Expected skills of planner

G’Day Mohsen,

I’ve just received a copy of Paul’s version 5 book. As did some of my planning friends.



I’ve only been using P3e for 6 weeks now, having never used it before, and with only 5 years experience with other tools (Micro planner X-Pert and OPP), I’ve found the book to be a very quick reference guide and it has gotten me out of a few sticky "What The’s".



I went on a training course the other week (Primavera run, and although it confirmed everything I wanted to know, Paul’s book is definitely never far away from me at work.





Have a good one.

Andy

Thanks Everyone for the feedback. this is really a rich forum, i ve learnt LOTS over the last couple of days.

any commnets on: "Planning Using Primavera Project Planner P3 Version 3.1" by Paul E Harris?

cheers,

Moshen



Most likely they are looking for a operator (P3) instead of a planner.



It is easier to train a good planner to become a good P3 planner than train a good P3 operator to become a good P3 planner.



Since you discribe yourself as the first category of planner, then its not hard to train yourself to become a good P3 planner and look for another P3 planner job.



There are many opp here in Australia so prepare yourself to become a good P3 planner is an advantage.



Good Luck



Alex

Moshen,



You have to be at your best shots.



You got to be the best in P3.



You got to be the best in field experience.



You got to be the best in theory.



You got to best in practical application.



You got to best in claims.



etc, etc, etc,



If i got the opportunity, i can talk that project control manager, theory and practice, P3 MS project, test etc.

At the end of the interview the guy will tell me " YOU ARE THE MAN, I WANT YOU HERE IN MY TEAM "



Moshen, that is the way to end a job interview, less than that, forget any job offer.



HOW TO DO IT???? Just read a lot of inteivew tips in the internet.



Cheers,



Charlie

Mohsen,



No offend please, majorities of the big company now a day is looking for a P3 expert planner as requirements. We all know that not all P3 driver are qualified planner but you would realized that on the advertisement usually stated P3 as qualification. Not all but I would say majority because that’s one of the company’s selling point to win the bid or project. Most of the project that I have been involve start from the tendering package the client itself specified the project controls packages to use such as SAP or Pronto or other costing package, P3 for planning and scheduling, QDMS , Expedition or other document control packages, etc… which is also a good selling point of a company.



Sad to say but yes! It’s happening.

Clive,

it was awekward, the person was the "projet controls manager", and I had been introduced by a friend who is a senior planner in another company and neither of us expected that.

I can see alot of planner job opportunities at the moment, but I think it s whether the companies do not have the resources for training or just need some one who s no hassel, and on the other hand they are happy to pay the big money

HI everyone,

Just new to this forum, and was looking at different topics.

Recently, I had a very intense job interview for a scheduling job for a respective international company, and guess what?.. the discussion session was set only around the software (P3) and how I would do this and that. I was So frustrated becasue although I have the qualifications that you expect from a planner but still not quite experienced in P3. It only gave me a headache ( at the end of the day, they filed my application for future reference ;) )

Clive



Spot on... it actually enlighten some of question in my mind that I always try to answer when someone ask me to work on a new job...



Happy New Year



Alex

That what experience do....



joseph

Clive - I like your Point 5. "Godd training". I know that we like to think of ourselves as being The Almighty, but somehow our career progression to such a level of immortality might be rather optimistic.



James :-)

James



90% of the experienced planners out there have used more than one package. I find it very doubtful that an experienced planner has only ever used 1 package (especially the good ones).



John



I agree with your first statement, but it’s extremely dangerous, especially when the planner is inexperienced. I’ve seen tenders go out by inexperienced planners that have nearly caused the company’s downfall. Just make sure that that person has a good coach or mentor.



With regards to your second statement, my original remark was taken out of context. When talking about I.T. the questions need to revolve around I.T.

I was talking about construction & petrochemical. Use your savvy and ask something like "How long to develop a 10 000 line code module and convert it into executable code?" The basic idea is to ask an "open-minded technical question"



Hope this helps



Regards,

Michael Bonandrini

Planning Engineer

Hi



When recruiting I always like to know a bit about the planning job in question and recruit accordingly, and hopefully avoide the square pegs in round holes problem.



I find you are often better bringing someone in bellow the level that you would like and then spend a bit of time and energy training them up. These people seem to respond a lot better than buying in the "finished" planning product.



Thinking about the Pipe Test, I know a lot of very good planners in the IT industry that would look at you and say "what is a pipe".



Regards



John

Michael,



Sorry - but you’ve just shot yourself in the foot. You have just condemned someone as being "inexperienced" - just because they have not used more than one software package. Does it make you an inexperienced driver just because you have driven only one type of car?. Obviously if the candidate’s CV says that they used "X and Y" software, then your question would be valid.



