Part 8 - Challenges, the Laws of Physics, Project/Construction Management and Reality

 

Basic Management Fundamentals

Owners’ upper management and project governance, and Project Management Offices’ (PMO) leadership are always looking for the single biggest issues that can be resolved to remove impediments to project progress and performance, and to get a stagnate project back on track.   But sometimes it is the smallest most basic activities that create the largest issues for maintaining proactive management on a project.

Recently, a new management team was introduced on a mega project to convert the contract management centric approach to a PMO centric management approach.   This change was understandable and foreseen as beneficial to improving the overall management on the project.   While this was aligned with the standards and practices defined by the global professional organization Project Management Institute (PMI), there was Owner oversight, construction management, contract management, project controls, quality management and risk management – but no defined project management roles in the organization’s management structure.  

As expected, the new PMO team focused on analytics and decentralized management into specific physical asset project boundaries that will be managed independently to meet goals within a segmented territory of the project.   The basis of this approach was adopted from a predecessor review by an industry management consultant that assured the Owner that the approach, which worked in 2001 on a major European project, would do the same for a 2018 project in North America. 

While understandable in its presentation to the Owner’s Board, it did not resolve the root cause of the performance attributes affecting overall project progress.   Hidden in plain site were common management interactions between project participants that deteriorated the work environment required for effective project management.   Some of the typical factors negatively affecting project performance, included:

• Failing to respond to Letters from consultants and contractors
• Continuously submitting Cost Recovery Letters to consultants and contractors
• Ignoring requirements in contracts with consultants and contractors
• Demonstrating distrust of hired consultants for design, project management and construction management services
• Disregarding expert judgment from consultants with valuable experience in the project, similar projects or intimate knowledge of the Owner’s requirements
• Committing to unrealistic and unreliable schedules that are clearly disconnected with historical data and industry processes
• Poorly managing expectations within established control documents

Roll-out of the new PMO centric approach was implemented with Owner’s Board acceptance and project governance support.   Expectations were high for turn-around of performance to critical dates leading to project realization.  Monitoring of performance metrics produced charts, dash boards, and heat maps that required constant attention to variances and management inquiries. 

Some of the missed opportunities included:

• Reinforcing organizational core values and professional standards for work quality and conduct
• Eliminating contract constraints preventing a Spirit De Corp with defined staff selected for solving problems and increasing project execution progress
• Providing the best and most experienced Owner’s staff on the project
• Dismissing expert judgment that is not aligned with political commitments or unrealistic organizational goals
• Ignoring risks and management actions identified by project professionals
• Expecting shorter process durations without implementing improvements or obtaining variances to organizational processes, funding partner processes or government statutory requirements. 
• Committing to critical path scheduling on complex projects without recognizing interdependencies of systems engineering and execution processes  

Reality A

Owner’s hire consultants for expertise that does not exist in-house or that is used to supplement staffing levels and to validate expertise and conclusions of in-house personnel accountable for the same services.   In organizations where institutional expertise has been drastically depleted, Owners also hire consultants to oversee other consultants.   Some organizations have demonstrated that hiring a consultant allows them to disrespect and bully other consultants.    As a result, Owner’s management of consultants must monitor the interactions with the organization to assure consultant staff is provided respect and professional courtesy that comes with professional ethics, contract requirements, and laws and statutory requirements.   If not, the consultants will expend scarce project funds on non-value added activities that displace funds allocated for the creation of project assets.

Reality B

The PMO, organization and consultants hired by the organization must insist on a code of respect that transcends contractual responsibilities.  Just as in-house staff are accountable for interactions between employees, it is equally important the organization’s consultants insist on respect in interaction between in-house staff and consultants, and between consultants.