him, "Great, let's do it." After he left my office when I was preparing this, the schedule to submit to the client, I just remember one thing. I just told my manager that the last Activity of the project, it will be, f- like, 1st of January 2023, something like that.

How much I am sure about this one? How much I am sure about that in the first day of January, there will be like 60 people, I don't know, they will come to the building, which is not built yet, in the floor of the in the floor 26th, which is not there yet, to install, like lighting fixtures which are not selected yet, even it's not manufactured yet, and it will be completed in the same day.

How much I am sure about this information? And this information and this task to- it should be happen after two years from now

It's just to tell our client that there is a probability that the project completion date will be end by January, and maybe there will be the last activity, it will be the lighting fixture.

Because even we don't know what is the critical path of the project. So that's why this is, this is how to need to report the project. It's not like I am 100% sure that the project completion date will be the first day of January, and the last activity it will be lighting fixture. From where? From wh- from where you got this confidence that this will happen?

And even you ask, even if you ask any person on the earth that I have a specific, very specific task with 60 people will happen after two years from now. No, it is not like that even in, in, in life. That never happen. That's why I'm come to that risk management is the, the essence, is the basic of the planning.

If there will be planning without risk management, it is nothing. We are just like we are doing process. That's the, this process doesn't reflect any output, accurate output. This is the importancy of the risk management in my opinion.

But actually, risk is, like the whole set of the project is risk. You are investing money in a project, so there will be, should be a risk for a decision. When you are talking about the decision, there should be risk analysis for that. It's not only about technical or the right process. It's all about risk now.

You got me, yeah?

No, yeah. Visualize risk, it's not, risk is not visualize. Risk turn into a decision. There is nothing called I can see you how many risk closed, how many risk is open, how many blah. What is the benefit of a decision maker for this?

But when a, a pro- a client come to me and said, "I need to do this crazy idea about the project." Like I'm dreaming yesterday that I have built like a wings to my project so it will fly.

At this moment you have to reduce risk. Okay, I will study your decision, and I will give you the right, correct answer. And I would not give the right, correct answer without simulating the impact. Like, I have this. If you do that, you will find that. And most likely, at my confident, like the, you know, risk, at the 80% confident of your decision, you need to do that.

This is exactly how we can deal with a decision maker. It's not like, I have, to show the risk, the report to the client. No, I have to show them the right decision. This is how to report the risk.

Project management has become and being developed as it becomes like a separate industry by itself. Like, a project management team, especially in la- in large and major projects, are working to produce a good project management process, to achieve the project completion.

And I believe that came because the major project budgets are very high And this budget being dealt as like a financial burden in a complex and chaotic environment. Imagine that a project director is holding a decision over one or two billion dollars. He's acting literally, he's acting like a CEO.

He's not a project director anymore. Like, the guy got like one, two billion dollar under his hand. Yeah. And he needs a team to secure his decision. Because now he's not a, he's not a project manager. The guy now is like a CEO. So I need my team. I need someone to tell me what is the right decision other than achieving the project.

Now it's not my issue, now. It's not my issue now. As a, as like a person, I need to first to organize myself to see this budget, to like, target the, the client, investment. That's why it comes like reporting as a documentation process. Here comes the, the area of import... import- importancy of reporting, so that we can provide reporting system into two types of report.

Like for this purpose, we have to be aware of some deviation or some, separation between the types of reports. First type of, first type of reports, reports which is re- record the responsibility and the causes of the contract record Like, this come in, in a plain a systematic document such as monthly and weekly report.

These reports usually dealt as information record. But they are important because they are keep the record of the project. How many, like how many drawings submitted, how many approvals, what's how many claims submitted, how many change orders, what is the pro- site status, what is the instruction received, how many documents submitted, how many documents received.

All of these record, like this a contract record. We have to keep these, reports. Maybe we can, rename them. Like we can tell like, instead of monthly reports, we can say like monthly record, for example, or weekly record. Except maybe by the end of the project, people start to look at this one for the history and the record, again, for this person, for this purpose.

second type is the dynamic reports. This one, like, these are the one which most clients pay for the project management, a client need the, they pay for the special reports. These reports such as executive reports, we have scenario reports and focus reports, and these reports are the ones which take the whole attention, like definitely clients asking specifically for these kind of reports.

These kind of report do not need systematic approach. Like I said, there is no template. Template do not work with this. AI or any management tool will, will struggle to find a place because this built on how other will perceive the information.

I now am a project control manager, and I need to submit a report to the client. He ask me a specific report. And I know this guy, I know his culture, his background. I know what he likes to see, and I know the way I can convince him with the, with the information or convince th-them with, with, any decision and the way he will understand my information.

That’s why I’m saying that AI and management tools struggle to find their place, because these reports are built on how the other person will perceive the information, and on the human judgment of the person who prepares them. It’s something like you need to talk to another person in his language. As an Arabic speaker, I’m trying to explain myself in English. So in the team setup, the project director may come from a design background, or from a planning background. This is the kind of report you need to pay attention to.

