Good Practices for Project Management Integration on Rail Transit Projects

 

The broad scope of integration includes understanding processes and interdependencies, verifying process durations, assuring logical sequencing of project schedule activities, and interconnecting processes across organizational silos to assure alignment of managerial areas with the project scope, schedule and budget.

On rail transit projects, integration includes linking management across organizational silos, including design, construction, contract administration, operational coordination, quality and safety, and tailoring processes, deliverables and approaches to the Owner’s business and, if available, its established Project Management Office (PMO.) 

Project management integration crosses all the knowledge areas, which are defined by the Project Management Institute’s (PMI) – Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK).   PMI knowledge – project level areas include: scope, schedule, cost, quality, resources, communications, risk, procurement, stakeholders, claims, safety, environmental and finance.

An Owner’s rail transit business management typically includes engineering, maintenance of equipment (mechanical), transportation, passenger services, procurement and logistics, materials management, business systems, fleet management, human resources, legal, safety and security, and CEO leadership team.   For projects, the Owner’s traditionally assign representatives from essential groups to the support the Project Manager with assistance from the PMO.   Typically, the PM will work closely with engineering, transportation, passenger services, procurement and logistics, legal, and safety and security.

For most rail transit projects, the PM is always responsible and ultimately accountable for integration across all the management functions.  The PM's skills and experience on projects will determine the approach and success of the integration.

PMI defines the PM’s role “when performing integration on the project:

• Project managers play a key role in working with the project sponsor to understand the strategic objectives and ensure the alignment of the project objectives and results with those of the portfolio, program and business areas.  In this way, project managers contribute to the execution and integration of the strategy.
• Project managers are responsible for guiding the team to work together to focus on what is really essential at the project level.   This is achieved through the integration of processes, knowledge and people.”

Unfortunately, many project organizations today, do not define a Project Manager position.   However there may be a collection of leads for various silos including design and engineering, construction, construction management, scheduling, estimating, reporting, contract administration, budget administration, operational support, safety management and quality management. 

Through years of experience and training, and regardless of the scope, value or duration, a PM is required.  As built into the PMI-PMBOK, a PM is always responsible and accountable for the overall project performance, whether he/she was a direct contributor or hands-off manager.   If a contributor failed, the PM failed.   As a result, the PM learned every team members’ role, responsibilities and deliverables and as needed, he/she could step in or delegate to a qualified person to fill a gap and support the team without missing critical milestones or delaying project progress.  

On large rail transit projects, the Project Manager’s focus is frequently redirected to responding to Board governance, numerous oversight consultants, funding partners, government influencers, and community advocates.   As a result, the PM will surround himself with Assistant Project Managers that can focus on managing progress to schedule and as needed, contributing equally to estimates, schedule updates, reports, contract administration, quality, safety, security -  IE Integration.  And as the leader of the project, the PM provides direction to the team based on institutional knowledge and cultural perspective of a rail transit organization.  

If the project organization does not have a dedicated PM, the integration will likely be spread by default to other members of the team.   This leads to no-one member being accountable for the project – as a result no-one member is responsible.  This situation will create managerial ciaos and an endless search for a manager that is accountable for decisions and performance.   Without a PM, the project team will simply delegate to a responsible party in an organizational silo.  This situation makes management integration difficult.     

PMI states “The project manager should strive to become proficient in all the Project Management Knowledge Areas.   In concert with proficiency in these Knowledge Areas, the project manager applies experience, insight, leadership, and technical and business management skills to the project.  Finally, it is through the project manager’s ability to  integrate the processes in these Knowledge Areas that makes it possible to achieve the desired project results.”

A superior knowledge and understanding by project leaders with integration experience on projects needs to be balanced with experience in the domain, such as rail transit projects.   This may require assigning or hiring PM personnel that have broad experience with projects that have similar as scope, regulatory and statutory requirements, industry suppliers of products, government or developer funding sources and division of labor to execute the project. 

Good Practices for Project Management Integration

• Verify the schedule logic is appropriate for work sequences; means, methods and durations; defined interfaces to predecessor and successor activity, and for interdependencies in the WBS
• Validate Division of Work is consistent with the Owner’s organization and internal labor force and collective bargaining agreements
• Monitor the activities and progress of cross-connected management silos by project producers including design contractor(s), construction contractor(s), Owner, PM team quality, PM team project controls, and PM team contract administration
• Confirm alignment and timing of material purchase processes, durations from PO to delivery, and the adequacy of float to schedule installation or construction activities
• Validate site access and work hours can support the scheduled performance milestones at the contract level and project level
• Assess the durations for manufacturing and fabricating processes for materials and systems are within industry capabilities and practices
• Establish and monitor Owner’s staffing levels are adequate to support the design and construction activities as defined in contract Division of Work.

Other considerations:

• Identify a PM or an Integration Manager role for reporting and monitoring interdependencies of work across functional groups and with authority to provide direction
• Assure assigned PM from in-house candidates or a consultant PM has demonstrated project management skills and expertise; project experience matching the current project scope; and demonstrated knowledge of the Owner’s operations and management culture
• Provide the PM with the autonomy and authority for allocating resources and implement decisions equal to the level of accountability on the project
• Create a Matrix that identifies the interdependencies between functional silos and the critical path on the schedule

TIP:   The PM or Integration Manager must be an avid reader with the ability to see hidden threads in content across managerial silos and PMI-PMBOK knowledge areas.

TIP:   On a mega project, an effective way to improve integration is to breakdown the mega-project into a program of individual projects that can each be executed by Project Managers in a PMO environment.

TIP:   Regardless of assignments created by software tools, experienced rail transit persons should monitor all incoming transactions and review the titles and content of Submittals and Requests For Information-RFIs.  As needed within individual accountabilities and expertise, contribute technical and managerial comments to complete integration of comments across silos. 

TIP:   Design management integration topics include consultant management, processes and deliverables for construction specifications and drawings, design criteria, project business case and value engineering to provide best value to the Owner.

TIP:   Construction management integration topics include contract documents, inspection and testing, quality control, quality assurance, performance management, change control, risk management, project records management, and knowledge transfer to the Owner.  

TIP:   Communications on project progress and actions can vary frequently based on changing conditions.  When communications create different messages, project leadership must take immediately steps to  resolve the different messages by providing clear direction.