While many corporations turn to complex computer systems for project management, Breen has synthesized all he needs in a single-page paper: the Project Control Form. The system accomplishes two seemingly contradictory goals: It keeps the project manager in the loop about every decision and discussion regarding a project, while simultaneously empowering the people “on the ground” to make those decisions and keep the project in motion. The result is better communication, higher efficiency, and minimal contractual disputes.

“Project success is governed by budget, schedule, and user satisfaction,” says Breen. “All of that revolves around your ability to get information, pass it on, and act on it as quickly as possible.”

The problem is that every company that comes together for a project has its own set of forms to transmit or access information, issue a change order, or carry out the myriad other communications that occur between architects, contractors, owners, and auditors. The most problematic communication, according to Breen, is the kind that involves no written form at all, because it leaves no paper trail.

The overriding rule is, “No verbal instructions,” he says.

One Page Does It All

The Project Control Form (PCF) is deceptively simple. At the top of the page are seven boxes for the user to check in order to describe the nature of the document: transmittal, request, confirmation, documents, instruction, information, or approval. Two additional boxes labeled “other” allow for a different description. Similarly, the bottom of the page offers nine possible consequences of the action, and what is required of the recipient, including approval within a certain timeframe in order to avoid project delay; the work will proceed and value of the work has been approved, or not; the work will not proceed until the value has been approved; the action constitutes an addition to, or omission from, the contract; or the form simply offers clarification.

“Over nine years, I’ve never changed any of the headings,” says Breen. “They all work. You can check off as many as you like, but you have to check one.”

The middle of the form is left blank for the user to fill in as he or she sees fit. That allows everyone to maintain the method of communication they are most comfortable with which works within their own company. There is no need for each company to learn and conform to a new mode of communication.

“The description can be as long or as short as you wish,” explains Breen. “If you have a computer-generated list of things, or if you’re transmitting a purchase order, you can write ‘as per attached,’ staple it to it, and send it out.”

Breen cautions that the system requires diligence. Each team member must hand in their PCFs at the end of each day so they can be input into a database and distributed to the relevant people.

The forms come in books of 50, all numbered sequentially, and each containing four self-duplicating pages. The white form goes directly to the person you’re talking to; the yellow copy is for the project manager to review and distribute, and for the project administrator to file in the system database along with a notation stating whether the issue is “open” or “closed”; the pink goes to project control to alert them of delays or cost impacts; the gold copy remains in the book and is handed in for archiving when the book is completed and the worker picks up a new book.

“If there is a cost impact, we have a separate change management system where changes are valued for forecasting purposes,” says Breen. “It’s also valued so we can address it within 28 days, which is my rule, to get change order management started.”

The database is searchable by any part of the form, including number, date, recipient, user, project, category, or status. If there is a dispute about information in the database, the paper record is always available. Breen recommends searching the database weekly for issues that are “open,” distributing that list, and urging the team to close as many as possible.

“Then all you’re doing is working with a short list of outstandings,” he says.

Everyone working on the team uses these forms, but they receive many emails from external sources.

“The worst thing that’s happened in our industry is email, because there’s no record,” he says. “The email is sitting on someone’s machine.”

Email communication generates a response with a PCF, which creates a permanent record of it.

How It Works

One of the biggest outcomes of the PCF is the authority it gives to the people on the job.

“A lot is said on the workshop floor,” says Breen. “The best way to get the most out of your people is to empower them.”

He gives as an example a construction worker who notices that he was given two right-handed widgets when the project calls for left-handed widgets. His foreman tells him to go ahead and buy the ones he needs; they cost only $5 apiece and there’s no sense holding up the project for that.

“Three months later, the controller rejects a $10 invoice because he was unaware of it, and you have a huge conflict on your hands,” says Breen.

Using Breen’s system, the foreman would fill out a PCF, and management would be informed of the decision within 12 hours. Most likely, the $10 expenditure would be approved as a matter of course.

By the same token, an HVAC contractor might determine that a project’s engineering plan is lacking a necessary 40,000-cf air-handling system. Using the same form, the contractor can record his decision to buy one.

In both cases, the professionals on the floor are given uncommon authority to make decisions, and managers maintain ultimate control because they are kept uncommonly informed of each decision, no matter how small. The company has the option to place dollar limits on these decisions. For example, anything under $2,500 can be done without permission; $2,500 to $5,000 requires management’s approval afterwards; and more than $25,000 must be discussed in advance. Historically, 80 percent require no intervention. Even if a contractor oversteps and orders something that the project manager would not have approved, the project manager will find out about it within hours and cancel the order with a phone call. He then responds to the employee with another PCF informing him that his decision was overruled.

“The key here is that the information is with the experts, who are tasked with doing particular parts of the project,” says Breen. “If you have a field supervisor, he does not come back to you because something is changed in the field. You’ve tasked him to do your mechanical or electrical, let him do it.  If he needs to execute a change, cost is not the issue; it’s the project that’s premium.

“This is a big culture shock because people are used to being told what to do,” he says. “I get to have total control while giving control to the people on the ground.”

The PCF does not replace purchase orders or change orders, but it clarifies the communication involved in submitting all such forms.

“You would not believe the support that you get from a contractor who has clarity in the work that he has to do,” says Breen. “He has the details, and he knows he’s going to get agreement. The PCF guarantees that flow of information. The form is written as you’re having the conversation.”

When challenged as to why the PCF is not computer generated Breen offers a different scenario. Consider a project team that is meeting off-site, away from the administrators who handle the project management database. The team decides it needs to make changes to the on-going contract. “How do you get a tracking number?” says Breen.

“You’ve restricted your professionals, and work stops for a day as the technology is accessed. Consider also, what happens when you lose your database? What happens when your power goes out, or you have no cell service?”

Breen is not opposed to using computer databases, but he says they have limitations.

“A database is a recorder of information, not a generator of information,” he maintains. “I have probably executed $1 billon in contracts using this piece of paper.”

By Lisa Wesel

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ISSN: 1096-4894