Category: Australia

Project Controls

The first time I heard this term was a few years ago whilst working in the Middle East in Qatar. In Australia the role is usually described as Contract Administrator, but project controls much better describes the position.

The skills and experience that I have looked for in potential contract administrators can be broadly divided in to three:

  • contract management
  • financial management
  • schedule/programme management (on larger projects this becomes the role of project planner)

Unfortunately on some lesser size projects the contract administrator ends up being the dogsbody who has to manage the subcontractors, submit progress claims to the client, order the stationery and do the filing. So a lot of their time is spent carrying out tasks which they are grossly over paid for.

The concept of project controls ensures that the right people are doing the right job. Unfortunately if you have ever tried to hire an experienced planner who can use say Primavera you will know how difficult it is.

So far I have been talking about the construction industry, mining and infrastructure has even bigger problems. Many companies in this sector simply do not have the systems and expertise to run and deliver projects. There is a reluctance from the mining sector to bring in construction people, yet, here in Australia that is where the boom is taking place and that is where there is a desperate shortage of planners, contracts people and project managers.

Mr Joyce

Good news for aficionados of Joyce, his opus magnus, Ulysses in now freely available in the public domain. Which means in can be downloaded at no got and with no fear of contravening copyright. So from Dedalus to the noble sons of Leda can be enjoyed on your iPad or your kindle.
So check it out on the Project Gutenberg site: http://www.gutenberg.org

A Hypocrite Released

If you push your views but not live by them, you are a true hypocrite.

This is probably the Achillese healof all bloggers. It is so easy to pontificate personal views, get a response and then it is game on for anyone to join in the chat. It is even easier to take yourself so seriously that you start believing your own bullshit.

My conclusion is if you espouse certain beliefs then you have no alternative but to live them. My beliefs are to make things happen and to be passionate in doing those things. My passion is construction: building structures and leading people who also want “to make it happen” I cannot do it today, but in five weeks, I will be back where I want to be. Concrete, tower cranes, design teams etc. I just can’t wait to be back and no longer be someone who talks about it but a Project Manager that really does make it happen.

I am joining an organization that has true job costing, robust cost reporting, a  “out of the box” document management system, and best of all – no Sharepoint and  no linked spreadsheets.

Who Wants Sharepoint

SharePoint folks enjoying some Huey Lewis action

I cannot understand why many organisations have or are going down the road of Sharepoint implementation. My experience is in construction project management and have gone through Sharepoint implementation in two companies in the last five years. On both occasions it was sold to us as a document management system – it is a document repository, as simple as that. If you want it to be a management tool you have to get bolt ons or pay through the nose for consultants to adapt it. Instead you can simply buy Acconex, project Centre etc etc and straight out of the box you are managing your document flow, drawing storage, capturing project correspondence and all the other data you need to run projects.

When will IT people understand what we do instead of forcing us to change best practice to suit what they think we need ie collaborative software tools. Managing projects does have some collaboration between the various participants but that is outweighed by the need to have accurate real-time records and systems that are easy to learn, use and manage.I came across a great blog and I have reproduced part of it.

What’s wrong with Sharepoint?

“I tend to agree that Sharepoint sucks. Using it is like closing your eyes, holding your breath and spinning around for thirty seconds. When your done you don’t know where you are, you are very dizzy, and feel like you might throw up… I might create something in one place, but can’t delete it or rename it there. After 15 minutes of searching, I can’t find the same tool I used yesterday to do one thing or another. It’s like that house in 13 Ghosts, everything SEEMS to move around on you… What really bothers me is this is not version one. It is a great idea gone horribly implemented.

STAY AWAY… Sharepoint can be an incredibly useful tool, but in any office where I’ve seen it deployed, it’s acting merely as a web-based front-end to the file-system. If that’s all you’re going to be using it for, you might as well just use the file-system, via Explorer and mapped drives, and do away with the glorified front end.

I absolutely hate sharepoint even though it seems to be serving purpose here of a company with over 9,000 employees. i have to do the support and administrative stuff for it and have several users I can’t get connected to our Portal for some reason we can’t figure out.

Sharepoint…I hate Sharepoint with the passion of 10,000 burning Lotus Notes users…Sharepoint is a decent enough idea but it lacks a logical flow for navigation. Also, sometimes it just seems more cumbersome than it’s worth but eh, it works too.

Honestly, I found Sharepoint so inadequate and typical of a first generation MS product that I could only shake my head at it.  If it was made by anyone else than MS and had to compete on its merits I suspect most of us would have never even heard of it”

So any business that has an IT department as a support service is exposed to having software imposed on it by people who often do not even understand what that business does.

If you find yourself in that position, you can push back and if that fails simply move on

Best Christmas Present

English: 1964 Aston Martin DB5, produced by Co...
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What is the best Christmas present you have ever received?

