Project Management View from Rail Transit Programs and Projects

In short, stop voluntarily creating the potential for risk events on projects that may not have adequate management resources to ensure opportunities are realized and threats are mitigated! 

Projects are exposed to risks throughout the project lifecycle and they present threats and opportunities for altering the original project plan for scope, schedule, budget and quality expectations as well as for adjusting the project business case for purpose, deliverable requirements and functionality, and the cost benefit analysis for project completion. 

Guides for project management and practice standards for project risk management are available from government funding agencies and from industry advocates and professional development organizations such as the Federal Transit Administration (www.transit.dot.gov) and the Project Management Institute (www.pmi.org).    Managing risks also requires experienced project professionals with demonstrated expertise in the industry domain of the project and with adequate allocation of hours and budget to perform risk management activities.  

Hard risks can be addressed with engineering solutions and added funds to retain schedule goals.  But soft risks require managerial solutions that must be addressed with funds, changes in project management processes and other innovations that mitigate impacts to extending schedule duration and forecasting new milestone dates.    

Organizational processes and internal struggles between managerial silos create risks on projects.  Many of the risks in this category can be managed and controlled by diligently monitoring events and consequences to assure operational initiatives do not place new burdens on established project objectives, management processes, performance metrics and progress to goals.

Here are some examples soft risks:

1. Mitigate project level changes to the project plan/charter.   While continuous change is a common mantra, it is not a license for project governance, and program and project managers to propose and implement unbridled changes in the project scope and requirements.   Decisions for changes must be vetted with rigor tested to assess facts, substantiate benefits, identify the consequences, and the expected benefits.   Mitigation can be supplemented by developing a Plan B for recovery if the outcomes of the change are not achieved.   

2. Mitigate changes to roles and personnel assignments.   Turnover of personnel during a project life cycle can occur due to actions outside the control of the project manager.   While a certain amount of events can be anticipated by monitoring years of service and performance records of assigned personnel, most changes are driven by the work environment created by the organization, project governance, program and project management and the priorities in the company’s providing management, design and construction services.   Mitigation can be supplemented by enhancing project management activities to incorporate cross-training and a succession plan to reduce impacts for transitioning staff in and out of the team.      

3. Mitigate changes in organizational processes and procedures.   Most projects rely upon the organization’s existing processes and procedures as the foundation for project processes and procedures.   As a result, changes in project processes and procedures should be carefully implemented by ensuring the intended benefits of the change outweigh any increase in complexity, management oversight and the duration for completing the transaction.   Mitigation can be supplemented by ensuring project governance is flexible to allow the project to vary from organizational work flows while maintaining the intended accountability for managerial diligence and accountability for compliance with professional standards in the industry and licensing/educational oversight.

4. Mitigate changes created by political influences outside of project governance.   Ideally, political will can provide added urgency, funding, and streamlined regulations/processes to help progress project work.   However, sometimes there are arbitrary project metrics that are committed to that may fall outside the realm of reality.   Mitigation can be supplemented with a robust project communication plan that builds and maintains channels for aligning tactics and strategies between project governance, political officials, news and television media and community influencers.     

In the rail transit domain, the value and duration of projects, including planning and defining requirements, can span 5 years to 10 years.   For megaprojects in this domain, the operating organizations are usually highly bureaucratic.   As a result, the project durations can be longer due to factors that add time and complexity for processes associated with government contracting requirements, securing bonds and insurance carrier support, managing available manpower and labor agreements, coordinating a large quantity of contracts and project participants, monitoring vast interdependencies and interfaces, directing the logistics for work within fixed boundaries, and for managing materials provided by the project to contractors. 

1. Government contracting requirements:  In exchange for funding, government processes and reporting add significant hard and soft costs to contracts.   In the US, these include requirements for union level rates of pay, overall diversity of employees in the company, compliance with safety regulations, use of quality process, security checks on employees and subcontractors, specific percentages of work by designated subcontractors, and US made steel and US headquarter locations.   Risk mitigation includes processes and strategies for interpreting the requirements and the standard for demonstrating compliance.