James.

90% of the work comes down to planning experience. I’ve worked in this industry for quite a while now & have noticed that there’s a lot of bullsh1tters out there...



A while ago I was asked to draw up an interview for planners for one of the companies that I worked at. My two main questions were as follows;



Q1. What is the main differences between MS Project and Primavera and Suretrak ?



A1. There’s various answers to this, but what this tells you is that the planner has experience working with all the software packages. If a planner can’t give you at least 8 differences between the packages, he’s/she’s inexperienced





Q2. How long does it take to fit a pipe ?



A2. There isn’t an answer to this, in fact the planner should be asking questions like "what size?, what schedule?, what country etc...". This will give you some idea on the candidate’s technical ability (make sure that you have a technical person present)



I’d give these 2 questions a 50/50 weighting. I always use these and so far they’re fool-proof (touch wood)



Hope this helps

Software skills are important there’s no doubt about that, but that’s not the most important trait of a planner. In my opinion, it’s communication.



A good planner can speak with the most technical engineer on the project and extract useful information from them. A good planner can get the two most technical engineers on the project to talk and come to a definitive solution. A planner must convert all the techo-jargon being discussed into a meaningful programme of work.



When recruiting I look for the person who can best integrate with the team, software skills follows closely behind.

Hi



I always consider a planning engineer that knows his subject and has the basic skills will soon "pick up" a planning software package and quickly have a reasonable plan knocked together.



However if a Planning Engineer don’t have these basic skills they will struggle to produce meaningful sort plan, however well they thinks they know the software.



The one thing a planner should never suffer from is stress, however we may be accused of creating stress it at times. All good planners know stress is not "deemed to be part of the rate", i.e. we don’t get paid for stress.



Very Relaxed

Wallsend

Aye! Smoking may kill but Planning can permanently damage your health!



Stressed

Stavanger

I am totally agreed with Nigel.

The software is only a tool which helps us (more or less) in our job, but what it is really important is the “forma mentis” of the planner. I mean the vocation to break down a big problem in several small problems and after that break down the small problems in nothing.



Ciao

Are you saying planners must smoke?

In this abstracted world of political correctness does this mean that planners will have to desist from their task due to the lack of unscribbled fag packets

cough cough

Oscar

James

Maybe I should have said "software use is not as important" as understanding the fundamentals. I, probably like yourself, started using an Elephant drawing board and manually drawing lines, boxes, links. I would not want to go back to that!

Yes, we all use software, some use more of the features than others. But in reality, is there any difference between one package and another? If you can understand one planning software package and use it, then another version will not be too difficult to get to grips with.

If on the other hand you do not understand the basic principles of planning, logic, resources, whatever, then no software will help you.

Maybe should have made that a little clearer in the original post.

And by the way, i still scribble quick plans on a fag packet! ;-)

Cheers

Nige

Vinod,



Good point on your last paragraph! We only use that which we are forced to in order to make life easier or that which suits our purpose. However, we must bear in mind that the software can manipulate only the same, basic data. How many different ways do we want to see the same thing? :-)



James.

Hi James,



Totally agree with you. Softwares make our jobs efficient. Companies compete with each other and one of the factors that helps companies to survive is to have a high productivity and efficient organization.



Imagine yourself counting manually 10000 values with different categories and you want to know the number of each category.



In Scheduling, imagine yourself every time you update your programme, you manually trace the critical path.



Been there, done that. But that was 15 years ago.



Isn’t softwares that important? Let’s get real.



Cheers,



SE

Nigel,



Sorry, but I totally disagree with your statement that software use is not important. Obviously if your company doesn’t use software, then you aren’t going to need it; but how many companies DON’T use some form of software? All things being equal, you would choose the candidate that has the better software skills.



Ok, most people can learn the software, but how many of us can truly say that we use any form of software to it’s full-potential, know all its quirks, flaws and limitations. It takes years of button-pressing to discover them. It is these "operational characteristics" that need to be learned in order to ensure integrity of the data output. Moreover, the amount of data that needs to be handled and presented, in very short cycles, is so large that it is extremely unlikely that a manual system could be used. Paraphrasing my lecturer, of twenty years ago: the number of activities that could be handled manually is limited to about 250.



It’d be interesting to hear from other PP members of their experiences of manual planning.



James.

Hi,



Try having a look at:



http://www.planningengineers.org/



An interesting site with plenty of links:



Regards



John L.

Listening and asking questions! Reading contracts, drawings and talking with engineers/estimators/the client...

Software use is not iportant, but knowing the principles of planning is.



Nige

ideally, you must possess unlimited skills, in others words, flexible, that means you can do a plan even without computers..