Project Review Guidance for Executives (v2)

• This guide has been prepared to assist Executives in holding a meaningful project performance dialogue.
• For each slide of the project review template a summary of purpose and key questions has been provided in order to
help Executives evaluate project performance, status (red / yellow / green), and to determine if sufficient mitigation
measures are taking place to assure positive outcomes.
• Projects falling into red status are subject to intervention measures to assist the team in improving performance.
Intervention may take the form of supplemental resources (e.g., contract administrator, project controls, etc.), tiger teams
or other appropriate actions.
• Metrics on attendance and intervention measures are reported to the Chief Legal Officer and the ELT as appropriate by
the Chief Legal Officer.

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 Project Summary
Purpose:
• High level project overview to allow project performance assessment
at a glance.
• Provide an understanding of the as-bid status for comparison to
current performance.

Note:
• Review the as-bid status to current month. Look for what’s changed.
• Compare the current month report to prior month. Look for what’s
changed.
• If information isn’t clear to you, it likely isn’t clear to the project team.
When in doubt, ask.

Key Questions:
1. Are there any changes in schedule, scope, financial performance, etc. from as-bid or prior month? If so note for
discussion later in the slide deck. (Discuss at a high-level here and in detail on the appropriate slide.)
2. If there have been changes in schedule, scope, financial performance, etc., what commercial terms may be applicable
to the changes?
3. Are there monetary or commercial terms particularly applicable to this phase of the project that should be emphasized
across the team or mitigated in some way?
4. Are there recent changes in the execution plans? If so, do changes trigger new risks or mitigate existing risks?
5. Are actions from the prior review closed? If not, why not?

Additional Questions:
1. Has the team held a healthy start? Were all key members of the team included?
2. Is the project plan clearly documented and shared with all team members?

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 Team Organization Structure
Purpose:
• Provide visibility to Project Team members, offices and regions
involved in project delivery.
• Ensure key roles and responsibilities are filled with qualified people.
• Ensure a contract administrator has been assigned to the project.

Note:
• Key roles include Technical Leads or Coordinators, Construction
Manager, Scheduler, Contract Administrator, Project Controls,
Finance, Quality, Safety, etc.
• Recent turnover of key roles or vacant positions should be discussed.

Key Questions:
1. Have there been any changes in key roles in the last month? If so, what is the transition plan? How have the client and
other stakeholders been notified of the change?
2. Are any positions vacant? If so, how long and what is the hiring strategy.
3. Are people qualified for the role they’ve been assigned? How were their qualifications reviewed?
4. How is information within the team and between offices shared and communicated (such as project plan and scope)? Is
it effective to protect AECOM’s commercial position, financial, schedule and quality performance?
Additional Questions:
1. How have team responsibilities been clearly defined and documented?
2. Have key team members been involved in similar projects before? If not, how are they being educated on relevant
means and methods?
3. Which positions are full-time vs. part-time? Is this appropriate for the work being done?
4. How are part-time roles managed? How do part-time individuals prioritize the needs of this project?
5. How are new team members on-boarded?
6. Does the team tend to operate proactively or reactively? 3
 Project Overview
Purpose:
• Provide background on project scope and key requirements.
• Orient the review to issues relevant to the current phase of execution

Note:
• This slide is intended to provide context and should not be allowed to
distract from covering more substantive slides later in the template.
• Any additional graphics or photos should be added to the appendix.

Key Questions:
1. Are the project scope and requirements clearly defined and executable?
2. What recent issues is the team managing? What mitigations are being pursued?
3. Have internal independent experts been consulted on execution and technical approach where appropriate?
Additional Questions:
1. Have we learned of any proposal assumptions that were incorrect? If so, how are we addressing them.
2. Has the team developed a project quality plan? If so, how is the quality of deliverables verified?

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 Safety Performance
Purpose:
• Provides visibility to the project team’s safety culture and performance
• Provides visibility to sub performance where applicable

Note:
• Safety issues are a leading indicator of overall project performance
issues. Early warning signs of issues should be addressed
immediately.

