“The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use.”
‘Prefaces,’ The Aspern Papers. Henry James.
A major problem for the project manager is the quantity of documents on a project. Which ones should you approve before they are issued? Which ones should you review, and for which ones do you need for information? Then there are the documents that the project manager generates themselves.
There may be 120 to 150 different types of documents produced by the project. In addition, on a major technological project, there could be in excess of 50,000 drawings. Further, each of these can be issued several times.
In today's world, much of the documentation will be computerized. Nevertheless, people do like to use hard copies. This hard copy document then acquires many notes and other annotations and, consequently, there will be a reluctance to transfer all of this information onto the latest issue of the document concerned. Making sure that people are not using a document that is out of date and ensuring that everyone is using the latest issue, requires thorough policing by, say, the project control manager's team or the project office.
Document management software is useful in providing version control, ensuring that only the most recent approved version is used. It also provides increased document security by controlling individual's access. In addition, it provides a ‘paper’ trail of who is accessing what and when. Further, it can facilitate archiving.
To assist with document security, try and persuade people to spend five or ten minutes filing at the end of the day and keeping their desks clear.
Progress reports: Many company reports are likely to have a standard format. The project manager needs to identify those reports that they wish to receive from others, in order to maintain control. They also need to identify the reports that they themselves will generate or that will be generated on their behalf.
There are two main categories: internal to the contractor and external for the client/financial organizations, such as banks, finance agencies/government organizations, offshore supplies office, Department of Energy. Whilst reports are generally issued monthly, vary this to suit the circumstances.
Remember, all documents will be issued several times and thus are a major problem, and the most important concern to be addressed is making sure that all members of the team are using the same and latest issue.
See also Section F Filing & Archiving, subsection 3, Master File Index.