“Success Has A Thousand Fathers But Failure Is An Orphan."

This article is a continuation of the series on why projects fail. Poor Coordination Of Effort Companies always try to save costs on projects by not going full bore on a project management group. They may have project managers but they are expected to work within a procurement and accounting system set up for buying toilet paper, selling widgets and delaying payments. When you, as a project manager, are in this type of system, your primary goal is to get the project up and running within budget and on schedule while the other players are interested in keeping the facility... Read More»

Oh, By The Way...

With this article I will take a break from the project failure column I have been writing. I will continue with that in later articles. Figure 1 Figure 1 is a picture of a rail loading terminal at a remote refinery. The yellow pans on the rails are the spill containment system. Each pan has a drain outlet on it that feeds into an underground drainage system and into a sump. The refinery loaded fuel into the rail tank cars here and shipped the fuel to an ocean terminal about 150 miles away. There the tank cars were unloaded through... Read More»

Reasons For Project Failure

This is a continuation of the article on reasons for project failure. Here I will look at some of the project management issues that can lead to project failure. Insufficient stakeholder consultation One of the success factors for a project is integrated teams, i.e. you have all the stakeholders on board at the beginning of the project. You need all the stakeholders to get agreement and consensus around the project objectives. If you are the Owner, then you should be looking for the stakeholders on your side. Sometimes it’s easy and other times it is hard to find the stakeholders.... Read More»

Why Do Projects Fail This article is a continuation of why projects fail. Inadequate attention to quality. I have seen quality problems arise from a corporations desire to embrace Auotcad by getting rid of experienced designers and hiring inexperienced CAD operators, to companies suffering because they didn’t get involved in a total quality package. Over my work history I have seen Vendors change from a lack of interest in equipment foundations to being very interested. One project I worked on were four pulp refiners. These were large revolving discs, of several tons, attached to a 10000 hp motor. In the... Read More»

This Is Going To Be A Fun Project!

As you know projects are about change and you should expect change, even on lump sum contracts. As the project progresses, there will be changes from the design engineer and more so from he field. Throughout the project, when the contractor presents you with a request for a change notice, you can talk to your team to see if the change is legitimate or not and act accordingly. I was managing a construction project and had gone out for bid. We got the quotes back and were getting ready to award the contract when the boss came in and said... Read More»

Project Execution Plans Are Not Fixed. All projects should have a Project Execution Plan which outlines to management how you plan on executing the project. There are numerous sections, one being the Construction Plan. As a project manager, you should realize, the Project Execution Plan is a living document which is updated as you go through the project life cycle. All projects involve change so, we anticipate some changes as more information comes in, however, we should not be expecting too many changes from the original plan. Ideally this is what we want, but, projects do not always work out... Read More»

Just What Are My Roles & Responsibilities?

Part III This article completes the roles and responsibilities of a Lead Project Engineer / Project Manager that I have talked about in the last couple of articles. q) Provide constructability expertise during the scope development and design phases. Someone has to understand how the project will be constructed and provide the direction to the project team. If you have access to a construction person then you would work with him to develop the construction plan, otherwise it is up to you to provide the direction. At every opportunity, you should be on the job site observing how things are... Read More»

Just What Are My Roles & Responsibilities? Part II

This article continues with the roles and responsibilities of a Lead Project Engineer / Project Manager that I started in the last article. Reviews all incoming and outgoing project-related correspondence. You need to look at or be aware of all project related information that comes in and make sure it gets to the appropriate person(s) for action. This means you have to understand what project problems / issues are out there. You do not want any surprises. All information going out should go out under your signature. You can not have just anyone sending out project related information that could... Read More»

What Are My Roles & Responsibilities?

One of the things I cover in my workshops is the roles and responsibilities of a Lead Project Engineer / Project Manager. What I find amazing is that some of the attendees do not understand their roles and responsibilities (that’s why I do the workshop) so I will review them in this article. When you review them you will see the skills you have to master to be a project leader. Roles and Responsibilities a) Overall responsibility for organizing the project team. He/she is the team leader. This requires you to have people management skills. You may or may not... Read More»

Operators As Part Of The Project Team: A Project Managers Perspective

What Were Those Designers Thinking? The picture above show a couple of steam generators that we had to demolish as part of a larger project. Each turbine had small bore cooling water supply, cooling water return and a condensate return line going to and from headers located up in the building rafters. The refinery need the space for another project, so the generators and associated piping had to be cleared out. It looked simple enough until we got into it. What we found was there were no isolation valves at the headers, so none of the lines could be shut... Read More»