Yeah, because it's like a decision-making report. The report should come with output. What is the output? The output is not only the information. Why I need to know the information as an executive or as a team leader or whatever?

I am in higher position, so I need to make a decision for the future. So what I need is, decision-driven reports. This is what I mean- by a dynamic reports. And you cannot make a single template for all the decision. Logically, it will not come like that.

For the reports, which is a systematic report, it is just show information. And you can use like a template from all the project or company's, backup or something from the company's management system. It's very easy.

For the second type, you need first to understand the person. Like I said, you need to understand the person you are reporting to. You need to know his time limitation, his purpose, his background, and or even his insecurities.

Then you need to specify the purpose of the decision you need from this report. Then you need to develop, the report as a story. You need to develop the report as a story that ends with a conclusion. So it is like you need to build a philosophy or like, a story about the project.

You need to build your philosophy before you go into into preparing the report itself as a dashboard or a report, whatever

Yeah

The hero. I got inspired by the fast food, brochures and selling campaign in the street. Imagine you are driving o- on the street. You have five seconds only to make a decision. You will find a big poster showing a huge good-looking sandwich, which like, with, with a price tag with a big font.

Like you find the sandwich and the price on itself. What this campaign is trying to do is that you will find, they give you five second to decide. You know the target, which is the sandwich, and the decision, which is the price. Now you have the target and the decision.

I have the sandwich and my decision, $5 or whatever price This exactly. Yeah, yeah. And also, and also by the way, y- you will find more, detail like, that usually no one look at it, like s- some details like disclaimer or something. I- it's like written, hidden the, like sub to the, the big poster.

You know, actually this exactly is how a report should be presented. Your hero, there will be like the issue in the focus. Then it comes in the second, the decision you need to make. Other details may be important to show, like small detail in the poster, but it should become like a sub. So in this case, if you focus on that setup, then of course you don't have to make the issue like the big, very big font.

You can just focus. Make a focus on the problem itself and make the focus on the decision. This is what I meant about.

Yeah. Long story short, by trusting the person who's-- the person who speaks. See, we can speak for a whole year about the data integrity and the information management contact, but, you know, executive, the guy on the meeting room make their, their, their decision based on their trust in the person who gathered the data and sort it out into information.

And, you know, I, I will show you, I, I will show you, an example of this. Assume a person has a cancer, God forbid. A person has a cancer, cancer, the, the disease, the cancer in one in, in one of his organ. He went to the doctor. The doctor said, "I read your X-ray pictures and tests, and we have to cut out this organ."

At this moment, does this person doubt the doctor decision? Maybe. Maybe he will take a second opinion, but never tries to understand the data in the X-ray and the tests himself. He will never do that. Yeah, few people may do. Few people will now with ChatGPT now can do, but most of the people will not try to understand the test and the X-ray himself.

But he may, like I said he may take another opinion. He was just trying to gain a trust in his first doctor who informed, him with the bad news by asking a second opinion. He's not trying to, overcome or to contradict the first information. He just need to be sure that this is the right decision I need to make.

They gain this, their trust along the course of the project from thousands of meetings and, decision they make.

And once they do that, they gain the trust. They will not question the integrity of the data during the meeting or the discussion. It is just trusting the person who lead them. They will not ask why, the SPI is like, 0.8 this month and, why this... Do you, review the schedule? Do you make, the correct, update to the schedule?

They will not ask this question. They will just come to the conclusion because they will trust your judgment. And at any time there they make or they may, they will make, at any time they will make a wrong decision, then they will come back to their trust.

If this person can I trust him in the future for another decision? This will come the trust again

Exactly

That's why I'm telling from the beginning that you have the exact... I'm talking about executive, by the way.

I talk about executives. That's why they feel that okay, this all tool, these KBIs, everything, it's your tool. I don't care about them. I care about what is the decision I should do for that, yeah. So I have to be trusted by data. Then a- after that, I can be trusted by them. And

Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah, it starts early in the project. And to be honest it just happen. You don't know . You can't, you can't catch where it exactly... when exactly it starts to happen. It just happen with the flow. Like I said before, site team and management team are living completely in two different world.

I will give you an example to show you that, yeah? A site engineer is facing an issue with the column dimension or orientation. Simple issue that he can solve with a little bit of coordination. It's not a big issue.

It's just something he can do simply. By the way, this is, come from a real story in the site in my last project. In, in regular old fashion, he would go directly to the engineering consultant with the drawing and calculation and get approval to his solution, or to sort out the issue immediately with the engineering consultant.

How much that will take at the time? Maybe one, two hours, maybe about maximum one day. Okay, come now in the major project with a huge management system, like the one I work at in Riyadh or Diom or whatever now in, in Australia or Saudi Arabia, a major project. Okay, the same story. The site engineer discovered the issue.

He prepared the solution documents. Then he sent it to the, to his documentation system. The document controller from his site will take at least one day to process it and send it to the management consultant system. The management consultant system takes at least one day to process in his documentation system.