2. Insurance:   The magnitude of cost on construction contracts affects the expense to contractors for obtaining specified insurance types and liability levels.   The high cost of insurance premiums can limit the number and proposed price for bids on contracts.   In some cases, it may prohibit insurance carriers from offering policies within the contractors bid price framework.   As a result, Owners can be forced to re-bid the contract with a reduced scope by creating several different contracts, which will allow bidders to obtain required insurance policies for the work.   Risk mitigation includes periodic peer reviews with contractors and insurance companies to align procurement plans with the current industry environment.     

3. Manpower and labor agreements:    New construction and job creation create an economic benefit.  However, they may outpace the availability of manpower in the region were the work is located.   As a result, Owners may require contractors to enter into non-binding labor agreements with trade unions to increase confidence that qualified manpower will be available for the work without creating a hardship to existing contracts from contractors competing for qualified workers.  Risk mitigation includes periodic peer reviews with contractors and local labor officials to assess overall labor availability and the projected public and private contract acquisitions.      

4. Quantity of contracts:  The quantity of contracts within a project proportionally affects the level of manpower for direct work and for management and oversight of the work to meet the project’s overall objectives and quality expectations within the established scope schedule and budget.   In addition to increasing the complexity of execution, it also requires more resources for managing interdependencies and interfaces between the contracts.   Risk mitigation includes a well defined and maintained procurement plan that describes the each contract scope, interfaces and interdependencies with other contracts, and the sequence of execution in the project.      

5. Quantity of project participants:   The quantity of project participants proportionally affects the complexity of the projects’ communications management plan, and other essential project management plan actions.    The other actions include establishing baseline requirements, making decisions and resolving conflicts throughout the project lifecycle, and for identifying the acceptance criteria for deliverables.    Risk mitigation includes a well defined and maintained system of current names and contact information for distributing project documents, scheduling and requesting attendance at meetings, and for organizing and managing project records.   

6. Interdependencies and interfaces:    The quantity of interdependencies and interfaces affects the project team’s ability to make schedule adjustments to work around problems and implement schedule recovery to achieve the project milestones dates on the path to project completion.   The higher the quantity, the lower the ability to maintain project progress and dates.   Consequently, the higher the risk threat for missing dates and extending the project duration and for adding soft cost for management staff that is proportional to the longer project duration.   Risk mitigation includes regular discussion of risks at monthly management coordination meetings, project meetings and contractor progress meetings.       

7. Logistics:    The work boundaries of the project and the amount of resources scheduled to work creates and inverse ratio that affects the environment for efficient execution and optimum progress to original scheduled project milestone dates and goals.  At some point, the amount of area required for personnel, equipment, material staging and means and method processes will not achieve planned productivity within the defined work boundaries.    Risk mitigation includes a detailed master construction schedule and integration plan, and a fully staffed and comprehensive construction management and monitoring plan.

8. Materials Management:   While most typical contracts transfer project risks to the contractor, so it is unusual for projects to plan to provide materials to contractors for installation.   When it occurs, the most common execution involves using in-house personnel from the rail transit agency to install, test and commission the constructed product.  As a result, the project creates a material procurement and inventory management plan, which is overseen by the construction manager and executed by in-house personnel.    This arrangement of responsibilities introduces risks that would normally be managed exclusively by a prime/general contractor.   Risk mitigation includes creating a material management plan with detailed processes and procedures  for managing requirements, purchase cycles and lead times, receipt inspection, inventory control, and for warehouse and distribution operations        

TIP:  Conduct a time study of recurring risk management activities and deliverables to estimate the manhours required from supporting staff. 

TIP:  Ensure Agendas for monthly project meetings, monthly contract progress meetings and periodic management oversight meetings include risk topics.

TIP:  Project program budgets should identify separate budget line items and schedule duration reserves that can be drawn down for mitigating and responding to risks.

In short, stop voluntarily creating the potential for risk events on projects that may not have adequate management resources to ensure opportunities are realized and threats are mitigated! 

