Steve RamsdellPM I| BergelectricQueen Creek, Az, United States
I have been in construction for going on 20 years now. From an apprenticeship I rose up to a Project Manager. Going on 3-4years now I have been doing Project Management full time and all my experience in that is from school, classes, online learning, and years of field work.
I have seen in my studies that there are some things I believe would be really effective if utilized in the construction field (e.g. PM styles like agile for instance) but I have yet to see anything really utilized. I know first hand how hard it is to get construction to adapt to change, but I am wondering if it is just my experience or if others have seen what I am saying in that “Project Management in construction” is nothing like what I read and study or seen others doing.
I utilize my toolbox of PM for myself because I wouldn’t know where to start to try to change it, but I am wondering if it is either I have just been on a rough side of an industry that refuses change and hates it in general or if others have seen it as well.
I appreciate the feedback/conversation Saving Changes...
Absolutely rolling wave planning is an agile practice. If you consider the same for more common environments such as development you find rolling wave being implemented as sprints (in SCRUM) where only the immediate sprint is planned in detail while those into the future are less detailed but becomes more detailed as their planned release comes closer. Rolling wave is adaptive because I do not have to break down the building to implement a chance to upcoming tasks,
This also allows you to implement other agile principles such as continues integration and retrospectives without making huge waves. We all know that most project have review meeting of some sort but these are not always as effective as they should be because it is to discuss progress against a rigid schedule that has been planned to the Nth degree for months or even years in advance.
Anton,
Rolling wave planning has been around for decades and long before anyone has heard of Agile. If people are using this practice in an Agile environment - that means Agile is adopting a traditional PM practice. In other words, this is not an Agile-Invented practice.
If people in software and other domains are using Rolling Wave Planning and Scheduling, this is good
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1 reply by Anton Oosthuizen
Nov 13, 2017 1:00 AM
Anton Oosthuizen
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100% correct. And so were many other practises that are now considered 'Agile'. It does not change the fact that to implement rolling wave planning, or adaptive planning, provides agility. Most agile practises were not invented but mearly formalized. When we applied some of these principles back in the 80' we were called cowboys not because it could not work but because it was not formalized and controlled. Agile and the different frameworks used to implement agile adopted most of its practises from something that existed.
Yes adaptive planning is being used by other domains but it has different lables such as sprint in SCRUM etc. Unfortunately we are the wrong things, it is about which agile princpiles can be adopted and how. Just because there is an Agile Manifesto that explicitly refers to software does not mean these principles cannot be implemented succesfully in any domain. Of course you will not implement the pricinple of incremental delivery exaclty as it is stated since it calls for working software.
Saving Changes...
MARK A ANNUNZIATA, SrVP/EXPERT CONSULTANCY TO THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY| ROMAN STRUCTURES, INC WELLINGTON FLDammam, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia
Steve-
This is an interesting topic, and I am thrilled to see that you have implemented these IT based short term processes to a Construction Project. I know you understand that PMI Processes are missing Safety, and Contracts law and analysis for our Industry. Also, we do not participate in Business Plans or Charters. Those are completed by the Owner/Client prior to the solicitation for Bids. Our Business Case is very simple-protect and increase the Estimated/Budgeted Profit during execution of the Project.
The Agile and Waterfall techniques are popular and faddish terms being thrown around by the IT set, but (in my opinion) not practical for the Construction Industry.
In my world of 200+ Million USD Projects, the Sr. PM's concentration is on hitting the EVM marks utilizing a 3rd world workforce with no/low construction skillsets and no Safety Culture. We are constantly monitoring our internal QA/QC department, Procurement Department, internal Detailed Design engineers (with low qualifications), our Project Controls staff, our Safety Programs and Staff, our Doc Control staff, our Admin Staff, and lastly (but most importantly) our Project Execution Team (CM's and lower).
If I were to cite the MOST prominent Challenge on our sites today it is with the performance of workers in the field. Despite Agile and Waterfall techniques, we still do not see improvements in performance EVM's for the work in the field. SPI's remain stagnant and low, and have remained stagnant for the past 30 years.
