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4 replies [Last post]
Wed, 2010-01-13 17:29
Raul Santos
User offline. Last seen 5 years 49 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 29 Oct 2009
Posts: 44
Groups: None
You are hired as the new Planner & Scheduler for a company that develops engineering, procurement and construction services. You will take the place of a planner who has been relocated to the main headquarters.

Before he leaves, he will spend TWO (2) days with you informing and transfering information of current and future projects (currently there is one big project that is 80% in progress, one that has been awarded with some engineering being done and another one that has been awarded but hasn’t started yet).

What questions would you ask and what information/documents would you request so that you can develop your job successfully?
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Replies

Thu, 2010-01-14 18:48
#1
Jay S
User offline. Last seen 10 years 10 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 10 Jun 2008
Posts: 36
Groups: Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas
Don’t look jump in. Ask him not to show you how to do thing but rather do them yourself. Example do a progress update. Find out which is the best local pub

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Thu, 2010-01-14 16:45
#2
Samer Zawaydeh
User offline. Last seen 5 years 30 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 3 Aug 2008
Posts: 1664
Groups: Civil Engineering, Regional Representatives
Dear Raul,

In addition to the good information that you got alerady, try to understand the team Dynamics from his perspective. Let him/her take you on a project meeting for each project. You need to get to know the people.

Things change everyday. You might be lucky on the new projects because they do not have a lot of activities. But the running projects are a different thing. You need to be at the location of the project to understand what is going on. This is your next step.

With kind regards,

Samer
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Thu, 2010-01-14 14:15
#3
Mike Testro
User offline. Last seen 27 weeks 4 days ago. Offline
Joined: 14 Dec 2005
Posts: 4418
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Content Moderators, GPCCAR Editors
Hi Raul

The two most important questions to ask when starting a new job:

Where is the tea room.

Where is the gents.

All else is secondary.

Best regards

Mike Testro
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Thu, 2010-01-14 09:06
#4
Gary Whitehead
User offline. Last seen 5 years 16 weeks ago. Offline
Joined: 24 Mar 2009
Posts: 1215
Groups: Building Information Modelling, Content Moderators, Petro-Chem / Oil & Gas, The GrapeVine
Of the top of my head:

Project-specific documents:
-The Contract
-Tender Package
-Baseline Programme
-Current Updated Programme (and any historical / archived progressed programmes)
-Resource Profile
-Cashflow Forecasts
-Project Implementation Plan
-Organogram
-Standard suite of planning reports

Company-specific documents:
-Planning procedures / guidelines, etc

Questions to ask
-What is the standard reporting cycle (weekly, monthly, etc?)
-Map out sequence of activities for planner during standard reporting cycle (are you entering timesheet data? Are you visiting site to update construction progress? Are you getting eng & proc progress from team members, team leaders, progress meetings, etc? Are you tracking plant & material utilisation? Ad nauseum)
-How much attention is paid internally to the schedules you will be producing? (Particularly relevant during the engineering phase. –Design engineers often see forecasting & progress reporting as nothing more than red tape which gets in the way of doing their real jobs)
-What current (planning) issues are there on the current jobs –any outstanding or pending claims / LD issues?
-Can I contact you for support in the future? (since the guy you’re replacing is staying within the same firm)
-What involvement can I expect to have on future bids / projects (tendering phase, contract negotiations, etc)
-What’s the relationship like with our clients?

That’s probably about as much as you could reasonably cover in 2 days

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