As with most project disciplines, starting early has proven to provide the best results. Your interface management programshould be established at the start of your project, during front end planning ideally, and continue throughout operations. The establishment of this level of practice early on sets the foundation for success throughout the entire project cycle.
Front end planning is the process of developing sufficient information and defining the scope for a project, allowing for the selection of a preferred solution moving forward. A contracting strategy is chosen for the project after identifying scope, interface dependencies, and risk; all of which contribute to the complexity of the project. Starting your interface management program during front end planning sets the basis for ensuring clarity in bid packages and provides a deeper understanding of project interfaces as stakeholders join the project.
Although many view interface management as a project discipline applied during specific project phases, IM is proven to provide value throughout the duration of the project and into asset management. Some interface activities are completed during early planning, while others are executed across the project lifecycle. The following provides a few vital interface activities that happen in each project phase.
Any changes to interface information or dates will have a cascadingeffect during any phase and must be managed effectively to ensure all stakeholders are aligned. Transitioning between one phase to another introduces another layer of risk that must be addressed.
Poor scope definition is still the leading cause of capital project cost and schedule overruns. Getting an early start on defining project interfaces can considerably improve a project's chance of success.
When considering the implementation of an interface management program, three key components should be considered:
- The Business Process– The Interface Management Plan is developed to describe in detail the overall interface management procedure and policies. The Interface Management Plan provides a single set of clear and consistent rules for the management of project interfaces, establishes a communication plan, and defines the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders.
- The People– Having the right people in place, with the correct skillset, and ensuring alignment
- The Tools– Ensure you equip your team with the proper tools to succeed. Interface issues can translate into serious schedule delays and cost overruns, so be sure to choose interface management software that is built to meet your requirements (aligns with your Interface Management Plan) and has been proven in the field.
Now, let’s take a closer look atplanning a successful interface management program. Here are the critical steps you’ll need to follow:
- Step 1: Develop the Interface Management Plan
- Step 2: Develop the interface register
- Step 3: Select a tool that supports your plan
- Step 4: Ensure communication & training
Step 1 – Develop the Interface Management Plan
Achieving a high-impact interface management program involves the development of an Interface Management Plan, which clearly describes the roles, responsibilities, and expectations of both the owner and the contractors.This is critical to alignment and ensures that the right people, processes, and tools are in place when and where needed.
The Interface Management Plan generally ensures:
- All contractors clearly understand the interface management objectives for the project
- The methodology to identify, manage, and resolve interfaces is defined and understood
- Roles and responsibilities are fully defined
- Contractors understand how to resolve conflicts and overcome barriers to the benefit of all
- Communication channels are described and understood by all
- The Interface Register and its expected use is clearly described
- Appropriate representation (generally a designated Interface Manager) is established for each contractor
Aligning all contractors and project team members in an interface management program is critical to ensuring everyone is working towards the same goals, with straightforward methods to resolve potential conflict. The Interface Management Plan is the document that ensures this alignment.
How Involved Should Owners be with Interface Management?
Before you finalize your Interface Management Plan and identify the right tools to support your plan, you may be wondering, how involved should owners be with this overall process?
The answer to that question may not be straightforward, and it has long been debated. So much is dependent upon the contracts, the complexity of the job, and your relationship with your contractors. However, we do know that interface stakeholders benefit the most when they have established owner representation to oversee the interface process for each contract or scope of work.
While owners must remain directly engaged within the interface managementprocesses (they ultimately underwrite all interface-related risk and the project'ssuccess rides on their shoulders),their level of involvement within the exchangeof information and deliverables is unclear.
The trick is to not become a bottleneck. Project teams typically promote open lines of communication between interface stakeholders, with the ownerteam available to facilitate resolution when problems occur or require clarification. These representatives (individuals or teams) are responsible for managing scope, responding to technical queries, and ensuring that engineering standards and quality are met. They must ensure interface issues get resolved and deliverables get exchanged on time.
If you cannot review interface agreement requestsfast enough, and end up causing delays, you are doing more harm than good. Take steps to delegate when possible. It is also beneficial to hold regular interface meetings with your contractor; this way, the interface agreements you do receive will likely not be a surprise and approvals can be quick.
|
It boils down to this:owner involvement can be as simple as a notification when an issue is raised or as extensive as direct involvement in each interface agreement's review and approval process.
The level of involvement can depend on many factors, including the relationshipwith the contractorand the complexity of the scopeof work. However, in the end, whether you are directly involved in each interface agreement or kept informed through automated notifications, regular interface meetings, or reports,owner representation is essential to the interface managementprocess.
Related Content:
- Webinar: Planning Your Program
- “How Involved Should Owners be with Interface Management.”