He will take one day to process in his documentation system before sending, sending it to the technical consultant. Then again, the technical consultant take at least one day to process the, the incoming communication before taking action. How much do we, how much do we take just to communicate the information?

At least three days. And the same amount will... the same amount of time will be consumed in returning the information to the contractor site. During this period, I need just to know, tell me, how will the site team feel? How will the supervisor think? How is the carpenter- I agree ... and the steel fixer? The carpenter- Yeah

and the steel fixer, they will ask, "What is the problem? Why we are here?" It's a very simple, it's very simple thing to do. They feel like we are suspending our work for nothing. From other perspective, how much delay in the project suffer? How many resource do we utilize to sort a, sort out small issue?

We say the project is delayed because of a lack of resource or bad performance or unqualified engineering staff, but we never say insufficient management system. A- as simple as it is. That doesn't reflect the basic needs of construction site. Yes, the process is perfect.

The routine will advance the quality, but it kills the purpose of the project management itself, and this is like, this is what happen. This is the reality, and no one cares about it as long as the, we have the best project management system in the market. No doubt about that, but does our project get benefit out of that?

This the question.

It is the question itself from the beginning, how to communicate in a project management. Yeah. How to communicate. It's not only through, it's not only through documentation. There should be something to allow us to make like like, the, the old-fashioned communication between the site team and the, management team and the technical engineering consultant team.

So there should be some way to serve the purpose in the project to build a site, to build the building at the site, not only to just to process management system process. We have to make a project management process. We need to keep a record. We need to get everything perfect. But we need to reflect that, or we need to solve the real issue of the site.

Exactly ...

Yeah.

And, and really, it's, it's true that nobody reads it, but it's still important.

See, monthly and weekly reports are a contractual obligation, and they must be prepared and submitted to keep its contractual record intact. But the the right question is do these reports help to make decisions from the real world? No, they are not. That's why nobody is willing to read. But it is still important enough for someone to verify the record.

And like I said before, we can call them not report. We can call them like project record. That's it. yeah, they are should, they should be systematic. They need to like to be systematic to compare this month to other months. So you will trap, you will track the whole record of the project.

Yeah. I- in, in, yeah, in general, site operation team usually more involved in a past review to see the challenges, the issues, the performance, and if there be a- there any achievement.

While executive, of course, looking at the decision, looking at decision, they are a decision maker. Usually prefer to brief, to see brief about the past performance, but they're more into future insights. That helps to make a decision. That's why I'm, I'm telling about, I'm talking about the scenario schedule, the risk analysis, the forecast and so.

They need to make a decision, and decision usually come to the next step, the future. Yeah, that, this my, this my observation about that.

Yeah. Yeah, because, the issue, it is a billion-dollar project. I- it's a financial burden, a complex environment, and chaotic environment.

Imagine that a project with a budget may exceed the budget of a business or a corporation. You have, like, a two billion project or something. There is no big difference between a corporate and CEO and a m- and a ma- in, and a major project dir- and a major project director. Like, they will find no difference between a CEO and a project director.

A bold director, a very strong, encouraged director can be decisive and determined, but he cannot supersede the process or the audit, especially in governmental project.

It's worse. I had a project director, great one I worked with. He used to say, I am happy to do so, but I'm afraid I'm not willing to spend the rest of my life in jail.

Yes. It's heavy, heavy responsibility. The only way to improve improve it to develop better management system that really suit the construction industry. This w- this is what we really need, especially in major project. We need to see the goals, and we need to make a tailored, and of course, we need to su- to see our target in the site, and we need to make, like, a revolution to our vision to how to manage this kind of project. Current system is not enough.

Yeah have a realistic plan. A really, really realistic plan. And by the way, detailed plan is not a realistic one. Like I gave you example of when I built this, schedule for the tall building It is not realistic at all on the first day of the project to determine the completion date, a resource allocation, and the leading sequence, sequence of the last activities in the project, which surprisingly will do after maybe two or three years, you will be, able to be sure that this is the critical path and this is the condition of the activity that will come after year two or three.

This is illusion. A detailed plan shouldn't exceed three months look ahead. If you are do- doing a realistic plan, it shouldn't go more than three months look ahead. Second thing, the plan should be tran- should be a translation or of the project team. Site team are the most involved, not something invented on the credibility of the planner or the project control manager.

The schedule itself, it should be... it shouldn't be like something invented by the project planner. Actually, w- in this scenario what's being happened now, the planner built the schedule totally and completely separated from the site team and the rest of the project team.

And what happened after, the site team and the all the project team is working in their way and in their schedule. And what happened after that, they are mismatching the schedule because they don't have any input in the schedule.

And the site team say, "No, we are performing." So but the most sarcasm come here when we are not saying that the schedule is not realistic, we are saying the site team is delayed, actually, the guy who work in the site, the w- the guy who work on the site is telling the truth, "I work, I did all I can do.

I follow my schedule. I follow my logic. I follow the site condition." And the project planner say, "No, I have my opinion, and you are not doing it right." So which one I should believe? The one who sit in the office or the one who is in the site?

