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Three project delivery capabilities for every future-forward AE professional
- January 23, 2025
- Posted by: Macy Lang
- Category: Project Delivery
Few architecture and engineering (AE) firms have the time or resources to ensure their active projects align with their mission and business strategy. But by maintaining oversight of the company’s workload and continuously optimizing workflows, a project management office (PMO) can increase its firm’s performance and profitability in the competitive and fast-paced industry. To implement operational improvements and help their firms grow, future-facing PMOs need the three capabilities described below.
1. Technology integration and transformation
Successful project managers have real-time visibility on their firm’s operations, active projects, and resource allocation. Not only must a PMO understand project design and delivery, it must also understand risk management, budgeting, and financial forecasting. Many PMOs still rely on notes from field staff and past project data to create scheduling and profitability prediction models using makeshift spreadsheets or business insight models, says Casey Shea, service-centric industry GTM strategist at sa.global. “As the pace of innovation continues to accelerate, as projects grow in complexity, and as customer demands increase, the PMO needs an interactive system that provides real-time visibility on the resources necessary to execute the work efficiently.”
Technological advancements are pacing and even exceeding advancements in the field. But the PMO must stay apprised of developments and updates in project management software, cloud platforms, and integrated systems to ascertain which tools best elevate its current and future workflows. The PMO must be fluent in both firm operations and technology integration.
2. Comfort in the cloud and connected systems
Looking ahead, PMOs must be comfortable working with cloud-based, connected systems and transitioning away from legacy technology, which has a big problem. Shea says: “They are point solutions based on data that is static or a snapshot from the past. A live system offers real-time visibility starting from the business development and sales cycle to authoring contracts defining the scope of work to executing the work.”
Cloud-based solutions allow project team members across different locations, sites, and time zones to access a single source of truth. Integrated systems that connect data across marketing, project management, finance, and human resources enable seamless resource management from project pursuit to closeout. Siloing the information in disparate platforms by department can lead to fragmented or lost project data, insight, and understanding as it is rekeyed again and again. Static or even slightly outdated data can hinder project understanding, troubleshooting, or optimization. “Point solutions do not provide that visibility or level of communications to help you determine what needs to happen next on a project,” Shea notes.
An integrated enterprise cloud solution can leapfrog legacy technology investments by providing an interactive, high-level, or detailed view of your company’s activities. It can test the availability and applicability of local and remote resources and run multiple what-if scenarios to steer a project toward a milestone or on-time, on-budget completion. “With a live system, you can take corrective action to get a project back on track and see its impact on the target realization rate or margin,” Shea adds.
“At the end of the day, a live system allows a company to pursue additional revenue opportunities and grow,” points sa.global solution architect Jennifer Holman. “With that visibility, they can see how well a job, bid, project type, or client turns out for them.”
3. Embrace of artificial intelligence
AI is changing the paradigm of work, which future-forward project managers recognize — and welcome. They are proactively enlisting AI to automate repetitive tasks, evaluate large datasets, and ideate ways to improve project workflows, resourcing, and ultimately outcomes.
“The promise, energy, and the excitement are real,” Shea says. “However, what is becoming clear are the barriers for PMO’s legacy tech investment to accessing AI and its potential: security, data governance, data integration risk, and hosting data in multiple places.”
However, a PMO can overcome these barriers by migrating its networks to a service-centric industry cloud with a trust center, which then becomes a cornerstone of a company’s data governance and data architecture. For example, if a PMO migrates to the Microsoft Industry Cloud for Architecture and Engineering, it gains the value proposition of Microsoft Copilot. This AI-powered office assistant compiles data from correspondence, business solutions, and web applications to synthesize information and deliver insights in a compliant and secure manner. It can automatically generate reports summarizing the week’s milestones, expenditures, revenue, and resourcing using the latest project data and saving time for the PMO.
In resource management, AI-powered solutions can predict the availability and performance of staff members on imminent projects based on past work and recommend team combinations for proposals, Holman says. AI can also help in resource training and promotion, Shea adds. “A PMO can measure the error rate of an engineer and use it as testimony to their maturity and growth. Instead of defaulting to a lengthy, fixed process of training, mentoring, and coaching, AI can determine whether an engineer can move more quickly through their development plan and become more billable, ultimately helping the company’s bottom line.”
Extracting success through technology
Technologically capable PMOs are critical to the longevity of AE firms. They are under pressure to deliver projects on-time and on-budget that add value to their clients and their own company. “All AE firms are trying to bring in new resources, prepare themselves for growth and scale, and achieve a realization rate that unlocks margin and profitability,” Shea says. “The most overlooked piece in this journey is evaluating existing tools and legacy tech investments. Getting to a more holistic strategy that creates real-time visibility on your resources, projects, and performance is ultimately going to get your company to its desired business value.”
Macy Lang
Macy Lang is a Senior Business Manager at sa.global with over 10 years of experience in implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 solutions. She specializes in business analysis, solution design, and project delivery for services-based industries. Macy works closely with the marketing team to convey the impact of connected technology on service-centric organizations. With deep expertise across trade and logistics, finance, and project accounting, Macy has been a part of several implementations and upgrades.