Blogs

Project controls processes and project reports are full of numbers and calculations and one would think that most project stakeholders, particularly senior managers, would see and understand the numbers in the same way.  Unfortunately resent research[1]

One of the hardest things to do is to stop wasting money and resources on a losing proposition, emotions, biases and focusing on simple but irrelevant measures can all lead to bad decisions.  A proper consideration of ‘sunk costs’ can help eliminate these ‘always wrong’ decisions. 

Some organisations perform consistently well, others don’t!  This statement is true of all aspects of an organisation’s performance including its ability to manage projects and programs effectively. Consistent high performance in the creation of value from projects and programs certainly requires the technical capabilities to manage projects effectively (see more on the strategic management of projects); but technical organisational maturity is not enough. A culture of high performance is also needed.

We presented papers at the Engineers Australia MCPC14 conference late last year. They are now available on our website.

Understanding Design – The challenge of informed consent looks at the problem of communicating complex project information to stakeholders in a way they can understand.

This is part blogs series about Portfolio Management, the discipline of managing which projects you do and which you don't.

So far we have observed that:

The odd one out

If you regularly drive to work, you’ll probably be all too familiar with roadworks. From your experience, which of the pictures below seems unusual?

Picture 3? It’s rare to see activity. From my car window, most roadworks seem sat idle, not a worker in sight.

Why is this?

Parallel vs Serial planners

What if you have carefully planned a project, and skillfully designed its construction, but your contractor does not have the capability to perform the work in a quality manner? That is a risk to your project. The PMI diagram only used to refer to the elements of time, cost and scope.

I like to think of Virtual Design & Construction (VDC) as a process that ideally flows through a project, digitally (i.e., virtually) creating, collecting, transporting, and delivering project data from design through construction. The VDC process includes software, hardware, and people – ideally all in the proper configurations and locations to allow for cooperative participation, and enabled to deliver a high performing (i.e., optimized) constructed facility. In this context you could say that if BIM is the car then VDC is the driver.

Project planning is all about figuring out when we are going to finish our project and how much is it going to cost. We typically start with a fixed start date and then figure out what the end date and associated cost may be.Why then, when planning our day to day lives do the very opposite and reverse engineer the plan in order to achieve our goals? For example, “if I need to be at work by 9am , I probably need to leave the house by say 7.30am” or “in order to get my Christmas cards delivered on time, I should make sure they are in the mail no later than say the 10th December”.