In current setup, in current project management setup now, we are believing and we are trusting the planner, not the site in the problem.

Like I assume you are in a war, in a war. There is the soldiers on the field, and there is the leaders and command on the offices. The soldiers are already suffering. He is injured. Maybe some soldier dies. But the leaders say, "Ah, we are winning here." So which one I should leave, believe?

So we need to make a realistic plan to build the project not a plans just to make a project management- process, not to make the best project management output. We have to look to the, the, the, our goals. Our goal is to build thing, something in the site. I'm, I'm stressing in this point.

Yeah, it happening now, in major project in Saudi Arabia, I experience this, that, the owner of the project should advise, with from advices or from recommendation from the BMCs, from project management consultancy, are, are laying down the project management system.

Like, we are utilizing this tool or this tool, or we will do our r- routes, or we will communicate in this way. It helps to smooth the process as it should be. However, in my opinion, one the one who build, he should enforce his system. I'm talking here about the, the main contractor. In fact, the whole project management process must be a contractor thing.

But who is owning or who is deploying the most resource in the site? The main contractor, the major contractor. So by logic, who is more capable to, lead the communication and the management system in the, in the, in the construction environment or the, the whole project? It's logic to be the contractor, not no one else.

We need to look at the current setup of the, contract, type of contract. Because now we have FIDIC, now we have to look back to all of our clauses to refine this, to build this system. And of course, this needs, like, a lot of work. It's not something easy.

It depends on the side in which you look at the elephant. You know, if you have the elephant in the room, you need to look from which side you are looking at the elephant.

Usually... the contractor sit on the defensive chair. In most of the meeting, the contractor is sit on the defensive chair. And the way you can report the information will change the whole narrative of the meeting. For example, I'll give you example. A contractor is underperforming for three or four months period.

There will be, the monthly progress meeting, and the contractor will be showing a scheduled performance index under 0.8, for example. Despite the fact that the contractor really increased the resources and the productivity rate in the site. Now, the contractor is showing that his effort does not meet the scheduled planned performance, of course, which means that they expected a huge wave of criticism and argument from the project owner and the consultant.

Now we are going to the war zone, and we are now ready to get the punch on the face. Yeah, khalas, that will happen. What can a project control manager of the contractor do? Now I am a project control manager of the contract. What can I do? He just can show the scheduled performance index of the last three months, which may be something like 0.65, 0.7, then 0.8.

Now all people will see performance improvement. There will be improvement. There is improvement along the side. And now the whole scenario is different. He delivered his point. We are performing well. And the meeting will turn into optimistic review to the performance. It's not like you are too bad, you are too bad, and instead of wave of criticism.

the project control manager of the contractor site didn't change any fact. He never lied. He never manipulated the data. He just put the information in the context that changed the whole narrative.

You know what's smarter? What smarter project control manager can do?

He will not only show the performance of the last three months, but also show the performance of the upcoming month until the SPI reached to one.

And here come the effective reports and dashboard. Now he solve the problem, show his capabilities and the effort of his team, and gain the trust of the people he is representing to.

This is how it looks at the reports. It is not just to sort out the information. It is how to show the information, actually, it's something like, you are, directing a movie or something, you know, actually I, I, I love... yeah. Actually, I love that. I lo- I love to make like a report, like a movie or something.

From your side, from the story, how you will tell the story, from which side.

Okay. Up to now, can AI obtain the solution like the example I explained it just right now for the project control manager of the contractor?

No. Because needs judgment. Still, this is like, this is a judgment, a human judgment. I'm not sure when the AI will be f- get the capability to do such creativity. I'm not sure. Because actually AI can still work within within typical thoughts.

It is good for analysis, it's good for showing the, the whole scenarios. For the creativity, get so- i- some idea from nothing, still I believe still would be struggling here. Yeah. AI in, in this example or any type of engineering application can provide you with a wide explanation of the reason, and it is able to develop scenarios for complex problem.

But it will never target a specific approach to show the output. I see it more tools than a full. I, I see AI like a more, more t- tool. Not a full replacement to human judgment, especially when it comes to making decision. This is my opinion about the AI. I'm not sure it will, it will end here or it will be developed for more.

Let's see. But up to the moment, no. Well, it's, well- AI is still, Yeah.

In construction industry, we waste a, a lot of resources. Like we waste a wood that can build a bridge to build a boat.

Do these tools save money or time? Like we are now using more tools and techniques other than we used already in the past when we built most of our great buildings, like pyramids, for example. I am from Egypt, so I can refer to the pyramids.

Did Khufu, the king, the Khufu king, did he use the Bard PI? Did he use the Primavera? Did he use communication techniques? No. So if this tool now, which is good tool by the way, it's excellent. If this tool doesn't save, don't save, money or time, so what's the purpose of it? Why we don't search for an effective way to do so?

Why we don't search for an effective way to utilize this tool to really save time and money?

Yeah, because actually, again, because we turn into project management itself as a separate industry from its purpose.

It's not serving the, the purpose itself. It's serving, serving its own purpose. Project management now is industry itself. It's not a condus- a construction-related industry. This is how it goes now.

