Project Portfolio Analysis is so sample for a trained person. So for some of us, it will be very easy to understand the charts and tables very fast and for some, it might be new skill to gain. So please for the trained ones, give some insights to what the charts and table data are telling us. In a fast track and busy time for management, they would like to have a tool to tell them a lot by one […]
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In this article I will discuss the contractors cash flow worst case scenario and how much big risk they have to manage to have a positive cash flow. Some of the figures might give you a shock. The numbers are logical based on the provided works progress percentage. Construction preliminaries are from 10% to 15% globally in most countries according to International construction market survey 2017 published by Turner & Townsend which includes 43 markets around the world. The average […]
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I was privileged to be invited to two important innovation events happened on the same day which I tried to divide my time between both of them. Because the subject and the type of participants on both. They are linked because they are about new solutions and innovations. Let me say that getting knowledge about new trends and innovations opens new prospective always in my mind on how I think and how I adopt new business models. The challenge of […]
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In a tough competitive low pricing market like UAE and KSA, introducing VAT put another challenge to many companies on how to price VAT in their submitted bids/tenders/quotations/invoices? These dilemma in what they include in their bid (or not) pushed some of them in this month to just add 5% on top of their prices as a safe step for them. For example one million contract, it adds 50,000 which might be the difference to lose a bid/tender/quotation in tough […]
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UK Construction giant Carillion, the second largest construction company with 200 years’ work experience (19,000 employee in UK with 49,000 in all over the world) announced on 15th Jan 2018, that it has to enter into compulsory liquidation with immediate effect after they couldn’t secure a dial with government and banks to cover their £1.5 billion debt pile. The negative impact of the news is not only to their shareholders, current employees, and previous employees (on their pension payments), it […]
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We published many articles about PMO and EPPM because it is the best model for Project Based Organisations (PBO) for best results on such continuously changing and competitive market. However, many organizations are still using traditional functional structure including project controls departments. Therefore, the question which persist in such work environment “What type of Project Controls System Fit You More in Functional Organization Environment?” Although, the training workshop includes a lot more. we are happy to share with you the […]
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Most organizations plan and implement their strategic initiatives all the time. However, delivering it faces difficulties and even failure. One of the important initiatives for government, developers and contractors is the PMO implementation Initiative which is a restructuring initiative which make it more difficult to plan and implement. The good news I read in the recent PMI Pulse of The Profession 2017 report, is that: ” We have learned in the past: that when proven project, program, and portfolio management […]
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One of the most difficult situations is when a decision maker faces the three Ws (WWW) What Went Wrong? The situation becomes more devastating for the investors who invested billions. One example of this is one of the world’s biggest mining company who had put one of their big assets in USA up for sale in October 2014 after a slump in oil prices. The company bought the assets from Chesapeake Energy Corp. in 2011 for $4.75 billion but was […]
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Many organizations growing very fast. They expand their business year after year using the same systems they started with until they find difficulties to report where they stand financially. They wake up with the fact that there is no proper records not just to use internally but more importantly to provide for shareholders and auditors as credible reports. The finance department panics before every due report date to collect the needed data from the different departments. It becomes big headache […]
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Why PMO is the solution not to fail? Project management office is a new organization structure to deliver projects. It is not a coordinating efforts by different departments to deliver projects. It is a new organization with new vision, mission and goals. It is a new culture created to rid off the bad records, prioritizing ambiguity, conflicts of authority, obstacles excuses, bottleneck and centralized decision making in the different type of organizations. Trying to build a PMO within an organization […]
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Availability of key skills comes on number 8 for business threat which makes US CEOs extremely concerned about in their organisation strategic planning (PWC 20th CEO Global Survey Report – Jan 2017). The picture becomes more concerning when another survey in USA released on 9th Feb 2017 by Willis Towers Watson research reveals that almost half of employees think they would need to change companies to advance their career. This is a high trend from 2014 Willis Towers Watson research […]