I suppose there are presents givin to you as a child and those when you are an adult. On that basis I have two “bests”

The first was when I was young and I received a James Bond Corgi toy replica of the car from Goldfinger. The Aston Martin with ejector seat, machine guns etc. It was the bees knees and I treasured it.

The second and I suppose the real “best” was the news my darling daughter is coming to our place on Christmas day for lunch. Why so special? because this has not happened for sixteen years. Of course there is a story within a story but not to be published here.

 

Goodbye Quantity Surveying

Monitoring and Control project activities

The other evening I met an old friend of mine newly arrived from the UK. He is a quantity surveyor who used to work for a large building contractor in the south of England. He is looking for a job in Brisbane and asked me to explain to him what a contract administrator does as the job does not exist back where he hails from.

So I gave him all the details of what a contract administrator does for their $140K per annum. I then went on to talk about the role of the project control manager. This role is widely understood in engineering in Australia and is prevalent on construction/engineering projects in the Middle East. The term is gaining widespread use in Australia especially in the mining/resources sector with salaries pushing $200K. That sort of salary equates to £130K sterling which is far more than a quantity surveyor would dream of earning.

How do you define project controls. A simple definition is “The skills in the project control disciplines provide the “eyes and ears” of good project management.”

Or

Project Controls encompass the people, processes and tools used to plan, manage and mitigate cost and schedule issues and any risk events that may impact a project. Project Controls are a necessity for the business to get paid for what we do, deliver projects on time and on/under budget. The key duties are:

  • Planning, Scheduling & Project Reporting
  • Earned Value Analysis & Management
  • Cost Engineering & Estimating
  • Change Management & Controls
  • Risk and Delay Claims
  • subcontracts and supply Management

My friend is now applying for a job as a project controls manager and never wants to be known as a Quantity Surveyor ever again, especially here in Australia because most people do not understand what that means.

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Voyages

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“There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures”

Oh dear I hear the reader groan, he has started quoting Shakespeare. But something made me remember this quote from Julius Ceaser when we learnt it at school forty years ago. I suppose the “Matrix Jolt” was caused by a certain event which happened thirty years ago today. The birth of my first child an event so life changing, so bright and uplifting that I was never the same again. Ok I can hear you saying “my god what was he like before this event?” Well as good old Leonard C would say he was a sailor looking for a port.

Well enough of the family reminiscences and Shakespeare’s quotes let’s get back to construction or as it is at the moment, coal mining in Queensland. The quotation is curiously apposite as well. Big investments are being made, skills shortages recognised, more boom times ahead. Or are they. The GFA mark two hangs over us like Damocles’ sword and if it falls the repercussions will be dire, investment will stop, over extended mortgagees will lose their houses, the social effect will be devastating. We need to be prudent and show some foresight.

We all know what comes after a boom

Anonymous Comments

I just love anonymous comments. OK they hide and you cannot engage them in discussion, but they usually hit a nerve. And as dear old Oskar said “the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about”

If someone wants to comment and hide their identity – well let them. Of course their IP is easily found and they can be tracked back but why bother. They have not left their name for their own reasons. People like me who publish blogs will always get disparaging comments, and I say please send more because it is a reality check and triggers discussion.

So Anonymous

Encapsulation of application data descending t...

maintain the rage, give me a hard time, chop down the tall poppy, your comments are most welcome.

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Communication for Project Managers

Project Management Knowledge Areas
Image via Wikipedia

OK you have your first project as PM. There is nowhere to hide, nobody to blame, it is down to you, as we say in Australia “sh*t or bust.

I remember the day I was given my first project, and I mean real project ie tower cranes and unions. I had a mentor at the time and he said once I had delivered the project I should treat myself, and I did. I bought a Tag Heuer watch which I still wear every day. At the time it cost as much as a small car but every time I look at the watch it reminds me of my mentor and how I got my first “real” project under my belt.

I could bleat on about project management, the watch was 16 years ago, but what my current issue is communication and systems. There is  information we store for future use if needed and there is communication which  (I hate to use  IT geek speak) involves workflows.

So what is a workflow and what do we store for the future, workflow is communication that requires response, action, follow-ups and can cost you dollars, storage is what we keep if we have to prove the workflow.

Currently Sharepoint is well used as the storage facility or document repository.

The following quote whose source I have omitted for his personal reasons is seminal:

“In a panel discussion on SharePoint as a social platform, the consensus was that SharePoint contains many of the ingredients of a social application, but by itself doesn’t get you all the way there–not without extensive customization or the addition of a third-party product such as NewsGator Social Sites.”

Unfortunately some misguided IT professional believe Sharepoint can manage workflow as well, and in tandem with being a document repository. They are wrong and out of touch. Project Managers need information in real time and there are many proprietary software packages that will give them the information they need.

I am looking forward to the day when we bury Sharepoint as a workflow engine and linked spreadsheets developed in house to satisfy needs which can be met by software which is already available.

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