Thank you, Alien. And I really, I enjoyed the, the, the session. I enjoyed the, the episode

After a while,

all people will use AI sooner or later. We, we can't prevent that. but all people will use AI, but little have a passion about they will... what they would do. If any student, if you have a passion against your work, you will use AI differently, and that will make, make you special.

All people will use UI- AI, but not all people have passion about what they are doing, and this will make you special. It's still special.

Yeah, absolutely. Learn about the project first. However, the current job market is widely rely on skills now, to be honest. So my advice is learn about tools to g- to get a job, but learn about the project to be special in your field.

that will be the good combination.

Yeah, actually I grew in a small village in Egypt. I'm a village guy. And here I am talking a professional podcast organized in USA and living in South Australia. Wow. That really stayed with me. It's a vision. Yeah, it's a vision. I always say to myself, and this is not like a motivation session or something, I always say to myself, "Someone did it.

You can did it. You can do it. If this guy did that, so why not? Why no you?" You have two hands, you have two legs, you have a tongue, you have like a mind, you have everything, so you can do it. But the high standard, you have to have a high standard. Be hard to satisfy, like nothing enough to fill your dream.

And actually now I'm 20 years experience, still I haven't fulfilled my dreams yet. So be hard to satisfy. for example, when I build dashboard, I used to tell myself, "Is it enough? Is it c- is it really satisfy you?" And even in work, when I do some report or something, I used to like enhance more, enhance more.

And this sometimes it's not good for me because I waste sometimes on something I already, I should done already. But yeah, if you have these qualities then I guess it will be good.

I will advise to do what I already, what Ahmed missed, because I have missed a lot in, in, in my early career.

I'm saying it loudly: do not be afraid to give your opinion. Again, do not be afraid to give your opinion, even if you are only one person sure about it. You have a golden opportunity to do mistakes in the be- in your beginning without getting, like, a huge judgment from your supervisor or fro- or from your manager.

And if you don't, later on, when you will be, like, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years experience, you will be still be afraid to speak about it. And believe me, that will happen. So if you have opinion, tell it. If you have something in your hand, in your head, of course, be aware of your location.

Be aware of the people you are talking about, talking to. Don't go to your client and shout in his face. Just be aware of your situation. And if you have opinion, if you have opinion you are 10% only sure about it, just tell the words. Just speak. Speak up. Let the people know that you have opinion.

Actually, little bit away, far away from, from, construction management in my, in my, like, like my, my spare time or what the thing that I do.

'Cause actually I'm a fan of, of like, science and, physics, and learn about the cosmetics, evolution, history. I like to know about history. Maybe read or listen to some podcast. Maybe true crimes, a little bit weird, but I love it. But I love, I love it from the perspective analysis. Like when the police come and start to check and build the case, and know what's come after and why, what this being, being, taken like that and the evidence, and sort out the evidence.

And you know, actually this is something I'm, I'm little bit passionate about, because actually I look at the dashboard like, like a movie or like, like a show. Let's say you are watching a series or something like, show series or something, and, you will find the hero and the, the other character in the movie, okay?

And I look at the dashboard and report like that. You need to have a hero. You need to have like a other character to support your idea. And if you look at the dashboard, the hero character and the numbers and the colors and the environment, it will create the information you need to tell.

Exactly like a movie. So this is some takes about this.

I will take this from my LinkedIn profile. It's all there.

Yeah. So, yeah, this is me. This is me 2010, '20, during COVID. Wow. I was the only guy on the site. So this is the time when I sto- I think about I have a lot of time. Nobody's working there, if you realize. Nobody is the site, so I was alone. I start to think about doing, dashboards and so, and, and so through the world, my world.

You know, actually, I, I, I need just to go through because actually in my, in my first beginning of this, I start to, to craft like very simple thing. this one of my early

It's got like 18, 18, interaction or something like that. This like one of my, one of my early dashboard I developed. yeah, still simple, still can provide like, insight to the project resource. Yeah. But to be honest I was not focusing on doing something like, special to this.

It's just like if I, if I now I can take this, yeah, it's good looking graphically good, actually it is not practical. this one, which like in my early, my early, work in dashboards. Actually, it like, growth, the, the number of attraction encouraged me to, to build something much better and you will realize that, g- going through my, my published dashboard.

This is like, a comparison between the, the actual curve and the blind curve. Yeah.

This in a monthly basis. You realize that like only four person or four people who interacted with me in this.

Yeah. I mean, f- in the beginning, I have just start this one, and I start to build this dashboard. At the time, I just was judging it or, like, control the output of the dashboard based on my my experience, like, my visual experience.

But I make sense of it. Like, from my experience, I feel like, okay, what people need to look at if I am in the meeting now, and there is the client and there is the project manager, they are sitting there. What is the information I need to present to them? So I come with this, like, you'll find, yeah, they...

at the time they are concerned about the planned versus actual. So I put this in this one in the color, in this in a different color. Then I I make the match between the white color, and the green color. This like an idea come, "Okay, Ahmed, if you will do that, it will be perfect."

