Charlie
Had some time to think about your response over the weekend
Note that your advice generally revolves around simplistic solutions, and often shys away from hands on planning advice.
While I do not wish to be childish I would note that the reason in my opinion (i wont use the word honest as I am always this)for planning planet is to share our experiences, that means, what worked, what didnt, what are the problems and perhaps the solutions.
While I appreciate your efforts the continual skirting of the issues by adding generics is less than helpfull. Charlie I know you can do it role up your sleeves and provide some solutions instead of generalisations. Our younger or less experienced members are sure to appreciate facts rather than globalisations.
and to add the last word to the "sage"???

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of men and angels,
but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing.

And if I dole out all my goods, and
if I deliver my body that I may boast
but have not love, nothing I am profited.

Love is long suffering,
love is kind,
it is not jealous,
love does not boast,
it is not inflated.

It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth


It covers all things,
it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things,
it endures in all things.

Love never falls in ruins;
but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or
tongues, they will cease; or
knowledge, it will be superseded.

For we know in part and we prophecy in part.

But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded.

When I was an infant,
I spoke as an infant,
I reckoned as an infant;

when I became [an adult],
I abolished the things of the infant.

For now we see through a mirror in an enigma, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know as also I was fully known.

But now remains
faith, hope, love,

these three;

but the greatest of these is love.

So after having read this are we saying

1 Charlies 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of planners and project managers,
but do not love planning,
I have become sounding brass or a tinkling symbol.

And if I have prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge regarding planning,
and if I have all faith that the job will be completed on time,
but I do not love planning, I am nothing.

And if I dole out all my knowledge regarding planning, and
if I deliver my body that I may boast about my CPM skills
but have no love of planning, nothing I am profited.

Love of planning is long suffering,
love of planning is kind,
it is not jealous,
love of planning leads us not to boast,
it is not inflated.

It is not discourteous,
it is not selfish,
it is not irritable,
it does not enumerate the evil.
It does not rejoice over the wrong, but rejoices in the truth


It covers all things,
it has faith for all things,
it hopes in all things,
it endures in all things.

Love of planning never falls in ruins;
but whether prophecies, they will be abolished; or
tongues, they will cease; or
knowledge, it will be superseded.

For we know in part and we prophecy in part.

But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will be superseded and yeh will will have a truly great programme.

When I was an assistant planner,
I spoke as an assistant planner,
I reckoned as an assistant planner;

when I became planning manager,
I forgot the things of an assistant planner.

For now we see through a computer the errors of our earlier programmes, as they were completed. Now I know in part my errors, as I have now experience and with the help of planning planet I will share this experience then all of planning will be fully known by all.

But until the time when this occurs what remains is
faith, hope, and love of planning,

these three;

but the greatest of these is the love of planning.

I make no apologies for the original text which appears to have watered down some of the stronger versions but I have now printed Charlies 13 and have it by my computer less I commit such evil as to backslide into phrases such as why do I bother, whats the point etc, because yeh I have now found the reason why I do this.

LOL
Clive

"simply the best coz PP says so"
Oh dear oh dear
Charlie this is not what planet are you from but planning planet
I am no good I am ignorant
cos I shout and scream and annoy people in my efforts to get people to listen to my plan
Im not a cymbol Im a drum set
However I have a little faith some charity and hopefully from time to time some love, the realtionship with this verse and planning however really eldudes me
Are you saying you are JC ?? surely not I thought you were JUST a planner but maybe JC was a planner he certainly took a seriously critical path but people still talk about his work and they listened so maybe he was the ultimate planner but I think not
OOh soooo sorry am I being childish is humour childish an interesting concept.
Star rating bo derick not the one Arther new but a crane in east london receives a 10
any way Charlie I will give you a 10 for making me scream with laughter at your posts.
Best regards
Oscar Wild

Hi Clive,

WOW that an achievement.

It practically dwraf my experience, so I dont want to say more.

I don’t want to spoil your memories in PP.

In addition to what you been thru, mine is on a smaller scale. I’m involved only is an 5 BIllION USD Light Rail Proposal. Also, I have Oil and Gas Experience, an experienced which I’m not proud off, which I should not have got into in the first place.

But then, the oil and gas experience also help me understand the nature of the work that a purely building boys are not familiar. In some discussion with civil guys, it is intimidating to open up topics (Oil and Gas, LNG, Petrochemical and Industrial Construction) that scare them because of their ignorance.

For me the rating is nothing because I have seen a lot of people overate themselves to the point of becomming fantastic and humorous.

As a good sage said two thousand years ago "what knowledge I learn will come to an end ... Only three things will last >>>>, >>>>, & <<< and the greatest is LOVE".