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Projects delivery KPIs are important to measure the risks and opportunities that influence the strategic performance of projects and the team involved. The project management KPIs types could be defined mainly around the following Criteria: 1. Financial: These are typically utilized when the measure is monetary. 2. Quantitative: These are for projects where the relevant metric is not financial but is something that can be quantified numerically like time delivery. 3. Qualitative: A qualitative KPI is used when the relevant […]
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In challenging market where the pressure to win new contracts to maintain the targeted profit becomes a survival risk, management tends to make very tough decisions. Some of these decisions are around cutting costs. Some are around increasing efficiency and some are about new thinking and new operation model. However, success is a habit. It is a defined process and systems. It is not a change forced to do. Therefore, when we study the successful models for big companies we […]
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Goal: To demonstrate how to manage shared design resources. Level: Intermediate. Direct Users: Planning Engineers, Design Managers, Design Coordinators, and Program / Project Managers, Project Control Manager, PMO Manager and Portfolio Managers Indirect Users: CEO, COO, CFO and Directors Gained Skills Corporate Strategic Planning Resource Planning and Management Project Cost Planning and Management Resource Reporting Tools P6 Primavera Professional Rev 16.2 This article is a series of articles under the title How to Manage Projects’ Design Shared Resources. Please refer […]
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Goal: To demonstrate how to manage shared design resources. Level: Intermediate. Direct Users: Planning Engineers, Design Managers, Design Coordinators, and Program / Project Managers, Project Control Manager, PMO Manager and Portfolio Managers Indirect Users: CEO, COO, CFO and Directors Gained Skills Corporate Strategic Planning Resource Planning and Management Project Cost Planning and Management Resource Reporting Tools P6 Primavera Professional Rev 16.2 This article is a series of articles under the title How to Manage Projects’ Design Shared Resources. Please refer […]
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The planning and scheduling of earthwork are of major importance in obtaining an efficiently bidding pricing for multibillion construction projects. To plan a schedule, the quantities of clearing, grubbing, and stripping, as well as the quantities and balancing of cuts and fills, must be calculated. Then, the most efficient type and number of pieces of earth moving equipment could be defined, the proper number of personnel assigned, and the appropriate time allocated. Earthwork computation involves the calculation of volumes or […]
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Abstract: There are difficulties to collect actual bidding cost from the different contractors records. Many contractors consider it part of the overhead and not important to calculate. Part of this difficulties is the unidentified or different bidding process methods and where the process starts and where it end? Therefore, identification of the bidding process, will help to identify its actual cost. We will discuss here only the contractors bidding process. Although, there are similarities for consultants and suppliers process with less cost expected. […]
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Project portfolio approach and practice is still developing for many organisations. Organisations with responsibility to deliver many projects a year like utilities companies, government organisations, assets and financial management, contractors, consultants and projects developers are the most must users for it. Portfolio defined by the PMI in “The Standards for Portfolio Management – Third Edition” as a component collection of programs, project, or operation managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives. On simple words, the portfolio is an engineering […]
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Leadership is a subject which always fascinate me and seduce me to read whatever it comes to my hand about it to learn more about the main characteristic of the leaders. There are different leader’s characteristics as all you know like “vision, Integrity, empowerment, encouragement, setting the example, communication, planning, sharing leadership, developing, controlling performance, flexible, supportive, team worker and many others. The researchers and writers put these skills in different ranking to figure the top 10 leaders qualities. However, […]
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We read very limited news about a structure failure. However, we hear a lot about project time and budget overrun. Which I consider it a project planning and control design failure. Small number of cases are justified and the remaining are a cause of poor project management and in particular project control management. It is not surprising to know that research is showing that business leaders identify capturing time/costs against projects” as their biggest project management challenge. Moreover, research is […]
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When you think yourself or your organization are not overcoming the market changes and challenges, think about diversity thinking. The successful leadership is the leadership which accept the challenge of its decision. This tolerance is a confirmation of the confidence on the leader’s ability to lead and the team ability to take over when it is approved, it is the time to change. Each challenge will be either a solid stone to sustainable success for the organization or a […]
