P6 UPDATE:

Administration Tool – Perspective and Use

David B. Casteel, P.E..

TxDOT
Assistant Executive Director for Field and District
Operations
Outline
1. Perspective
2. Use
3. Summary
Perspective
• Requirement
• Pre-Sunset Audit and recommendations from the
Legislature:
• Develop CPM (or other) tool to manage project development
• Strengthen schedule tracking capabilities:
• Tracking baseline schedule
• Track progress updates and as-built durations
• SB 1420 Requirement:
• Establish a Project Information Reporting System that is
available on the department’s internet website
Perspective
• Initial challenges:
• Unclear vision when first rolled out
• Unclear payoff to end users
• Unclear intent of what the tool will be used for i.e. planning,
forecasting, scheduling, financial management, some or all
functions
• Reliability of initial performance measures
Perspective
• Goals:
• Initiate, plan, execute, control the development of
projects and programs
• Manage the right mix of projects
• Manage our resources more effectively
• Level workload among resources
• Improve accuracy of projects’ cost estimates
• Assess resource sharing across Districts, regions, and
divisions
• Conduct a “what-if” analyses using data from the
Primavera scheduling system (P6)
Perspective
• Benefits
• Co-align strategy with execution and results
• Ensure efficient performance and optimized decisions
• Ensure reliable reporting to internal and external stakeholders
• Minimize “surprises”

• Project and portfolio management

• Ensure optimal utilization of resources
• Tailor the application to include necessary information
• Integrate progress, productivity, and results communication

• Establish consistency in managing repeatable programs

• Ability to identify and manage risk
• Ability to manage change
• Ability to make adjustments to minimize impact to the delivery of
projects
Perspective
• Results
• P6 has proven successful in managing TxDOT’s 4-year
$15+ billion project development portfolio
• Aided the department in being more transparent and
accountable to the Legislature and the public
• Allowed the department to successfully deliver 37%
more projects to letting in FY 11 than originally planned
• Ensured that no District was “left behind” in the
development of their project portfolio
• Optimized the utilization of limited design production
and support resources
Use
• Transparency
• P6 baseline & current schedule information is published
to the public Project Tracker website
• Performance Measure: “Design On-Time” data is now
reported semi-annually to the Legislative Budget Board
using P6 data
• Deployment of the Project Reporting & Information
Management (PRIM) database
• P6 milestone and timesheet data is exported to PRIM
• District Project portfolios discussed during weekly
meetings utilizing the Red-Yellow-Green timeliness
report: Schedule status, milestones, and resources
Use
• Accountability
• Ability to identify “at-risk” projects that may not make the
planned letting date
• Ability to compare original project plan & actual progress
• Ability to take corrective actions to ensure 24-month
letting plan obligations are met
• Ability to track resource allocation and production
• Ability to ensure equity in the allocation of workload
through worksharing agreements
Use
• “What-if” scenarios
• 425 Plan
• End of FY 2011
• Quickly identify candidate projects
• Determine impacts on District resources, consider work-share
• Prop 12.v2
• End of FY 2012 and FY 2013
• Level letting over a 9 months period for FY 12 and FY 13
• Determine impacts on available resources
• Determine impact on current and future backlog levels
Use
• “What-if” scenarios
• Value of projects RTL at any given time
• P6 allows, for any given date, the determination of:
• How many projects will be RTL but have not yet let
• The value of these projects, by category of funding
• This look-ahead ability allows for planning of future unknown
“what-if” scenarios
Summary
• Critical to get all activities and resources for a project
not just core PS&E tasks
• Effort is ongoing to communicate to end-users the
benefits and the need for accurately reporting of the
data
• Administration, District engineers, directors, managers
and supervisors can generate reports that aid in the
effective management of the delivery of their respective
portfolio
• External stakeholders are informed about the status of
their projects
Summary
• P6 has the functionality needed to fulfill requirements
• Comprehensive, consistent, and structured
implementation of this functionality will ensure all
established goals are met
• Divisions, Districts, Offices, and Regions seeing the
benefits will determine success
• Continued focus on training, guidance, and support is
necessary
Questions?