One simple first step to get started with Business Analytics

What is the easiest way to get started creating analytics for your own organization? Start by creating a project list. After that, things are likely to take on a life of their own.

Why Creating a List is Beneficial.

Making a list isn’t just an activity that makes your firm “more organized”; the real benefit is that when you begin a list, you can then grow the attributes of that list, adding increasing depth and richness to the information. Making a list is actually a huge first step in getting your business operations in order.

The basis of most ERP management systems are simply lists. Once you have an initial list, you can study it and see if it's missing items, and then start adding new attributes to it.

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Creating a Project List

The most basic list that design firms need to create is a project list. This is the fundamental building block of any firm’s workload, both current and future. Project lists help keep the focus on overall workload. Often you may already have some data in the form of lists in your organization - a spreadsheet of active projects, a list of opportunities you’re chasing, or sometimes deadlines. These are the kind of lists that that can create a start for operations.

Also don’t be reluctant to start your firm’s operations with MS Excel, especially if you’re a small firm with less than say, 25 people. Excel is a really powerful tool, and though most people use it in very basic ways, it is capable of so much more incredible, and very useful, power. Yes, there are many small business ERP solutions out there, but using Excel is a great way to start, and to figure out what capabilities you could use as your firm grows.

Below is a simple starter project list created in Excel with some of the key columns that can help with operations.

The crucial fields in the list above include:

• Create Date: when a project came on the radar,

• A Unique ID as well as an official Name, and usually the PM involved.

• For budget and workload planning, the next five columns provide the Net Fee, the projected Start and End dates, as well as any other fields for Consultant costs and Expenses that need to be factored in.

• A Stage column allows a single list to contain both active and prospective projects, which can be filtered quickly by their stage - active, RFP or pursuit for example.

Firms can customize these classifications to suit their workflow, but it's pretty common to have both active and project pursuits in a single list at a minimum.

Enhancing Information

Once you have a list of projects, you can start to add other characteristics you’d like to track, like potential revenue, probability of win, start and end dates of potential opportunities.,

My typical project list includes the following information items:

List Item	Notes
Create Date	The Create Date allows you to track projects by week, month or year, so you can gauge win rates over time.
Project	The project number is the fundamental unique identifier. It can be numbers, text, or any combination thereof as long as it's unique. As you start to grow your operations, having unique IDs is a critical component of operations.
Name	The project name usually identifies the building or address where the project is located. It’s good practice to have this name match whatever is going to be the official name on the project documentation.
Profit Center/Sector	For larger firms with multiple offices or multiple sectors, listing this information helps to gauge win rates and client types.
Project Manager	The PM is usually the client contact, as well as the person managing the project finances.
Net Fee	The Net Fee is the amount the firm will earn for work performed on the project.
Status	Status is often used by the Finance dept for projects that are active, dormant, inactive, or on-hold etc.
Charge Type	Charge Type usually designates whether a project is an ‘earning’ project, ‘pro-bono’, or an ‘overhead’ project for example.
Project Start Date	This is usually the start of the design activity or client meetings.
Construction Completion Date	This date usually marks the end of all activity on the project.
Direct Consultant	Direct consultants are those consultants that are required to be included as part of the contract, and whose fee will be deducted from the total fee. For example, acousticians, site investigation, etc.
Direct Expense	Direct expenses are those that will be deducted from the total fee for items such as travel to client meetings, printing costs, and various other production expenses.
Stage	The ‘Stage’ of the project tracks its progress from initial heads-up to final award. It often includes ‘RFP’ stage, ‘pursuit’ stage, ‘interview’ stage, ‘waiting for award’ or ‘contracted’. Many firms put numbers in front of each stage, so that they sort in the order in which they occur.
Estimated Fee	For projects that are not yet under contract, the Estimated Fee allows an estimate of potential fee, which is usually a best guess on potential future revenue.
Probability	The probability, usually between 10 and 100%, allows the firm to control how much revenue they want to estimate as the project moves through RFP, to interview, to final award.
Weighted Fee	The Weighted Fee is usually the estimated fee multiplied by the probability.
Client Name	The Client Name is usually the institution that is awarding the contract. It can be useful when you have many projects, and want to estimate how much revenue you get from particular clients.
Contract On File	When projects are awarded, contracts can often be finalized long after the project activity begins. Having a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on this field can be useful when you have expended a lot of time, and are at risk of not getting paid.

As I mentioned at the start, the project list is the fundamental basic building block of a firm's operations. The information in this list alone can be very useful in tracking active projects, creating budgets, gauging future opportunities and associated revenue. Also, when pushed into data analysis software and analyzed, the project list can produce really valuable insights on top clients, project completion and profitability.

Of course, creating a project list is only the beginning of the process. There are many other lists that get created during operations. I hope to cover some of these lists in future articles. A strong and careful focus on lists can really help enhance project tracking and staffing in medium to large firms.