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Market is always changing. Within these changes, your decision quality is based on three factors; your collected data, your data analysis system and of course the minds who operate them. In construction industry, the challenge of changing market becomes more complex due the huge investment the contractors are doing. This challenge is smaller in engineering firms comparing to contractors. However, having a sustainable business is crucial for both. Here it comes the d2b complexity the consultant and contractors face every day. […]
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It was so interesting to listen and read the in the different media the details of the PwC’s 19th Annual Global CEO Survey in Davos. What attracting me more in the survey was a point which I was advocating for long time which is organization transformation to use the latest technology related to how we do business. The survey showed that 90% of CEOs surveyed are trying to use latest technologies and inventions. However, they are being challenged to align all parts of their operating model behind customer strategies. In the field of engineering & construction, the challenge of aligning […]
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Enterprise Project Portfolio Management (EPPM) is a database management system. Because it links the projects portfolio delivery schedule status with all related data in each project (Scope, Time, Resource, and Cost) from one side and the business processes in the other side. It is the future gate for managing and control projects in the project based organization like consultant, contractors and developers who work on projects delivery. The most important examples of the EPPM outcomes are: creating visual for project […]
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In bidding and tendering, we have mainly three types of pricing; actual cost, risk-averse cost and mark up price. This article is not discussing the mark up price which is the difference between the cost of a good or services and its selling price. It is discussing the pressure to reduce the total bid price to win the bid. This pressure usually comes from not winning new work after certain time. One unique situation is when the client is having a good strategy to […]
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The question we should ask during initial planning is not just “How long will it take?” Better questions would be: “How likely is it that we can make our schedule? How likely is it we will meet this cost constraint? How likely is it that our team size is sufficient?” The questions should include this qualifier: “How likely?” Likewise, the answer should not be “12 months”. It should include the risk. “It’s likely we can do this in 12 months. […]
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The challenge of organisation systems changing (lets call it “transform how we work”) while we are working is always complex and delegate process. The pressure on the staff with no interruption to clients services are key points on the new system transformation. Transfer process must consider normal work pressure to employees to get the buy in from them. In the same time, you can’t involve your clients on the transfer change. You have to isolate their services delivery from the new […]
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Integration the business strategy within the project delivery process and vice versa is the core foundation to have a sustainable enterprise growth and profit. However, it is not that sample as it sounds. It is still a challenge for many organizations to have such integration. The first challenge is having ONE project delivery process from creation to closeout based on the different organization business lines. The detail within the processes is what marks the organization as successful on efficient delivery, successful […]
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Successful business delivery is always based on client satisfaction. Understanding your clients’ needs means loyal customers and sustainable growth. Sustainable growth is a challenge on containing market changes. Market analysis history shows patterns of market expansion and recession. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in the United States, there have been 11 business cycles from 1945 to 2009, with the average length of a cycle lasting about 69 months, or a little less than six years. The […]
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In PMO management, sometimes you have to present a dashboard with data visualization where you didn’t maintain its data accuracy. This happen when you start a new job for new organization or when you take over someone else responsibility. So be careful of being the scapegoat of bad and uncorrelated data. It is important to highlight your findings, the gaps and limitation on your data presentation. You should present the path forward plan. However, in some cases, you need to […]
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Considering the current market changes and torments, consultants and contractors are focused on operational initiatives that would keep the business running. These thinking blocks them from initiatives to innovate and stay ahead of the competition and maximizing opportunities. It also forces them to take more risks and make difficult cost cutting. Because of this thinking, they always delay new system implementation to avoid more cost and long investment. The excuse are there like disruption to operation (which is already having trouble). However, on […]
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