Key Questions:
1. If a lost time or recordable injury occurred in the last month, what happened and what actions are being taken to prevent
recurrence?
2. Are near misses being reported? If not, why not? If so, how are they addressed?
3. How is the team embedding safety as a priority across the project?
Additional Questions:
1. How are safety measures under taken for the type of work the team is doing?
2. Has a safety plan been developed?
3. Is there evidence that the team completes task hazard assessments prior to starting work?
4. Have Safety Management Observations been submitted for this project? If not, why not? If so, what do the
observations reveal about the culture of safety?
5. Have Safety Observations been submitted for this project? If not, why not? If so, have issues been addressed and how
long does it take to close them out.

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 Project Organization Structure and Stakeholder Analysis
Purpose:
• Enables understanding of the project contractual structure with respect
to Stakeholders
• Highlights how the impacts of Stakeholder actions or interfacing
parties is addressed contractually or through contingency.
Note:
• It’s important to confirm the project team’s understanding of the rights
and obligations within the Stakeholder structure; how to obtain relief
from impacts of Stakeholders under any relevant contract,
Stakeholders likely to impact AECOM’s performance and how they are
to be managed. The contract summary in the Appendix will assist the
discussion.

Key Questions:
1. Are there any negative impacts as a result of Stakeholder actions? How is the team managing the risk? Is there a
contractual right to be compensated for these impacts? Is there contingency for the impact?
2. How does the team communicate with and manage needs and expectations with key Stakeholders?

Additional Questions:
1. Does the contract stipulate that the Stakeholder must respond to queries or provide approvals within a set number of
days?
2. How is the team monitoring and documenting late approvals?
3. How are the financial and schedule consequences being recorded (is time being booked under a separate code, is the
schedule showing the impact)? [This is important to prove cost and time impact if the matter goes to dispute.]

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 Earned Value Progress
Purpose:
• Provide an understanding of worked performed vs. planned relative to
objective schedule and cost measures.
• Schedule performance and cost performance indices should be
provided as measures of earned value performance.

Note:
• Cost Performance Index (CPI) greater than 1 = under budget for work
completed; less than 1 = over budget for work completed.
• Schedule Performance Index (SPI) greater than 1 = ahead of
schedule; less than 1 = behind schedule.

Key Questions:
1. If the team is not reporting earned value management, why not? Are resources available to implement earned value
management?
2. How is the CPI performing? If lower than previous month or less than 1, will the cost overrun be corrected before the
end of the project? If so, what is the strategy to correct it? If not, has the overrun been projected to the end of the project
and included in EAC cost?
3. How is the SPI performing? If lower than previous month or less than 1, will the schedule delays be recovered before
the end of the project? If so, what is the strategy to correct it? If not are there late delivery implications such as
liquidated damages?
Additional Questions:
1. What key changes on the project are driving forecasted impacts to CPI or SPI?
2. If only one planned value curve is plotted, is it the early or the late curve?
3. Is the SPI based on the early or the late curve? (If the earned value curve is below the late curve, that is a much bigger
problem than if it is below the early curve.)

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 Schedule Performance
Purpose:
• Provide visibility to critical schedule and contractual milestones.
• Identify schedule delay issues and quantified impacts.

Note:
• Contractual milestone dates and liquidated damages should be
identified.
• Any major impacts to schedule should be highlighted and discussed.

Key Questions:
1. Are any contract milestones projected to finish later than the dates required by the contract? What’s driving the
delay(s)? What’s the plan to recover the schedule?
2. Are any late milestones on the overall project critical path? Are liquidated damages accruing or at risk? Are payments
being withheld?
3. How much float remains in the schedule before the forecast end date will be affected?

Additional Questions:
1. If schedule has slipped, what actions are being taken to renegotiate contractual due dates?
2. Does the client or any other third party have any responsibility for schedule delays (e.g., delayed approvals, changes in
scope, etc.)? If so, how are we addressing these delays?
3. Have we been delayed by weather or other force majeure events? If so have we provided proper notice and applied for
any schedule relief allowed by the contract? lack of these curves may indicate lack of a proper cost loaded schedule. A cost
loaded schedule should be able to produce the early curve based on the assumption that all activities finish on their early dates,
and a late curve which assumes all activities use all their float and finish on the latest possible date that does not lengthen the
overall schedule. If the earned value curve is below the late curve, that is a much bigger problem than if it is below the early 8
curve.)
 Change Management
Purpose:
• Provides a summary of active and historical project change activity.
• Quantity, value and status of change requests should be discussed.
Note:
• The status of active change activity is a leading indicator of overall
project health.
• Aged change requests or waiting to resolve changes until a later time
signal potential financial risk to AECOM.

