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New Planning Bluff-Masters in UAE

21 replies [Last post]

Thu, 2007-12-06 04:50

Sunley Mathew, PMP

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Joined: 5 Sep 2003

Posts: 18

Groups: GPC Qatar

Hi,
The trend in UAE these days within the construction industry is to hire any engineer with any sort of experience and teach them Primavera and then they are Planners. The funniest thing in this is the HR Dept. in the companies specifies that to be in a senior position you need to be old enough rather than skills and experience and they don’t even test the persons knowledge of the relevant field and just accepts and forged resumes.I know of a construction company where the Delay and Claim Analyst is a Mechanical Engineer who have ’NO’ knowledge of Building works.But the company is hiring external consultants for getting the job done. Also I know several Planning Managers without any local experience(aged 35 to 40 and have some other experience) working in that position just because the company trains them in Primavera. These people do not even know what ’Early Start’ is. Since people have started slipping into companies by mere ’bluffing’, the quality of project time management is very bad in UAE.

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Fri, 2008-01-25 23:34

Abhijit Kale

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Joined: 20 Jul 2007

Posts: 126

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Dear Marlon,

As you have said earlier, for being a good planner he must have effectice communication.
One should always interact with people from various departments, not only from the managemnt but also his co workers.

In short he shoulb be a good team player.
Cheers,
Abhijit

Fri, 2008-01-25 03:08

Sanjay Pathak

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Joined: 27 Mar 2003

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Hi

Yes, that right. Commencing any project require initial meeting with the project team. In fact it starts right start from the bidding stage. In case of a successful bid, the same information should pass to the project team during execution at site as a guideline. In day to day life also each one is working like a Planner. Effectiveness of Planner depends upon the Organisation Project Management Maturity, Philosophy, Communication and team work.

Fri, 2008-01-25 03:08

Sanjay Pathak

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Joined: 27 Mar 2003

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Hi

Yes, that absolutely right. Commencing any project require initial meeting with the project team. In fact it starts right start from the bidding stage. In case of a successful bid, the same information should pass to the project team during execution at site as a guideline. In day to day life also each one is working like a Planner. Effectiveness of Planner depends upon the Organisation Project Management Maturity, Philosophy, Communication and team work.

Wed, 2008-01-23 05:43

Andrew Pearce

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Joined: 11 Jun 2001

Posts: 175

Groups: Building Information Modelling, The GrapeVine

What if the lady is standing up Charles?

Mon, 2008-01-21 01:39

Charleston-Joseph...

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Joined: 10 Jul 2005

Posts: 1347

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Hi Ravi,

I took note of your comment regarding scuba divers.

I got this friend of mine who is working in a very junior position but with long years of experience. He did scuba diving and eventually becomes certified scuba diving instructor. After sometimes, he becomes a manager in one of island development with huge pay and bonus/incentives.

I call it luck. He is lucky

He did invite to learned scuba diving for discounted fee. I never thought it will be an asset someday. However, I told him "Im been doing diving since twenty five years ago, usually 4:00 AM but this is only 2 inches above ground level"

Cheers,

Sun, 2008-01-20 23:12

Abhijit Kale

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Joined: 20 Jul 2007

Posts: 126

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Yeah Ravi,

I fully agree with you.

Most of the people who are working as PM are same as mentioned by you.
so no way of any paper work or written communication.

this is not only the situation in UAE but in most of the Gulf courntries.
cheers
Abhi

Sun, 2008-01-20 14:14

A D

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Joined: 20 May 2007

Posts: 1027

Groups: Accreditation Editors

But the main question is who generates these Bluff-Masters

THE CLIENT and THE SO CALLED PROJECT MANAGERS

Project Managers in UAE are mostly by profession are carpenters, fitters, scuba divers etc. As they are not expert in knowing the importance of this paperwork, these bluff-masters grow near and around them.

Few people may feel offended, but this is the true condition of UAE.

Cheers,

Ravi

Wed, 2008-01-09 11:04

Christian Adrian ...

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Joined: 3 Jun 2003

Posts: 193

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It’s a soft copy.. isn’t it?

Tue, 2008-01-08 16:05

Johny Kesserwany

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Joined: 18 Sep 2007

Posts: 118

Groups: Civil Engineering

And on top of that for them a ’soft Copy’ is a PDF file of the schedule !!!!!????

Tue, 2008-01-08 14:13

#10

A D

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Joined: 20 May 2007

Posts: 1027

Groups: Accreditation Editors

And most surprising part on some contractors / consultants is when their so called "PLANNING EXPERT" refuses to give P3 program in soft copy and then v hav to fight hard / convince them to supply us the soft copy. Thats really crazy!!

in one of the building project, this PE submitted 40000 activities which includes 8000 milestones and few thousands of hammocks.

