To deliver projects within planning and budget, you need to be able to make adjustments. AT Osborne offers the PRISMA dashboard for this: custom-made within Microsoft's Power BI tool. It helps Waterschap Zuiderzeeland with the mega project Versterking IJsselmeerdijk.

Kimon Panagiotopoulos helps Zuiderzeeland Water Board with the mega project Strengthening the IJsselmeer Dike

It is by far the largest project that Zuiderzeeland has ever had to deal with. The reinforcement of 17,6 kilometres of IJsselmeer dike, between Lelystad and the Ketelbrug. Millions of euros are involved, and the water board itself bears the risk of budget overruns. “So there is something at stake for us”, says project manager Teun Wendt of the water board. “But as a water board, we are a management organisation. Our accounting is organised accordingly. Fine, but a large project like this has a completely different financial structure.” Project manager Bianca Hetebrij: “You want to have a clear status at all times, and also be able to communicate that to the executive board. That is not possible with the Excel files that we normally work with. That is why we asked AT Osborne for a solution.”

Customization in a standard tool

Kimon Panagiotopoulos of AT Osborne was happy to respond to Zuiderzeeland's request. "As consultants, we are often involved in assignments on a project basis, but we also offer products such as the PRISMA dashboard. We ask the client to clarify the management question with the dashboard and then work with a small team to design and build it to measure. PRISMA connects directly to the data that the client already has. They are loaded from existing systems and published clearly after a content check. That is a big step forward compared to Excel sheets. These contain internal references and are error-prone and confusing. In addition, PRISMA is built in Power BI. Zuiderzeeland and many other organizations already have that, so you don't have to purchase any extra software."

“When you start a project as big as a dike reinforcement, a good dashboard is essential. Without it, you can't keep the costs under control and you'll suffer damage that makes the costs of PRISMA pale into insignificance.”

Overview at a glance

PRISMA has been running at Zuiderzeeland for a few months now. How do you like it? Bianca: “It is a huge improvement. With PRISMA we can now see at a glance what the status is in terms of capacity, costs and risks.” Teun: “You have everything together in a visually attractive display. That also saves time. You can easily extract data from your systems and present it quickly and attractively.” An example. Zuiderzeeland has several dozen people working on the IJsselmeerdijk reinforcement project. The hours they write indicate whether the project is in line with the budget in terms of capacity. “It was complex and laborious to get a good and reliable overview of that,” says Bianca. “PRISMA does offer that overview. Moreover, we can view it per sub-team. If hours are exceeded somewhere, we see that immediately and can make adjustments.” Teun summarizes it as follows: “PRISMA makes it easier for us to keep our finger on the pulse.”

Investment more than worth it

Customizing PRISMA for Zuiderzeeland took three months. This was followed by a month of testing. “We closely involved Bianca during the entire process,” says Kimon. “This way, Zuiderzeeland builds up knowledge itself, so that they do not have to take out a service subscription with us.” Bianca thinks it is a pleasant approach. “AT Osborne took me by the hand and patiently explained everything well. They also created a manual as a reference work. We still have to fine-tune a few aspects at the moment, and AT Osborne is helping us with that. So the aftercare is also good.” Teun: “The investment in PRISMA has certainly been worth it for us. When you start working on such a large project as a dike reinforcement, a good dashboard is essential. Without it, you cannot keep the costs under control and you incur damage that makes the costs of PRISMA pale into insignificance. Moreover, we have more large projects in the pipeline. Thanks to PRISMA, we are at least ready for that in terms of project management!”