Projects are exposed to risks throughout the project lifecycle and they present threats and opportunities for altering the original project plan for scope, schedule, budget and quality expectations as well as for adjusting the project business case for purpose, deliverable requirements and functionality, and the cost benefit analysis for project completion. 

Guides for project management and practice standards for project risk management are available from government funding agencies and from industry advocates and professional development organizations such as the Federal Transit Administration (www.transit.dot.gov) and the Project Management Institute (www.pmi.org).    Managing risks also requires experienced project professionals with demonstrated expertise in the industry domain of the project and with adequate allocation of hours and budget to perform risk management activities.  

Hard risks can be addressed with engineering solutions and added funds to retain schedule goals.  But soft risks require managerial solutions that must be addressed with funds, changes in project management processes and other innovations that mitigate impacts to extending schedule duration and forecasting new milestone dates.    

Organizational processes and internal struggles between managerial silos create risks on projects.  Many of the risks in this category can be managed and controlled by diligently monitoring events and consequences to assure operational initiatives do not place new burdens on established project objectives, management processes, performance metrics and progress to goals.

Here are some examples soft risks:

1. Mitigate project level changes to the project plan/charter.   While continuous change is a common mantra, it is not a license for project governance, and program and project managers to propose and implement unbridled changes in the project scope and requirements.   Decisions for changes must be vetted with rigor tested to assess facts, substantiate benefits, identify the consequences, and the expected benefits.   Mitigation can be supplemented by developing a Plan B for recovery if the outcomes of the change are not achieved.   

2. Mitigate changes to roles and personnel assignments.   Turnover of personnel during a project life cycle can occur due to actions outside the control of the project manager.   While a certain amount of events can be anticipated by monitoring years of service and performance records of assigned personnel, most changes are driven by the work environment created by the organization, project governance, program and project management and the priorities in the company’s providing management, design and construction services.   Mitigation can be supplemented by enhancing project management activities to incorporate cross-training and a succession plan to reduce impacts for transitioning staff in and out of the team.      

3. Mitigate changes in organizational processes and procedures.   Most projects rely upon the organization’s existing processes and procedures as the foundation for project processes and procedures.   As a result, changes in project processes and procedures should be carefully implemented by ensuring the intended benefits of the change outweigh any increase in complexity, management oversight and the duration for completing the transaction.   Mitigation can be supplemented by ensuring project governance is flexible to allow the project to vary from organizational work flows while maintaining the intended accountability for managerial diligence and accountability for compliance with professional standards in the industry and licensing/educational oversight.

4. Mitigate changes created by political influences outside of project governance.   Ideally, political will can provide added urgency, funding, and streamlined regulations/processes to help progress project work.   However, sometimes there are arbitrary project metrics that are committed to that may fall outside the realm of reality.   Mitigation can be supplemented with a robust project communication plan that builds and maintains channels for aligning tactics and strategies between project governance, political officials, news and television media and community influencers.     

In the rail transit domain, the value and duration of projects, including planning and defining requirements, can span 5 years to 10 years.   For megaprojects in this domain, the operating organizations are usually highly bureaucratic.   As a result, the project durations can be longer due to factors that add time and complexity for processes associated with government contracting requirements, securing bonds and insurance carrier support, managing available manpower and labor agreements, coordinating a large quantity of contracts and project participants, monitoring vast interdependencies and interfaces, directing the logistics for work within fixed boundaries, and for managing materials provided by the project to contractors. 

1. Government contracting requirements:  In exchange for funding, government processes and reporting add significant hard and soft costs to contracts.   In the US, these include requirements for union level rates of pay, overall diversity of employees in the company, compliance with safety regulations, use of quality process, security checks on employees and subcontractors, specific percentages of work by designated subcontractors, and US made steel and US headquarter locations.   Risk mitigation includes processes and strategies for interpreting the requirements and the standard for demonstrating compliance.

