Infrastructure (physical) projects versus IT projects, The widening gap?

Let's suppose that constucting a house costs $428K, while creating website cost 100K. When you decide to have steel slab instead of a concrete slab, your only choice is to destroy the entire house - cost of demolition $100K + $428 to build a new house.
When you decide to redo the website, providing that's the same developer, all they have to do is "refactor" the code - I would say only $50K.
I see the problem with your comparison because it does not take into account what the end product is, a frequent mistake made by executives.

Dear Peter,

All your recommendations and proposal make sense on paper and do address concern in relation to having the proper procedures, proper processes and proper skilled professional to deal with all possible scenarios on a project but the reality on most projects does not allow such room to maneuver

Most project managers are working with strict deadlines, with diminishing resources and increased expectations from all parties involved in the project.

Also Agile and lean methodologies are the more predominately used methodologies in the PMO as they do not included every possible process in order to achieve project success.

They also use repeat process in order to capture anything that was missed in the previous cycles.

So the Ideal PMO would included everything that you have outlined but would you want all this in a PMO? Would it not be more of a hindrance as apposed to a help?

A project manager manages the available resources is a bit of a juggling exercise executing exactly what resource and deliverable are required at that specific point in the project.

Daire

My concern is that the project management strategy gets picked too early by the wrong people for the wrong reasons. The Project Management Plan (PMP) should be developed as part of the business case for the project, part of the funding process and it should be developed by those familiar with project management strategies with a complete understanding of the pros and cons, risks and challenges of various management models - a project management Subject Matter Expert (SME).

As it is, most PMPs are an afterthought driven by a process requirement rather than a comprehensive strategy for successful delivery.

"Our business case confirms we need more [...]. How are we going to effectively deliver." Rather than " - same as last time!" Or "I know someone who applied 'AGILE'. They say its the latest thing (what is it anyway?)"

The project delivery strategy should reflect the nature of the project rather than the project being forced to fit a pre-selected strategy.

What you wrote is what I faced from years. Mainly when you worked in companies which are selling services then the sales people make all the proposal and after it is signed then go to you saying "hello, here is what you are in charge to deliver". I have adopted several strategies including it in one hugh, very hugh organization I have the opportunity to change this behavor pushing that everything must be signed by three key roles: finance, professional services, sales. if not, it can not moving forward. But, at the end, perhaps the strategy you can follow is detecting the associated risks, the impacts, and assigned them to the people that have created the risks because they created the situation. Remember that all estimations are dynamic because the information you have at any time will impact on the estimation.

Let's suppose that constucting a house costs $428K, while creating website cost 100K. When you decide to have steel slab instead of a concrete slab, your only choice is to destroy the entire house - cost of demolition $100K + $428 to build a new house.
When you decide to redo the website, providing that's the same developer, all they have to do is "refactor" the code - I would say only $50K.
I see the problem with your comparison because it does not take into account what the end product is, a frequent mistake made by executives.

Dear Andrew,

You could also look at this as the upside of the construction industry that it does not lend itself naturally to change in a project.

It is up to the project manager to get everything right first time around which can make project manager less susceptible to being sloppy, complacent and risk tolerant as in other sectors there is scope and room for mistakes and errors to be tolerated and be called additions and project change.

Change management should be the exception not the norm and I would be a proponent of striving to spending the time in the planning stage to avoid unnecessary time being spent on vaguely draft project documentation.

Daire

I think one of the challenges of the construction industry is that it takes longer and longer to deliver projects while technology and needs are changing exponentially. There was a time when you could freeze the functional needs and design then build. The end result would not only meed initial requirements but also 'on-delivery' requirements which had not changed that much.
The construction delivery industry is struggling to accommodate the 'on-the-fly' change requirements. The old adage - there shall be no change orders - just doesn't fit anymore. Not only do we have to accept change, we have to predict and manage. Mitigation measures for scope change is no longer to prevent it but to facilitate.

I think the approach for civil/transportation/infrastructure projects is more the "traditional" or linear, whereas IT Projects can be done using Agile/Scrum approaches. However, even infrastructure projects are changing from the traditional "Design-Bid-Build" to "Design-Build" Finance (for P3 projects) where the risk is shared between the private and public entities. In this sense, P3 with DBF or DBOMF (Design Build Operation Maintenance Finance) have more aggressive schedules (which would be a hybrid between traditional and agile). In the end, we look for the same thing: On Time ,On Budget, On Scope and with Quality.