The PMP is great for Defining 60% of the processes we already use, and have used instinctively for the past 30 years. However, the success or failure of our High Profile Projects is mostly tied to that pesky 40% of process not found in PMI. Remember- regardless of your EVM's, if your Project has a serious safety incident, it will ruin your Project, your reputation with the stakeholders, and follow you during your career.
Agile and Waterfall- not your priority.
M
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1 reply by Steve Ramsdell
Nov 11, 2017 11:49 AM
Steve Ramsdell
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I agree. Breaking the loads into small "sprints" made managing,observations, and data collection so much more useful. I am able to see flaws in a system sooner and adjust (say agile if you want) but terminology wasn't my goal
I tweaked the styles to my scenario of course but the things I see now I didn't before astound me and it is rooted in technique I learned on let's call it PMI style PM education
I tried to express what I seen and you'd think it was a foreign language.
Right now I feel fearing change out ways possible gain. I'm wondering if its industry wide if you will
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Nov 10, 2017 10:43 PM
Replying to Steve Ramsdell
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The constant change is why I feel agile would be so applicable and I don’t see it anywhere, am I wrong, or just what I have expirenced thus far
You are totally right. Believe me: I am working with Agile from the genesis (because and incidental events of life I was part of the genesis, software and non-software which is the place where Agile was born) not because it is a new fashion. The reason you stated is the reason to use Agile: transform because environment changes and to create environmental changes. Agile is not deliver faster, Agile is not about to cut cost, Agile is not "you can change everything in every time", and other lot of things you can read outside there. Regarding to your post, the question is: why we need Agile in the construction market? The first thing is thinking about your company. If you implement Agile in your company (the practice) you will gain in agility and you will get something unique: you will be able to react to unexpected changes in the environment and you will be able to create changes in the environment (this will produce differentiation and other must follow you). Then you can think about to implement Agile in the process you use to create something. Here you do not need to use a method, you can do that with your actual method. Is it needed on construction field? It is a matter to analysis. In the case I have the opportunity to use that it was needed because it was for the government and it was part of a hugh transformation project that had a challenged time frame and lot of areas to cover and products to create. We used DSDM. If you ask me if it would have been my decision "a priori" I would tell you "never". But we did that and it worked Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
All you need to know about Agile is inside the USA DoD NSF/Agility Forum deliverables. You can find most of them into Rick Dove´s book "Response Ability". Rick was the program manager for that forum Saving Changes...
Steve RamsdellPM I| BergelectricQueen Creek, Az, United States
Nov 11, 2017 3:28 AM
Replying to MARK A ANNUNZIATA, Sr
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Steve-
This is an interesting topic, and I am thrilled to see that you have implemented these IT based short term processes to a Construction Project. I know you understand that PMI Processes are missing Safety, and Contracts law and analysis for our Industry. Also, we do not participate in Business Plans or Charters. Those are completed by the Owner/Client prior to the solicitation for Bids. Our Business Case is very simple-protect and increase the Estimated/Budgeted Profit during execution of the Project.
The Agile and Waterfall techniques are popular and faddish terms being thrown around by the IT set, but (in my opinion) not practical for the Construction Industry.
In my world of 200+ Million USD Projects, the Sr. PM's concentration is on hitting the EVM marks utilizing a 3rd world workforce with no/low construction skillsets and no Safety Culture. We are constantly monitoring our internal QA/QC department, Procurement Department, internal Detailed Design engineers (with low qualifications), our Project Controls staff, our Safety Programs and Staff, our Doc Control staff, our Admin Staff, and lastly (but most importantly) our Project Execution Team (CM's and lower).
If I were to cite the MOST prominent Challenge on our sites today it is with the performance of workers in the field. Despite Agile and Waterfall techniques, we still do not see improvements in performance EVM's for the work in the field. SPI's remain stagnant and low, and have remained stagnant for the past 30 years.
