Public contracting authorities called the Authority involved in delivering capital project investments under Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) concessions need to manage the PPP life cycle stages from signature until the end of the contract life. These include the management tasks relating to the PPP contract and the project management activities that could arise from the residual obligations of the Authority under the PPP agreement and the potential modifications in the conditions that may occur during the design and service maintenance phases of the PPP project.
Post-Award Contract Management’s key objective is to ensure that the PPP concession continuously meets its goals while managing risks proactively and maintaining effective working relationships with the various stakeholders. Contract management of PPP concessions can become highly critical due to those projects’ long tenure, the complex nature of activities, and multiple stakeholders’ involvement. The Post-Award PPP project life cycle stages include development, construction, operation and maintenance, and exit. Under each stage, several activities need to be performed by the Authority.
A Project Management Information System (PMIS) like PMWeb will enable the organization to map the PPP project life cycle stages and define each stage’s activities. The Authority could have multiple versions of their PPP project’s delivery life cycle stages depending on the type of project, including schools, ports, highways, utilities, and prisons. Each stage’s activities will be linked to its source PMWeb record or document that relates to each particular activity. Those could be, for example, the project budget, risk register, concession agreement, issues log, progress reports, testing and commissioning checklists, meeting minutes, change orders, services performance reports, among many others.
To ensure that each stage’s activities are performed per the Authority’s documented procedures and tasks for executing those activities, PMWeb allows creating checklists for each movement to be performed at each stage. A single checklist will be created for each PPP project life cycle stage. This includes all activities within the stage and all the tasks that need to be performed for each activity. PMWeb allows assigning the entity responsible for completing each activity and task using the field’s skills or task type. In addition, text notes for each activity and task can also be added.
PMWeb stage-gate module will also be used to document actions that need to be formally reviewed at each stage before that particular stage can be considered as completed and closed. The Stage-Gate Score tab will detail all items that need to be checked and verified. It provides the option to offer a unique weight and score point for each item. Also, it gives the option the specify the “Answer” type for each item. Those could be text, the value from a predefined list of values, amount, date, among others.
Although a workflow can be assigned to the stage to review and approve, the Authority might require a formal PPP stage gate review process. Using PMWeb custom form builder, a form will be created for the formal stage-gate review. There could be separate forms designed for each PPP stage as each stage’s review requirements might differ. This will expedite the stage gates review and ensure it has been completed as per the set project governance policy and procedure. Like all PMWeb modules, documents can be uploaded and attached to the Stage-Gate Review form, and relevant PMWeb records can be linked. Also, a workflow will be assigned to formalize the steps for submitting, reviewing, and approving the Stage-Gate Review form.
The PPP Post Award Contract Management Deliverables Status report will provide the organization with real-time information to monitor, evaluate, and report each project stage activity’s performance. The form can be designed in the desired shape and format to meet the organization’s reporting requirements.