2. Insurance:   The magnitude of cost on construction contracts affects the expense to contractors for obtaining specified insurance types and liability levels.   The high cost of insurance premiums can limit the number and proposed price for bids on contracts.   In some cases, it may prohibit insurance carriers from offering policies within the contractors bid price framework.   As a result, Owners can be forced to re-bid the contract with a reduced scope by creating several different contracts, which will allow bidders to obtain required insurance policies for the work.   Risk mitigation includes periodic peer reviews with contractors and insurance companies to align procurement plans with the current industry environment.     

3. Manpower and labor agreements:    New construction and job creation create an economic benefit.  However, they may outpace the availability of manpower in the region were the work is located.   As a result, Owners may require contractors to enter into non-binding labor agreements with trade unions to increase confidence that qualified manpower will be available for the work without creating a hardship to existing contracts from contractors competing for qualified workers.  Risk mitigation includes periodic peer reviews with contractors and local labor officials to assess overall labor availability and the projected public and private contract acquisitions.      

4. Quantity of contracts:  The quantity of contracts within a project proportionally affects the level of manpower for direct work and for management and oversight of the work to meet the project’s overall objectives and quality expectations within the established scope schedule and budget.   In addition to increasing the complexity of execution, it also requires more resources for managing interdependencies and interfaces between the contracts.   Risk mitigation includes a well defined and maintained procurement plan that describes the each contract scope, interfaces and interdependencies with other contracts, and the sequence of execution in the project.      

5. Quantity of project participants:   The quantity of project participants proportionally affects the complexity of the projects’ communications management plan, and other essential project management plan actions.    The other actions include establishing baseline requirements, making decisions and resolving conflicts throughout the project lifecycle, and for identifying the acceptance criteria for deliverables.    Risk mitigation includes a well defined and maintained system of current names and contact information for distributing project documents, scheduling and requesting attendance at meetings, and for organizing and managing project records.   

6. Interdependencies and interfaces:    The quantity of interdependencies and interfaces affects the project team’s ability to make schedule adjustments to work around problems and implement schedule recovery to achieve the project milestones dates on the path to project completion.   The higher the quantity, the lower the ability to maintain project progress and dates.   Consequently, the higher the risk threat for missing dates and extending the project duration and for adding soft cost for management staff that is proportional to the longer project duration.   Risk mitigation includes regular discussion of risks at monthly management coordination meetings, project meetings and contractor progress meetings.       

7. Logistics:    The work boundaries of the project and the amount of resources scheduled to work creates and inverse ratio that affects the environment for efficient execution and optimum progress to original scheduled project milestone dates and goals.  At some point, the amount of area required for personnel, equipment, material staging and means and method processes will not achieve planned productivity within the defined work boundaries.    Risk mitigation includes a detailed master construction schedule and integration plan, and a fully staffed and comprehensive construction management and monitoring plan.

8. Materials Management:   While most typical contracts transfer project risks to the contractor, so it is unusual for projects to plan to provide materials to contractors for installation.   When it occurs, the most common execution involves using in-house personnel from the rail transit agency to install, test and commission the constructed product.  As a result, the project creates a material procurement and inventory management plan, which is overseen by the construction manager and executed by in-house personnel.    This arrangement of responsibilities introduces risks that would normally be managed exclusively by a prime/general contractor.   Risk mitigation includes creating a material management plan with detailed processes and procedures  for managing requirements, purchase cycles and lead times, receipt inspection, inventory control, and for warehouse and distribution operations        

TIP:  Conduct a time study of recurring risk management activities and deliverables to estimate the manhours required from supporting staff. 

TIP:  Ensure Agendas for monthly project meetings, monthly contract progress meetings and periodic management oversight meetings include risk topics.

TIP:  Project program budgets should identify separate budget line items and schedule duration reserves that can be drawn down for mitigating and responding to risks.

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.

Analytics at the Expenses of PM Overhead

Project Management Offices (PMO) establish and uniformly apply Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for program and project managers to monitor performance on projects and programs of projects (Mega projects).   Typical KPIs on projects are Schedule Performance Index (SPI), Cost Performance Index (CPI) and Planned EVM verse Actual EVM.    Other KPIs for monitoring project cost and schedule goals can include forecasts of future efforts expressed in ratios including remaining duration, remaining EVM, Estimate To Complete, and pending project/contract changes.     

