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What is a Planners Worth??

5 replies [Last post]
Fri, 2003-05-02 06:11
Darrell ODea
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It is quite noticable, that in the past few months there has been a greater than normal interest in Planning recruitment. (Well in my opinion anyway).

Personally, in the past, have considered such upsurges as signs that the "Construction Industry" and related business, was/is pretty buoyant.

Any comments?
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Replies

Wed, 2003-09-17 10:27
#1
Jon Penney
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As a specialist recruiter dealing with planning professionals, the current industry climate is one that many main contractors find it hard to find talented and experienced staff or youngsters that are willing to put in the hard work and effort it takes to become more than a run of the mill planner.

More than that they are looking for candidates with the "x" factor, that can do more than simply present a colourful bar chart and get told by other disciplines where the project is and not just rely on second-hand information, but have the balls to get out to the projects identify bottlenecks and realign the programme to help push the project through to completion.

If you have the talent then companies will be more than interested in hearing from you.

**Please note this is not a recruiting scam to get more names but a serious comment from someone that speaks to the clients that hire planning professionals, this is just a little insight from the other side of the fence**
Hope it helps when applying for new opportunities
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Fri, 2003-08-22 03:17
#2
Ronaldo Quilao
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Dear Fellow Planner:

I will just want to give some pointers on Why the Planner is or rather What is a Planners Worth,or how important our technical/professional skill to the industry.

A Planner which I believed is or must be a seasoned professional with a bastfull actual experiences particularly in the real world of construction. His duty is not just preparing a good report presentation of project status or programming the detailed schedule onto the software. It is the Planner who will not just monitor, and update the progress and coordinate the result to the Team. It is the Planners duty to analize the physical accomplishment, relative to time and cost when necessary, the actual situation and circumstances occured during the course of the project and then recommend necessary measures, alternative method in case the schedule falls behind. Planners should have strong vision or imagination vis-a-vis many plan alternatives, we called it What-if-Scenario.

If we all doing this... well done.. We are all Worthy.

Good Day and more power.

Ronald B. Quilao
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Mon, 2003-05-19 12:28
#3
Forum Guest
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Its more to do with shift of emphasis. Years ago, when life was wild and for the most part tax free, huge companies would blow amazing ammouts of capital on large "worthwhile" projects (Usually non construction like SAP deployment and so forth). Then due to down turn in economies in the eighties, corporations became cash concious and adopted many of the construction management industry ideals used over the past 50 years that we all know so well, i.e Planning, Cost Control, Chanage Management, random humiliation etc. And so a new exiting empire was born of the Project Managers.

So, companies looked for good project managers and offered more than respectable salarys to match - everyone leapt on the band waggon seeing a route to stardom.

BUT, if you took a department of Graduates and asked who wants to be a Project Manager, theyd all stick their hands in the air. If you asked who wants to be a planner, theyd turn into shrinking violets.

So, any increase in damand for planners is really related to a bouyant Project Management industry. The upshot is a huge disparity between availability of Project Managers, and availability of Planners. Hence the massive increase in recruitment drives leading to the situation we now have where, and this is the part I really love, I probably earn the same if not more than most project managers. Which suits me just fine !!
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Sat, 2003-05-03 06:01
#4
Paul Loughnane
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In Ireland projects were executed in the past with planning to the extent that kept the Client or end user happy with little recognition of its worth taken by the project management which traditionally has lead to massive schedule and cost overruns. Scandals like the Railway Control System overuns in Iarnrod Eireann and various road building projects around the country have shown up how badly project management really from the Irish Governments side and has caused people to push for tighter controls to be used in day to day assessment of progress milestones and costs in the hope serious cost , which comes from the taxpayers pocket,and schedule overruns are curtailed. This requirement for greater accountibility is creating more jobs in the project controls sector.
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Fri, 2003-07-04 10:13
#5
David Forrest
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Paul

I cannot disagree with your comments on CIE but I think you will find that they are outdated by over 4 years. I was Principal Consultant with Light Rail Project Office (Free Lance)in Dublin for over 12 months and set up the PM systems using P3, Suretrak, Project Investigator and Monte Carlo, links were also eastablished with Expedition.

The methodology was successful enough to gain the confidence of the CIE board who have deployed the methodology throughout the industry, it is now managed through the RIPA (originaly LRPO).

As for the growth in the planning profession, it is evident that in todays competetive enviromnent that profit levels are diminishing, in all industries. First to market and ROI are key words that were seldom heard outside the boardroom.

There is also the fact that resources and skills are so diverse that they need to be managed better. This is a good sign for us and I forsee that the discipline will expand more over the next few years. As you can see from the recruitment web page, there are hundreds of vacancies in the UK, particularly within the Railway and Construction industries.

Regards

Dave Forrest

President
Primavera UK Usergroup.
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