For me whatever a person throw in PP but then done other than for the love of Planning and for the love of sharing, what that person said is nothing, "a clanging cymbal". It only serve that person sense of grandeur, pride, etc. that cause a lot of conflict in the forum.

But do it for the LOVE of planning or for the LOVE of sharing to others, then and only then you will find fullfilment in what your are doing here in PP.

You don’t even have to think "I thought I was good ..." for SIMPLY YOU ARE THE BEST. PP will know.

Cheers, have a nice day


Charlie

Cor! That was a mouthful!!! Make sure the twirly wirly is ironed hey! He! He!

What is the latest exchange rate - Pounds to Rand? You could make some bucks there hey? I will skip the group hug though!

Hi there Nige

It was a valid point you brought up! I have been in this game for a little of 3.5 years and nearly everyday, I learn something new! As far as I am concerned, if can learn something new as often as possible, then I have achieved something great, that makes a good planner!

I am really enjoying this site, the guys out there have taught me a lot, that is right as rain in my books!

Cheers!

James

Refering to the last line in your statement about gettting a new job...you demonstrated a good sence of honesty there, so I am sure you will come right! He! He!

Nigel,

I will agree with you on most points. In Para 5, however, we have to be a bit careful with regard to our perceptions. Yes, a £2.5Billion over-run, in its absolute value sounds very high, but still it’s only 10%. However such inaccuracies are related to the levels of uncertainty, based on the total cost value and duration of the project (I’m sure that there’s a statistical equation somewhere), so a 10% error is just that: 10%. One would, I suspect, expect a £2K, 1-week project to have substantially less error, owing to the fact that its absolute value is small and duration is short. Whether one works on proportion or absolute values is down to the individual, but I must admit that it can be very difficult to interweave such opposing philosophies. A classic example is my bathroom refurbishment: It hasn’t progressed, even though I can afford anything I want to: but because I’m a stingy-git, I want the lowest possible cost relative to the functional requirements, so we spend too much time faffing-around with indecision in order to save £50 quid here and there. Ok, so I squeeze the budget to its minimum, and it’s not actually costing me more by delaying the refurbishment (unless you account for the additional running-around to different shops), but relative to the total cost, saving £400 is less than 10%.......but I’m certainly not enticed to spend extra money just because there’s a 10% price-reduction (which logically contradicts my other philosophy). Tis always a balance between programme and cost – and the principle will apply to any size of project.

Back to being a good planner: Proud to be associated with a major engineering project……hmmm!!!!; even though it might have been an abject failure in terms of cost and programme adherence. Problem there is when looking for a new job. One can only hope that the interviewer hasn’t heard of the project :-)

Cheers.

James.

An interesting thought: By what criteria should we judge how good a planner is? Having been involved in lots of stuff for lots of time doesn’t mean that we’re any good at it. Take driving a car for example: how many Old Fogies have been driving for 60 years…and are still a danger to everyone else.

I’d imagine that it’s a very difficult thing to define. For instance, if our programme forecasts a conflict a year into the future, and that conflict comes to fruition, then you could say that was brilliant planning from one perspective. On the flip-side you could also say that one obviously didn’t do a very good job of communicating this conflict and persuading the Management that they’d better do something about it. However, there is perhaps, in your company, a level of management apathy toward taking seriously any planning advice, especially if it conflicts with their own gut-feel viewpoint.

Does anyone have a rule-of-thumb: say, if your project comes to within plus/minus 10% of the time & cost that was projected at the outset, then that would be excellent/good/crap planning. Obviously one needs to account for a continually evolving situation (especially in Design Planning)……therefore at some point it’s a case of “all-bets-are-off” and we start again. We all appreciate that, technically, if the scope changes then we should re-baseline, and all previous costs/duration forecasts become null-and-void…..but do you know of any rule-of-thumb that determines at what point you say enough-is-enough, shout “foul” and strongly suggest a re-baseline?

Experiences please….

James.

Well, here is a churp from a new comer. This is a brilliant web site that in a short span of time has taught me some useful things. Frankly, I don’t care about some other blokes ratings. If any of these okes can help me and maybe I can help them...by all means!!!

Thanks to everyone for a cool web site!!!!

Cheers!

James I note that even though you are multidisciplined youhave not filled 10 stars for every catergory. For me to get the full star rating I would expect to have worked on more than one major catergory project at a senior level but thats just my thought
Clive

I think you can have the full star rating if you once met somebody who knew somebody who had worked on that type of work. I dont think you have to know how to do it yourself.
Alternatively you may just be a genius