For projects that are not performing as expected, PMOs may need to conduct management reviews and implement additional monitoring measures to mitigate poor performance to cost and schedule.   As a result, more granular KPIs (Sub-KPIs) are created for work directly related to the performance of individual contributors with significant roles and responsibilities where the service quality was identified as a root cause affecting project performance. 

The purpose of the Sub-KPIs is to monitor, measure, assess and act on performance attributes and make decisions on critical activities in order to assure progress to meet project schedule milestones.  The goal is to improve processes and procedures, and to reduce schedule activity durations, which are identified as risk threats to critical project dates.   Each of the Sub-KPIs will capture historical data that will be used for identifying and resolving problems and for increasing confidence in future project decisions.  

This new level of monitoring will focus on analytics that PMO executives should establish through a defined breakdown structure of KPIs, which include metrics for activities that are driving durations of processes and procedures essential to quality performance to goals.    

Examples of Sub-KPIs include:

• Days for processing Contract Change Orders (CO)
• Days and manhours for reviewing Contractor Submittals
• Days and manhours for responding to Contractor RFIs
• Days for processing Project Changes (PC)
• Percentage CO Change Amount from Original Contract Award Amount
• Percentage PC Change Amount from the Original Project Budget.

In the example, the Sub-KPIs are all related to schedule progress as prioritized by the PMO.   A high percentage are outside the project teams control, and under the direct responsibility of the PMO’s management and the contracting office, which is usually an existing organizational asset within the Owner’s business structure.   As a result, monitoring of the related Sub-KPIs should have executive level buy-in and commitment that provides the PMO with the authority to improve processes and procedures.  

Creating new Sub-KPIs will require enhancement to existing reporting to incorporate color coded graphics such as dashboards, heat maps, histograms, and bar graphs, which provide conspicuous visual recognition of critical metrics for managing efforts across the project.   The color coding may indicate Red – Outside Tolerances - Action Required, Yellow – Near Tolerance Thresholds - Action Under Review, and Green – Within Tolerances - No Action  Required.   

Depending on the project domain, other Sub-KPIs may be created for monitoring and improving performance to intermediate milestones and EVM targets.    For rail-transit projects, there may be significant access restraints, production time limits, and promised on-site services by Owner to contractor.    In this case, Sub-KPIs might include ratios for:  1) Actual access days to site and planned access days.   2) Actual contact hours and planned production hours.   3) Actual crew days for work and planned crew days to support contractor.   4) Accrued liquidated damages and contract amount.   5) Accrued incentive payments verse contract budget.

Reality A

In theory, KPIs and Sub-KPIs increase management quality and improves project performance at the expense of added management overhead cost and staff levels.   However, each PMO needs to assess the benefits from the added managerial effort for implementing and monitoring the KPIs and Sub-KPIs.

Reality B

The number of KPIs will proportionally increase costs for Project Controls, management overhead and for added project analysts that are required for the collecting data, reporting data, explaining metric variances and implementing corrective actions.    

Reality C

At the expenses of other progress/performance report attributes and content, readers may overly focus on the red metrics while ignoring non-red items.  This may cause missed opportunities on schedule risk events that may actually be more significant to schedule performance and be more easily resolved to mitigate or avoid the events.

Reality D

Performance monitoring of Sub-KPIs without an improvement in schedule durations may indicate processes are not aligned with project expectations despite recognition of the impact to progress.    Executive management needs to ensure that the metrics identified as contributing to schedule risks can be mitigated.  Otherwise, the risks are just be accepted threats that need to be built into the schedule.     

After the Buyer’s organization determines project execution will use the Design-Build contract delivery method, the Project Management Office (PMO) will undertake changes to transition from the more traditional Design-Bid Build processes, procedures and best practices.  

Many of the changes in the Buyer’s organization and PMO were highlighted in the October 2017 article “Are You Ready for Design Build Project Delivery Method for Rail Transit Projects?”    https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussion-topic/73079/Are-You-Ready-for-Design-Build-Project-Delivery-Method-on-Rail-Transit-Projects.