Then I make okay if I make the planned more bold line, it will be better because it will differentiate from the green line. Now you will have the variance. You got me here? So it's come like that. It's come like building my way of doing things, and at the beginning of this, I, like, I've tried, like, 1,000 time in a dashboard.

I created, like, 1,000 dashboard just to publish, like, 100 or something. But each dashboard I am trying, like, yeah, trial and error. Do this and revise again. Revise again. And this a kind of my way of doing things. After, after that, later on, I have just, yeah, like, I read about the graphic design.

Like, not I l- I have learned, like, graphic design. No, I just read about it what is the, the concept of the graphic design. And just the way I like, it's all published online. Like, for example, if you need to know what is the, the graphic design concept, it is published there. Like, there is thir-13 13 core of graphic design principle: alignment, contrast, balance, hierarchy, color, white space, proportions, repetition- Mm-hmm

rhythm, movement, emphasis, proximity, and unity. And if you come here To this dashboard, you'll find the balance. What is the balance? That every item here is like balanced with the other. There is no like big, very big item here and small item there. Of course

but what I said, like you need to stick... Or my, insight about doing a great design or g- a great dashboard, good-looking dashboard, it already linked to some knowledge I know from the graphic design. It's very simple, and it came by experience. So that, I, I, I will show more, more complex dashboard than this one.

For example, this one

Here is, here is in, in graphic design, for example, in graphic design you will find color because the color here is matched. And I have some things about the color. People, you know, actually it's very funny because people when they prepare like a project control, and control dashboard, the least thing they are care about is the colors.

They put like white, green, yellow, blue, red. It's like a kiosk. I need to respect the guy which I represent my dashboard to. This guy have his eyes. And I am, I'm asking some- anyone who is preparing a, a dashboard, consider a dashboard is like your cloth. In the morning, will you like wear a red, red jammies or red, red, T-shirt with, blue pants?

Yeah

You have a taste, you have a taste to reflect your taste in your dashboard, so you represent yourself- ... as a professional guy. Wear a suit, then let the, the... Yeah, let the, the dashboard reflect your taste of color. So now you are talking about here in, in, in the, in the dash- in the graphic design concept, you will find colors.

Here, colors. Like there is a homo- homogeneous, like, there is a matching colors. You'll find the repetition. If you come here to the one of the, one of the, the concept is repetition. It's repetition of the same shape. You'll find here this shape is equal to this shape. Sh- this shape is similar to this shape.

Now we have like a repetition. At the time when I start this, I didn't have this information in my head. Later on I start to develop this one. So this one looks like it's good. We got like 13 attraction and I need to go further because I don't like to take too much time about this, but this is my first hit It start to gain a lot of attraction here.

two hundred and ten likes, forty-nine comments, twenty-eight reposts. Woo. And yeah I done that. Okay, there is something here, you know. first of all, I have like, this very simple curve, but there is explanation and there is parts here, and there is like, again, the color define- Yeah

define the, the concept. Yeah. For example, here you will find this actual duration, and, you will find total delay here. So you'll find the difference. Okay? So this like the early schedule analysis. This show how to calculate the early schedule analysis. Like, this is not, it's not a common technique to obtain the, d- the delay of a project based on the performance, not based on the, based, not based on the delay.

Usually, no one is using this technique. that's why I, built this dashboard. You'll find the planned duration in gray, the actual duration in blue, and then you will find the, red duration- which is the delay, total delay based on the performance in red.

you may now understand the whole concept of the earned and schedule analysis because just because I make it in a contrast, and I will again go to the contrast here. You will find contrast. Okay? Again, I said that during, when I prepared this dashboard, I didn't know anything about contrast.

I will show you another one. This one is the huge one. It's got like one- one thousand seven hundred and twenty-three likes and three hundred and five comments and eighty-two repost. And actually, this not like a simple dashboard. This is not a regular dashboard.

It is just like, let's say it is like a newspaper or something like a pursuit for the project. Yeah, like an infographic. Okay.

It's a infographic because actually it shows more, more graphic, more than, information dataset. There is no more charts, more it's like words and so.

And by the way, this dashboard got me the, the whole attention in Saudi Arabia. I got these offers from AECOM. I got this offer from Barsaat. I got this...

But yeah, it looks good. And this pushed me later on to develop something like that. This one of my dashboard And, this like, this site report, I developed it in different way, to be honest, not like a regular.

And I ne- I got inspired by the, in this, left side one. I got inspired by the, by the, you know, the mobile screen. It's look like there is a mobile screen. You are looking at the weather, you are look the date and there is the pictures, you know. Because you are in a daily, what you are doing daily, you are just looking at the mobile and you saw what's the, what's today, the temperature, the date, the picture you love.

Of course, you may put your, your, son, your daughter, but here I love the project, so I put the, the pictures of the project. Then I start to make like sections. Sections here, section one, section two, section three. And here it comes one of the, project core of the graphic design principle, which is the hierarchy.

