Member of the Month - Rami Kaibni

 

This month we're pleased to highlight one of our most active members, Rami Kaibni. Even if you're new to the community, chances are Rami has answered your question or provided you with ideas on how to get an answer.  

How did you get involved in project management?

I graduated from Birzeit University in West Bank, Palestine with a degree in Civil Engineering with honors and emphasis on structures. I was employed by the civil engineering department as a research and teaching assistant for one year before I joined an international company (Consolidated Contractors International Company) that specializes in Project & Construction Management. Since Civil Engineering is a wide field, part of my job (besides design) was to manage projects. That is where the adventure started and it’s been more than 10 years now. I really enjoy doing project management because every project is unique; you always keep learning and the limit is the sky.

Who or what inspires you to be the best project manager you can be?

Project management is a very innovative and creative field. At the same time, it is a very competitive field. If you do not make sure you are doing things right in terms of coping with the changes in managing projects, attitude, and so on, then you can’t sustain in this industry and you also can’t survive in this world. Everything is dependent on how efficiently you manage things - even on a personal level. I always believed in a saying which inspired me a lot: What’s more important than reaching the top of the pile is staying there.”

What is one thing you wished you'd known when you first started out in project management?

I wish there were more sources of education in the Project Management Field. Practical PM is great and the best teacher but educational programs and mentoring are also important and plays a major role in development. We had to learn project management the hard way but I personally believe it was a great way.

It's Friday at 4 pm and your boss just told you that you've been assigned to work on a project - on a different continent! You leave 9 am tomorrow. What are the next five (5) things that you do?

It is somehow unusual for a project director to request that a PM relocates to a different continent within few hours, it is not practical. To be able to answer this properly, I will assume that this is an emergency and that I will be going there for one week so set things up and go back to finalize all pending issues.

The next five things would be:

• Informing the deputy PM of the decision and have her/him take over immediately until I return.
• Ensure accommodation, transportation and ticket are all reserved.
• Get an idea from my boss about the nature of the client, client.
• Read about the country I am going to and the nature of doing business there.
• Prepare my suit bag and necessary documents.

You’ve come to the realization that an important project you are currently managing is going to be a massive failure. Somehow, every red flag has been missed or ignored and it’s far too late in the game to turn things around. Maybe you inherited the mess, maybe you’re the cause of the failure, or maybe it’s just the way things turned out and there’s nothing you could have done to prevent it. What 3 types of things will you do, mentally, physically, or even spiritually, to cope until the project is over?

Personally, I’ve worked on projects where we ran over budget, were behind schedule at some point or had many issues but at the end of the project, it ended up with a success. I’ve never experienced a total failure project because the project is always as good as the PM is unless there were severe uncontrollable issues. I imagine if I was put in a situation like the one addressed above, I would do the following:

• Allocate more time to communicate with the client to make sure they do not lose trust in our company and to always keep them alert of our loyalty and commitment to the job.
• Boost the morale of the project team as much as I possibly could because blaming others would never solve the problem and try to sort out the problem and initiate mitigation plans in order to minimize the level of failure. 
• Make sure to record all lessons learned properly to make sure we do not face similar failures in future projects.

In summary, even though the situation assumes that the project will be a massive failure, a project manager should never give up and in such situations, he should think about how to resolve as much issues as possible and at the same time think about future projects and how not to have them affected by the failure of this project and change the failure of one project to a success on another project.

Please introduce yourself to Rami in the comments below and take some time to add him to your network as a connection. 

Is there a community member who you think deserves some recognition for their contributions to the community? Let us know! Email the member’s name and a brief explanation as to why you think he/she should be featured in our Member of the Month to [email protected].