The PMP is great for Defining 60% of the processes we already use, and have used instinctively for the past 30 years. However, the success or failure of our High Profile Projects is mostly tied to that pesky 40% of process not found in PMI. Remember- regardless of your EVM's, if your Project has a serious safety incident, it will ruin your Project, your reputation with the stakeholders, and follow you during your career.
Agile and Waterfall- not your priority.
M
I agree. Breaking the loads into small "sprints" made managing,observations, and data collection so much more useful. I am able to see flaws in a system sooner and adjust (say agile if you want) but terminology wasn't my goal
I tweaked the styles to my scenario of course but the things I see now I didn't before astound me and it is rooted in technique I learned on let's call it PMI style PM education
I tried to express what I seen and you'd think it was a foreign language.
Right now I feel fearing change out ways possible gain. I'm wondering if its industry wide if you will Saving Changes...
Michael WilliamsSr. Project Manager| Itron, Inc.Spokane, Wa, United States
You have some unique challenges, but there is plenty of room for Agile in construction. Agile won't make the concrete cure any faster, but if you can get all of the disparate teams aligned together (and yes, I realize they all work for different contractors) you can improve outcomes especially with things like plumbing and electrical standards and inspections. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
With all due respect, I think we are mixing potatoes with bananas.
When we talk about sprints in construction we need to understand what sprint means.
Here is a definition: "As described in the Scrum Guide, a Sprint, a time-box of one month or less during which a “Done”, useable, and potentially releasable product Increment is created" https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-sprint-in-scrum
So Sprints in Agile and Scrum is not about working in small increments or sprints - the key, as in the agile principles is "workable products"
So in construction - or engineering. We work on work packages - and by definition, a work package should be small (ideally can be done in one-week intervals).
This is not Agile.
This is not Scrum.
This is traditional old-fashioned project management
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Nov 12, 2017 4:33 PM
Sergio Luis Conte
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Mounir, that is the point. Agile has not values or principles. That is the Agile implementation for software whose guide is the Manifesto. That is the point.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Mounir, that is the point. Agile has not values or principles. That is the Agile implementation for software whose guide is the Manifesto. That is the point. Saving Changes...
Sergio, what about the 12 principles underpinning the Agile manifesto? Every method, system or framework has some form of principles.
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Nov 12, 2017 4:51 PM
Sergio Luis Conte
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That is an implementation or Agile. As I mentioned lot of time, you do not have to take what I said. Go for the documents. Search for USA DoD NSF/Agility Forum deliverables or Mr. Rick Dove book "Response Ability" which contains all that forum deliverables. That was the place where Agile and Agility was born. Time after (2001) some people take all this stuff and create all related to software implementation. Why do you think the name is "Manifesto for Agile Software Development"? Why do you think the explicit use of the word "software"? To give you more references take a look to the new PMBOK and the Practice Guide for Agile. In the last one you will find explicit reference about it is for software, Into the first one you will find no reference to things like Agile something. Finally, Agile is not a method, framework or something like that. The same with Lean for example.
Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
Nov 12, 2017 4:41 PM
Replying to Sante Delle-Vergini, PhD
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Sergio, what about the 12 principles underpinning the Agile manifesto? Every method, system or framework has some form of principles.
That is an implementation or Agile. As I mentioned lot of time, you do not have to take what I said. Go for the documents. Search for USA DoD NSF/Agility Forum deliverables or Mr. Rick Dove book "Response Ability" which contains all that forum deliverables. That was the place where Agile and Agility was born. Time after (2001) some people take all this stuff and create all related to software implementation. Why do you think the name is "Manifesto for Agile Software Development"? Why do you think the explicit use of the word "software"? To give you more references take a look to the new PMBOK and the Practice Guide for Agile. In the last one you will find explicit reference about it is for software, Into the first one you will find no reference to things like Agile something. Finally, Agile is not a method, framework or something like that. The same with Lean for example. Saving Changes...