And in each section you will find like progress tracking, scope today, activities ongoing, material on delivery health and safety, labors and equipment. Now you got the titles clear. You got the, the hierarchy clear. And most importantly, you will find the colors itself more clear so you can easily understand what is the content.

So if I need to look at where is the progress tracking? So it's very easy. There is a title, and there is the information. I can look at it. What is the scope today? It's very easy to know. What's the activities ongoing?

Of course, it should be related under the scope of today. And for the labor and the equipment, it is very hard to read for someone. For do- some project managers, they don't have the time to read each word, so I put like pictures or icons, so it will reflect the, the information I need to tell. So in total, after I do all this item in the dashboard, I look at the organization, the alignment, the color, and make a sort out of all of this stuff so it will generate a whole story with a good picture.

Then also this one I need to talk about One

one.

Yeah, this one should, I'm talking now about what-

So what's, what is inspiring me? what inspired me to do this theme of the, of the dashboard?

It is like, the $1 banknote, actually, I look at this. I have inspired by the shape, the theme. And so you will find this like more like, okay, this like a, a banknote, you know? Like a check or something. So I put this- gray color at the background because it will reflect like this, like the color of the money.

And then start to put li- this donut chart. Again, it will... Most of the themes should, in the money should show some circulars or some round shape. And start to, build this the, the... Of course, I put the hero, which is the cashflow of the project. Mm-hmm. And I put in contrast, I put the time cashdeficiency or cash in, cash out, so the people will know easily which month exactly thewhi- which, which month exactly the project manager need to deal with the cash deficiency.

Because now, you know in the project control you have like cash in, cash out. In some months you will get cash in more than cash out, but in other months you will get the reverse. So now the project manager, of course, in a real show it will be bigger, but you can easily now to see that you can finally e-exactly determine the months when, you start to have cost deficiency or cash flow deficiencies.

Now, if you are looking at the cash out, you will find this one, and you will find the cash out. And if you are looking at the cash in, you will find this one, and you will find the cash in. Of course, this information can any project control manager or, commercial manager can obtain it easily, and he can represent his information in his dashboard.

But what makes this different and what makes this, attract three hundred or four hundred likes and sixteen co- sixty comments and fifteen reposts is that, again, I make it in a good shape. I make the alignment. I make the color. I care about it. I love it. When I did it, I have a story to tell, not only just numbers.

I have a story here to tell, and I got inspired by something real in the world. So I will go to another thing. this one, for example this is like, this more into planning performance. Again, I care about the alignment, I care about the shape, I care about the the colors, and I put in contrast s-some, some important information about the project delays and the and the project calendars.

Mm-hmm. I put in contrast here also as well the total cost, the planned value. So if you will look at this, if I'm sitting in the meeting, I will get an instant question. "Ahmed, what is the total cost?" Here, three hundred and thirty million. What is the planned value up to now? It's here, one hu- one hundred and sixteen.

It's easy to reach. It's easy to understand. this one I, I care about the colors, I care about alignment, I care about everything, so it looks like that. This one like, again, this is, like a tableinfographic type, sorry. Infographic type.

Again, I put the hero here. I... Yeah, I thought that if in a project and the client most concerned about the percentage complete, so I will just give him the percent complete in a hero, and I will give here scheduled performance index and other information he might not care about. I will just put it there.

And there is like a package progress, tracking. They will find the progress tracking here in a smaller. So I put what I look at what is my client would be more concerned about. I put it as a hero. And in this meeting, if you will ask another information, it will be like here. I can show it. Of course, this is like small size, but in a presentation I can show it in a bigger, in a bigger font.

And of course, I put here a second hero is like planned completion date, forecast completion date, and the total delay. So that this is my-- If my client is very simple like that, I will show him this information, and it will be enough for them

Just I will need just to go to my latest ones. This one this one is already a request from one, one, portfolio manager in Qatar. He told me he needed something to develop. He told me exactly like that, "Ahmed, I have like, ten projects, and I need to go... and I usually go in a week- in a weekly meeting with the client.

And I need to, in a one single dashboard, I need to tell, I need to tell them everything." And this can conclude our speech today because actually it include everything I need to tell. Now, this is like now in the, in the portfolio you have executive, you have a CEO. What he needs to know, I have ten projects.

Of course, he will be aware of his ten projects. He got the name. He will ask about the name. By the way, they will ask randomly. They will not go, they will not follow your order. So I have put the names of each project and I put the, here let me make it bigger Yeah.

He will find in each card you will get the, the progress percentages and the variance and the total delay. The project man- the pro- portfolio manager asking me, "This is the information I need to tell, and this is the information the CO needs to know. So put this in your concern." So now I have a direction to put something special.

Then after that he told me that, okay, now I need to put the issues and concern. Like I said before, issues and concern, most important thing. So I put them one, two, three, four, five. This is about the top five issues, and I put like a color code to show them the urgency of each issue or risk.

I just put the schedule time. I put something interesting, which is the cut line. So now from the CO perspective, he will see that, yeah, this brown or red section is the part which is already done, and this, like beige, section is the time which is remaining.