- "The Interface Management Plan"
Step 2 – Define the Interface Register
Good upfront planning requires stakeholders to understand how interfaces are defined, how scope is broken down, and who's responsible for what.
Identification of interfaces is an essential step in the process. Early identification helps to expose potential problem areas and risks to your projects such as scope gaps and overlaps. The project type, stakeholders, and contracting strategies will all impact how this activity is executed.
A preliminary interface register is an early interface management activity completed during a project's FEP (Front End Planning) phase, and prior to contract award. However, interface identification is an ongoing process with additional interfaces identified throughout the whole project life cycle.
Figure 4: Interface Register from the Interface Connect solution.
"Interfaces are typically identified by a group of experts from the project, using the project’s design documents, work breakdown structure (WBS), contract documents, project specification, etc."
-Chua and Godinot, 2006
|
The interface register is a key tool to define and control scope delineation, track all interfaces to completion, and ensure key stakeholders are kept informed. Defining the structure of interfaces is a key first step to a successful interface management program and can vary from project to project. The goal is to eliminate gaps and overlaps; to ensure that parties that share a common boundary understand the shared interfaces, and all while, at the same time, balancing to ensure a manageable interface register is created that does not add additional and unnecessary overhead.
Related Content
- Structuring Internal & External Interfaces on a Major Project
- How Do You Structure Project Interfaces?
Step 3 – Select a Tool
Setting up a proper interface management process supported by a purpose-built system will include additional upfront costs and resources. However, the return on investment is huge; potentially saving millions of dollars by avoiding rework, delays, and subsequent production loss.
Projects must select proven tools to manage a high volume of interfaces and their resulting complexity to ensure interface risk is managed effectively throughout the project. Although interface management software cost more than a basic spreadsheet, the value the system provide far outweighs the substantial costs historically associated with poorly managed interfaces.
Related Content –Learning from Our Mistakes: Why Interface Management is Vital to Project Success
Crucial to the success of your project is usingautomated interface management tools built specifically to support the interface management program designed for your project. The tool you select should support your plan, not the other way around.
WithCoreworx Interface Connect interface management software, automated workflows and forms work to ensure compliance with your plan. The work processes within the system are designed to ensure the appropriate reviews/approvals are obtained. With built-in alerts and escalation, all stakeholders are kept informed. Online forms are designed to support consistency in data capture, which in turn will support the reporting and interface management KPIs you’ve designed for your project.
Supporting a web-based online interface register provides a single source of truth since all interface and delivery teams can reference and contribute to a single register.With an online register, the project team responsible for managing all interfaces is no longer required to decipher and merge multiple spreadsheets from multiple delivery teams. Global project teams can access the information anytime from anywhere.
And the data in Coreworx Interface Connect is secure. By using a robust roles-based security model, access to interface data is always controlled.
Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Use Interface Management Software
Here are the top 5 reasons why you should use the industry-leading Interface Connect solution on your project:
- Real-time reports and dashboards– Get quick access to insights that help support timely interface risk mitigation
- Schedule integration– Get insight into high-risk interfaces that may harm your overall project schedule
- Automated workflow– Ensure all contracting parties and stakeholders are compliant with your interface management process that is critical to project success
- Complete audit trail– Should conflicts arise, get quick access to detailed logs of all activities related to interfaces
- Stakeholder notifications based on RACI Matrix– Keep all stakeholders involved and informed automatically based on the responsibilities matrix defined by the project
Related Content –Advanced Project Insights with Interface KPIs
Step 4 – Communication & Training
Crucial to ensuring the success of your interface management program is providing ongoing communication and training of all stakeholders.It is important to promote clear, timely, accurate and consistent communication. This becomes even more critical when dealing with multiple contractors in many locations with different languages and cultures. Stakeholders need to know who they are expected to communication with and how.
The communication plan or strategy is a component of your Interface Management Plan. Here you document the expectations with regards to communication and collaboration.
Interface Agreements document the exchange of information and deliverables between two interface stakeholders. Deliverables can include engineering drawings, specifications, design reports and calculations, equipment details, and project schedule information.
Ensuring interface teams are communicating and sharing information needed to successfully manage interfaces will have a significant impact on the success of your program.
Facilitating regular interface meetings is another form of communication and is important to stakeholder alignment and the overall interface management program.Project teams should establish regular interface meetings between interface stakeholders.Objectives include:
- Ensure ongoing alignment of interface parties
- Resolve interface and scope issues
- Review all open issues, confirm delivery dates, and update as necessary
- Identify/document new interfaces
- Prioritize critical interfaces
Training is also essential. Not only should stakeholders be given training on the tool(s) used to support your interface management program, but they must be fully aware of and trained on the methodology to identify, manage, and resolve interfaces.
Related Content