Really crazy, 8000 milestones and approx 3000 hammocks in a building project and apart from this there are constraints and lags

Sun, 2007-12-23 09:00

#11

Shahzad Munawar

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Joined: 2 Jul 2003

Posts: 551

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This is fault of the Managers of such International Companies working on Mega Projects who select these ’So called Planners’ not such planners.

Sat, 2007-12-22 07:07

#12

Sam Mohan

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Joined: 17 Dec 2007

Posts: 17

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You are wrong .this is not a New Trend ,I worked in UAE from 1993 -2004 with international companies in many landmark projects and have come across many so called PLANNING ENGINEERS who does not have a clue of Activities involved, logic, sequence,durations or required resources.I used to wonder how on earth these people got recruited as Planning Engineers.

Sat, 2007-12-22 02:36

#13

Mangesh Khuspe

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Joined: 10 Apr 2007

Posts: 162

Groups: Building Information Modelling, Pinoy Planning Planet Community

Hi
all after reading all your posts, i would like to share my horrible experience, the contractor gave p3 copy of schedule and guess what in that 5000 activities prog, there was not a single relationship given at all, activities were held on their dates by constraints, i was shocked and amazed at such thing.
cheers
mangesh

Wed, 2007-12-19 03:19

#14

Abhijit Kale

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Joined: 20 Jul 2007

Posts: 126

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yeah,
n one more is trend that, only if u know primavera n MSP mangement seeems he knows planning.
but other side of coin is u shld have at least some site exp for beig a good planner
Cheers,
abhi

Wed, 2007-12-19 02:55

#15

Sanjay Pathak

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Joined: 27 Mar 2003

Posts: 6

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HI

Yes, I agree with you, in fact my experience says its more of an attitude issue. Senior management like to hire at position of Planning and Scheduling without proper support. There is big gap between the people at site and in office in terms of technology awareness and latest trends in the industry, then comes the synergy. Yes, management thinks that Primavera is a software which can do miracles by giving them all the schedules and forecast, but they don’t realise that, preparing a schedule is the team effort and it is just a tool to reflect the strategy in measurable term. Then the most import part is the implementation of the Schedule at site.

Tue, 2007-12-11 23:39

#16

Razi Khan

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Joined: 17 Jun 2004

Posts: 74

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Planning or Scheduling or Project Management In U.A.E.......Ha, Ha, Ha !!!

Tue, 2007-12-11 23:17

#17

Christian Adrian ...

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Joined: 3 Jun 2003

Posts: 193

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Sunley

Just like what Shazad said.. "just relax"... and also "Good Luck"... you will need it badly!

Mon, 2007-12-10 06:12

#18

Sunley Mathew, PMP

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Joined: 5 Sep 2003

Posts: 18

Groups: GPC Qatar

Ya you said it correct. Once on a new assignement, I recieved a progress updated Programme in P3 and was shocked to find that the electronic copy of it had only a few relationships. All the contractual milestones were fixed into the date by ’Constraints’. Since it was before my time, I digged into the past correspondences and documents and found that the contractor had submitted the Clause 4.14 Baseline Programme also like that. So there was a big ’WAR’ between me and the contractors team and my senior managers who approved the Cl.14 Programme. Initially when I requested the electronic copy these people gave me the programme printed in PDF format and said that is the electronic copy. This is the pitiable state of Project Management in UAE.

Sat, 2007-12-08 15:50

#19

Shahzad Munawar

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Joined: 2 Jul 2003

Posts: 551

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Mathew

Not new trend in UAE. Old one where your age always counts over your experience without specifying your relevant field. Don’t need to be panic...just relax.......

Thu, 2007-12-06 05:48

#20

Shareef Abdul Azeez

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Joined: 19 Sep 2005

Posts: 183

Groups: Civil Engineering, GPC Qatar

yup Sunley

Very true. People expect planners to be magicians here in UAE. They donot like to coordinate or give proper inputs yet want them to be there so they can say " Planners have no work".

There are yet other managers who want their schedules to be later put into excel where the timescales are like crazy to arrange to get a print out.

Then there are others who donot even know what milestones are for and give milestones like they are peanuts in the way and some even like to leave project finish not linked properly so the project completion date shows some date and the actual completion is some other milestone ..hehehe

But what to do ......thats all that they want.

Yet another funny thing in the project I recently got on is for the last 1 month I have been collecting only procurement information from some procurement person here and he things this is it."thts planning"....I mean when work is really going on in the site. Crazy man. I dont know how long b4 I get my brain washed out here........lol

Thu, 2007-12-06 05:03

#21

Gordon Blair

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Joined: 29 Jul 2005

Posts: 166

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Right... where’s my Passport?

I look dead old, I could get a VP’s job :oD

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