Key Questions:
1. Are change requests being issued in accordance with contractual notice requirements?
2. Are any change requests under preparation aged over 30 days? If so, why? Does the team have proper resourcing to
submit change requests on a timely basis?
3. Is the client responsive to change request submissions? If unapproved submissions are aged, what’s the strategy to
accelerate approval?
4. What’s the volume and value of rejected change requests? What’s the reason for rejection? Are rejections being
disputed? Are other contractual avenues available to pursue for settlement?
5. Is work proceeding without change orders (work at risk)? If so, why and what’s the change management strategy?
Have appropriate approvals have been obtained to work at-risk?
Additional Questions:
1. Does the team have a named contract administrator responsible for change management submittals?
2. Are we required to proceed with disputed work under the terms of the contract?

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 Subconsultant / Subcontractor / Supplier Performance
Purpose:
• Enables visibility to sub budgets, performance, claims and issues.

Note:
• The flow down of obligations from Prime to subs should be assessed
to ensure subcontracts are properly administered and subs are
properly managed to achieve project requirements.

Key Questions:
1. Will we be able to procure all subs and suppliers under contract for less than the budgeted cost? If not, has the EAC
been adjusted accordingly.
2. How have the subs been vetted in terms of financial standing, insurance, E&C, etc.?
3. Are subcontractor agreements in place for active subs?
4. Are subs on plan to achieve project financial and schedule expectations? What processes are in place to manage sub
performance? If behind schedule or over-budget, what plans are in place to correct performance?
5. Are there sub change orders or claims? How are these being managed (e.g., passed up to the client, rejected)? Which
party has caused the issue? Have any sums paid to the subcontractor been cross claimed from the causing party?
6. Are any client complaints, cost deductions or late payments a result of sub performance? If so, are these actively
passed down to subs? Has AECOM deducted or withheld payments to sub as appropriate?
7. How are sub work products or deliverables reviewed and verified against requirements?
Additional Questions:
1. Are sub contract terms aligned with AECOM’s prime contract? Are signed contracts in place for all subs?
2. What risks are we unable to pass down to subs? How is the team managing these risks?
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3. How do we communicate and coordinate with subs? How are changes in schedule or scope communicated and
 Financial Performance
Purpose:
• Provides visibility of revenue, cost, contingency, and profit for the
duration of the project.
Note:
• Financials reported should reflect the most recent performance and
align with AECOM’s financial system.
• ITD, EAC, and ETC trends should be explored to understand emerging
performance issues.
• If the project is a JV, clarify if the financials represent AECOM or the
overall JV, and what AECOM’s share of the JV profit will be. The
profit/loss on any AECOM internal projects must be added to our share
of JV profit to get the true picture.

Key Questions:
1. Are the reported financials consistent between the project management tool and AECOM financial system? If not,
what’s different and why?
2. How does budgeted cost, contingency and margin performance compare to the as bid position? If financials are not
performing as planned, why? What plans are in place to recover cost and margin performance?
3. How does the EAC, contingency and margin performance compare to prior period? If EAC cost is increasing and
margin is diminishing, why? What plans are in place to recover cost and margin performance?
4. Has the contingency been applied as expected? Does the remaining contingency adequately cover known risks?
Additional Questions:
1. Was the EAC Cost developed by adding the latest estimated cost of remaining work to the ITD cost, or is it just the
approved budget less the ITD cost?
2. Is there enough ETC labor cost to get to the forecast project end date factoring in the current burn rate and projected
future staff reductions?
3. If the EAC Direct Labor Multiplier or Average Labor Rate per hour is more favorable than ITD, what is expected to
change between now and the end of the project to make that happen?
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 Project Cash Flow
Purpose:
• Provides an overview of project billings, receivables and sub payments
for the life of the project.
• Highlights potential payment issues.

Note:
• Aged unbilled work and receivables should be closely monitored to
resolve as quickly as possible. Lingering aged unbilled and
receivables can become very difficult to rectify and sets a bad
precedent with the client.

