Project Management is a word too often used so much so that it is deemed an ordinary skill and therefore neglected.
Project Management in its most general meaning (forget those fanciful description those Academicians uses) is the management of manpower, machineries, materials and money within a set timeframe. 4M in short.
So we now know what Project Management stands for, so now how can it really help us?
Let’s start the whole understanding game with a scary bedtime story.
Project Failed to deliver on time!
This news clipping is a local and recent happening right here in fast developing
The news got into the lime light right after the elections, even though the delay started long before the elections.
What was the reason given for the delay?
• Design Delays
• Land Acquisition delays
• Cost increase contributing to delays
The real reason for the delay is PROJECT MANAGEMENT failure at its best.
A Point by point dissection to the problem will be done.
Let’s just look at DESIGN DELAYS since the team here is in the same area of interest.
Design segment caused the delay
How did the design segment contribute to the delay? Was the Design team unable to churn out the design and drawings in time? Was the design changed numerous times due to clients’ interference?
When a project is of a massive scale in size, logically it will generate a massive amount of documentation requirement. Documents here are in the form of plans, technical detail drawings, engineering drawings and whatever specification data that is necessary to carry out the project.
Where then is the delay?
Fact
1. Almost all consultants never Project Manage their team to achieve a full submission of designs, drawings and specifications so as to submit them at a set milestone
2. All consultants never have a benchmark on how long can a set of plans for a particular work or area needs in order to complete
3. Most consultants have little or no logging procedure to identify when a 3rd party inference caused a delay in regenerating a new set of designs in order to adapt to these “requests”. Most of them can’t argue with the clients that the delay is not theirs but a 3rd party or even the client themselves
Not happy with these facts?
Try answering these questions.
a) Do you know how long will it take your designers to come out with a certain specification?
b) How long does it take your draftsperson to churn out an A0 sized drawing?
c) The client has asked to add in some new features, in doing so, you need to redesign out an entire section of designs. Can you tell there and then how much of time will be required to put in these new changes?
If you answer “Not sure” to even one of the above, then you better tune up your Project Management skills, FAST!
Solution
The TEAM here is required here is to create a progress monitoring control to manage your 4M
Manpower (your design team)
Machineries (PC, Plotter)
Materials (Print outs, Construction drawings)
Money (I don’t have to explain this one)
And set a time frame for all of these items
Let’s begin putting the 4M into reality
Start by understanding your Team’s productivity index. Know each person’s ability to churn out a certain document.
Tabulate this data into your own Manpower Production Sheet
Next, set out the quantum of drawings (or documents) to be produced.
DELIGATE to each person doing the design his or her quantum. This individual quantum divided with each person’s ability will give you the duration needed to create the needed designs or documents
Put each person’s time frame needed into a Gantt chart and you can now show how long it will take to do all those design works.
Get a good Project Management software, punch in all these data and now you are ready to do the following
a) Track who is doing what designs and when that work is to be completed
b) If a new client’s request comes in the middle of the job and the need to redesign, thus additional time (and cost) is needed, just add in the new work to your Gantt chart and the new date is calculated and if you want to claim for additional money from the client, this program can also show you that value.
This demonstration should show you a clearer insight into how simple Project Management is and how it will really help you get your Project done, on time, on cost and document your potential claims and variation works
Syed Naguib Syed Abu Bakar