So now in proportion, the CO will get to know, or the executive, he will get to know how much I spent, how much I already left with me. Not all the executive and the leaders know how much remaining, how much already elapsed, because those guys are really busy.

So it's better to put it like that. He will not read the each each line or each date or what is the amount delay, but he will regard from the visual how much elapsed and how much remaining. Again, maybe the executive need to look at the performance. What's my performance? He will not know what is the SPI 0.85, what is the SPI 0.83.

But if I will characterize the performance in a line like that, he will get to know, yeah, in the last three months I was, we are working in under performance, but now I guess we have a good performance. And of course, this is like comparison for what's planned and what is actual during the three months elapsed or four months elapsed.

This like kind of dashboard which already, gather most of the... my philosophy about the dashboard, how the dashboard will create a decision. Now, this dashboard now include the information the, the executive needs to say, and the issues here we need to discuss. And of course, by the end of this meeting, the portfolio manager will ask for the decision or direction based on this dashboard.

Of course, there should be like a, a second paper or something to to a narrative or to conclude the meeting or something like that. I guess I can show one more example here

that's right. this is like a performance one. Yeah, this, this one is a performance. The latest one I did. But, yeah, it didn't reach to many people.

anyway it's got like, forty-seven, interactions, three comments and three reposts. Yeah, this is like a simple one. Again, I'm talking about the hierarchy, the color division color matching, the alignment. Again, now I am be more experienced about the graphic design, so you will not find disturbance in eye looking to this dashboard.

Now you can reach to any information very easily. Here's the project name. First thing, you start with the project update, delay, schedule, calendar. It's very easy now. Plan, start, finish. Now, this is the calendar. This clock is showing to the, it's attached to the calendar, to the project calendar and the project time monitoring. we have a project performance summary. It's easy now to see that there is like-- Forty-four against thirty- thir- thirty-four. How much time you take for to know this information?

Now I guess this is the, again, comes like... I guess this is like a monthly for that. The same. The monthly for, for this month. The actual progress for this month only. And this like four months' performance trend. Again, I love to show the trend. It is not only, it's not only about the current status.

We need to know the old trend of the project. So that's the f- last four months is very good indicator manpower histogram. I make like, because, usually this manpower histogram is much similar to the to the, performance histogram or performance chart. Then I put it in like, a, or like blue one.

Because actually people care more about the numbers of man-hours and so on, how we are here and how we are there. And quality KPIs. This is suitable for a project control weekly meeting, just to show the information, and we can discuss, based on that.

This one already is just, one is very different because it's, more concerned to the design. Actually I realized that no one representing a dashboard to the design stage. And by the way, I haven't taken, taken this because actually the board, the project is born in the design stage, and the issues of the project born during the design stage.

So if you need to care about the project, you have to take care about the design stage. And I realized that no one really talk about the design stage. And now I'm more focused to work on the design stage. This is the core of the project. And here is the dashboard of the design, of a design stage to tell about the progress.

I just put here, like in projects overall as a design board. I put, like in boards to be very simple and very visual that concept design, schematic design, detailed design, and IFC, IFT. Simple thing. Anyone from one look, from one second can know exactly where we are now in the project. And in the other side, I put by discipline like architecture, structure, mechanical, electrical, facade, ID, general layout.

Now it's not only about the phase, it's about the package itself. So now people can compare easily between this one and this one in a nice, in a neat color. Then if you need to go deep, if you need to get some explanation and some insight about this, you'll find four cards like concept, schematic, detailed design, IFC.

And each card get a details exactly for what you need to talk about. So it will be very easy for anyone just to look at the card and know the status of the design stage right now and the design, and the design pha- design phase right now.

in the side, I put the time schedule. And by, by the way this is like a summary time schedule.

This is his concern. He just, he need like in f- five minutes to know everything. This is the information he needs just to know. Nothing else. Of course, in addition to the issues and the concern and the risk in the first slide. So if I will go to my client and with two slides only, one for the issue and concern and one for this, rep- simple presentation to the project, it's enough.

And of course, if anyone needs to look at this dashboard, of course it is in my LinkedIn profile.

Yeah, of course I have LinkedIn and I have website. My website lo- www.ahmed-fattah.com. of course you can reach out to my, my LinkedIn. It's, it will be much easier, and from there you can, go to my website and of course you'll find a lot of templates, a lot of my work there, and you'll find my blog and my opinion.

Hopefully you can agree with some of them, 'cause I talk a lot about, the construction industry different than, than many peoples do. So yeah, you'll find everything there.

Thank you, Alien. And I really, I enjoyed the, the, the session. I enjoyed the, the episode.

And I really, I talk abou- usually I talk about, my passion, but I didn't that today with the max I can do really I get out of my chest. And to be honest, I like, You know, actually, I've come from Egypt in a time where there was a, a revolution, and I here to- I'm feeling myself now. I'm in a revolution against the, the construction, industry.

I make like I, I, I have a sound, I have an opinion, and, hopefully this will not come, to contradict a lot of people in the market. Yeah.

Yeah.