This article expands on the TIPs regarding changes to contract content.   

Traditionally, design and deliverables for construction contract documents are completed under a service contract with an Architecture/Engineering (A/E) firm.   The acquisition process for design service contract typically uses a Request For Proposal (RFP) process.  The Buyer’s process evaluates the Sellers technical proposals before negotiating cost to award a contract.   Depending on the domain of the Buyer, the award process from the time of publishing an RFP to award can range from 4 months to 9 months.    The contract duration for preparing designs and deliverables can range from 6 months to 18 months. 

Typically, the contract documents are then bid for a firm price by a contractor to complete the construction.   The acquisition process for construction contracts uses an Invitation For Bid (IFB) process.  The Buyer’s process evaluates the responsive and reasonable bid from the Seller with the lowest price.  Depending on the domain of the Buyer, the award process from the time of publishing an RFP to award can range from 2 months to 6 months.

Under DB delivery, a partial design document is used to develop the requirements for the construction contract.  This eliminates the project duration for completing the design to100% and saves time to starting construction.     This schedule benefit is achieved by having the construction contractor team with an A/E firm to complete the remaining design as construction proceeds concurrently.   

As a result, the standard contract needs to integrate design scope and deliverables into the construction contract requirements.   While there are various DB Models available, this article presents changes used in the rail-transit domain for converting the traditional construction contract into DB contract by integrating design requirements into Information for Bidders, General Terms and Conditions, and Division 1 Specifications.

For a recent rail-transit contract, here are the changes to the BDD contract Model that were implemented to create a DB contract:

Information for Bidders (InfoFB)

• Add technical proposal requirement for Written Work Plans and Manpower Plans for managing design resources and subject matter experts throughout the contract.   This incorporates Plans that are normally part of design service consultant contracts.
• Add technical proposal requirements for statement on Risk Management approach throughout the contract, and a preliminary Risk Register, which will be monitored and managed by the DB contractor.  The Risk Management will follow the standards and best practices in Project Managements Institute (PMI) guides and practice standards.  This requirement is recommended by Design Build Institute of America (DBIA). 
• Add cost proposal requirements for identifying funding allocations in the proposed contract pricing that is assigned to mitigate and respond to risks identified in the proposal.   The funding allocations will establish a basis for the Buyer and Seller to manage risks after contract award through contract completion.   This requirement is recommended by DBIA.   

General Terms and Conditions (GT/C)

• Add new Article for Risk Management, which incorporates the requirements for managing risks throughout the contract.  This incorporates identifying risks, defining risk trigger metrics and threshold, monitoring process, mitigating actions and responding to triggered risks.    This requirement is recommended by DBIA.    

Division 1 Specifications

• Add description of design scope into Summary of Work.  This incorporates the technical description of design activities normally detailed in the design services consultant contracts.   In conjunction with Performance Milestones, the design and deliverables will be defined, such 60% Design, 90% Design and 100% Design.
• Add requirements for design review meeting into Meetings, the including discussion topics and deliverables.   This incorporates the technical description of design review meetings normally detailed in the design services consultant contracts.
• Add requirements for design documents into Submittals.   This incorporates the technical description of design deliverables normally detailed in the design services consultant contracts, including content and organization, and the requirements for addressing comments on predecessor design deliverables. 
• Add new Project Management Section, including requirements for Project Management Plan, including interdependency with Risk Management Plan cited in InfoFB and GC/T.     This incorporates the description of the contractor’s management of personnel, processes and schedule of all design and construction activities, which is normally associated with design services consultant contracts.  This requirement is recommended by DBIA and Project Management Institute (PMI).  

TIP:  Adapting BD requirements to the Buyer’s existing DBB contract Model should be less intrusive to developing a new DB contract Model.  

Henry Hattenrath is an experienced project/program management leader and consultant on rail transit capital projects, and he is a frequent contributor on Project Management.com and LinkedIn.com.