Key Questions:
1. Is billing based on progress, defined milestones, or a combination?
2. For progress billing, are there unbilled amounts aged over 30 days? If so, why and what plans are in place to improve
billing?
3. For milestone billing, is slow client review and approval preventing or delaying billing for completed work?
4. Are there receivables aged over 60 days? If so, why is the client not paying?
Additional Questions:
1. Is the unbilled work related to unexecuted change orders? If so, what right does AECOM have under the contract to not
perform the work given that is effectively at risk?
2. Are there open client disputes affecting unbilled work or receivables? If so, what action is being taken to contest the
dispute?

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 Major Risks & Opportunities
Purpose:
• Enables understanding of major risks on the project and how
contingency is planned and managed.
• Provides visibility to the actions in place to mitigate active risks.

Note:
• Major risks should be rated for severity and likelihood of occurrence.
• Contingency should be allocated to key risks as appropriate in order to
protect margin performance.

Key Questions:
1. Have new risks been added, upgraded or downgraded since the last reporting period? If so, what conditions have
driven the adjustment to risks?
2. Are reflected risks still current? What mitigations are underway to protect risks from manifesting?
3. Is there enough contingency to cover the remaining risks? If not, what financial exposure exists?
4. Is contingency being used for unforeseen risks? If so, how much?

Additional Questions:

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 Potential Financial Exposure
Purpose:
• Provide a summary of potential financial exposure based on current
operating conditions.

Note:
• This slide should align with any outstanding change management
issues, potential delay damages / performance damages, unbilled
work, aged accounts receivables, and known risks and contingencies.

Key Questions:
1. Is the reported EAC consistent with what has been reported in an AECOM financial system as of the end of the reporting
period? If not, what’s different and why?
2. Is the data represented for outstanding change requests, unbilled work, aged receivables, known risks and contingency
consistent with data presented elsewhere in the project review slides? If not, what’s different and why?
3. Is there potential financial exposure? If so, what actions are being taken to reduce risk of unfavorable outcomes?

Additional Questions:

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 Project Status Summary
Purpose:
• Aggregate execution performance represented throughout the project
review to provide a concise overview of project status.
• Provide information to be consolidated in Group or Enterprise level
reporting (e.g., Enterprise C0 Dashboard).
Note:
• Current month category performance should align with the relevant
previously discussed slide.
• Project Reviewers and the Project team should discuss and agree to
the category performance and overall project status.

Key Questions:
1. How is category performance trending? If trending negatively, are adequate actions identified to improve performance?
2. Is the project’s overall performance red? If so, what interventions are taking place to assist the project team to improve
performance?

Additional Questions:
1. If an intervention is required, who is leading it and who is on the team? What are the goals and timeframes?
2. If an intervention goal has not been achieved, are additional resources required to resolve the issue?

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 Open Action Items
Purpose:
• Capture and maintain line of site to key actions emanating from the
project review or other related meetings (e.g., risk committees, healthy
start, design review, constructability meetings, etc.).
• Provide an attendance record for mandatory attendees.

Note:
• Any actions resulting from the current project review should be added
before the meeting is concluded.

Key Questions:
1. Are there any open actions from prior reviews or meetings? How long have these been open and are additional
resources needed to assist?
2. Have actions from this review been captured?
3. Have mandatory attendees been recorded?

Additional Questions:
1. Have all healthy start action items been completed?
2. Have all approvals committee conditions been satisfied?

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 Key Contract Terms
Purpose:
• Provides an overview of key terms of the contract relevant to
operational activity.
• Ensures all team members have visibility to terms dictating timely
action, communication, and dispute resolution.

Note:
• Ensure that all terms pertinent to operational obligations have been
included.
• Reference this slide to inform discussions which might be covered by
contract (e.g., stakeholders, scope change, etc.),

Key Questions:
1. Are all terms related to operational activity and contractual obligations included? Examples may include obligations to
provide schedules within a certain timeframe, payment cycles, timing of approvals, timing of notifications, timing of
defect remedies, etc.).
2. Are terms summarized in a clear and succinct manner?
3. Have team members been trained in terms pertinent to their work?

Additional Questions:
1. Has a contract administrator been assigned to the project?
2. What is the level of project correspondence? How many letters have been written by the client? By AECOM? What’s
the backlog?

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