03/06/2024 Ziad Al-basir Main Pages

Are You Ready To Win?

In the fiercely competitive arena of project bidding and contract acquisition, CEOs and their bidding teams face relentless pressure. Losing a tender for them is like losing a battle. It exhausts them and leaved a mark on their minds and hearts. For some companies, it becomes the survival last game. The quest to secure more tenders and expand market share weighs heavily on their shoulders. Each lost bid intensifies the urgency to strategize and discover the optimal path to victory […]

02/06/2024 Ziad Al-basir Budget, Business Development, Business Transformation, Cost Control, EPMO, EPPM, Main Pages, PMO, PPMO, Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office, Resources Planning

How To Build Successful EPMO?

Are your real estate development ambitions crumbling under the weight of chronic delays and budget overrun? Every missed deadline and overrun, not just eroding your profit margins, but it is turning your strategic goals into dust. Are you ready to control it and stop the risk of failure? Is this the legacy you want to leave as a business leader – a trail of stalled projects and shattered dreams? Do you feel frustrated by EPMO processes that is helpless of […]

02/06/2024 Ziad Al-basir Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office, Scheduling Leave a comment

How to Deliver a Successful Project Recovery Plan?

Do you ever feel like a project leader caught between a rock and a hard place? You’re diligently leading your team, but deadlines seem to slip further and further out of reach. Perhaps you’re working on a project with a completion date that’s planned for last year, with no clear path to closure in this year yet you are doing what is in your control to do. Here’s the truth, this experience is far more common than you might think. […]

13/04/2023 Ziad Al-basir Bidding & Tendering, Budget, Business Development, Business Transformation, Cost Control, Project Cost Controls

Change Orders: Where It Can Be a Gateway to Construction Fraud and Misconduct

Agenda Contents Introduction. 2 Understanding the scope of works. 2 The Fraud Scenarios in Change Orders. 3 Conclusion. 5 Introduction Fraud and misconduct in construction have become a pervasive problem globally, with up to $5 trillion expected to be lost to corruption by 2030. One of the areas where these illicit activities often occur is during the change order process, where individuals on the client side collude with contractors to engage in fraudulent practices. The aim of this article […]

27/03/2023 Ziad Al-basir Cost Control, Forecast, Leadership, Main Pages, Planning & Control, Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office, Strategic Planning

“How Big Things Get Done” Book Review – Part 2, The Success

Success road is always paved with failure. Success which creates value and benefits is rare as shown in part 1 of this review. That’s why part 1 of the Book “How Big Things Get Done” review was first about failure not success. Success starts by learning from others’ failures before you learn from yours. The provided cases give us very good positive learning. The book discussed many successful mega medium and small projects cases to understand how projects team succeed […]

19/03/2023 Ziad Al-basir Main Pages

How Big Things Get Done Book Review, Part 1 The Failure.

Understanding history is crucial for achieving success in the future, particularly when accompanied by comprehensive data analysis. This concept is effectively conveyed in the book “How Big Things Get Done” authored by Prof. Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner. The book offers valuable insights based on years of experience and digs into the analysis of project data spanning to decades of years after delivery which gives us the full story of the project benefits real outcome. Upon reading the book I […]

15/03/2023 Ziad Al-basir Cost Control, Planning & Control, PMO, Portfolio Management

Roadmap To A Successful Project Control Governance

Designing and implementing good project control practices require a comprehensive and collaborative understanding approach that involves various stakeholders and needs full commitment until completion. This approach guarantees successful implementation and ease the challenge it might face during execution which is very expected and normal from the old guards who used to the old systems or benefit from it. From different projects experience on different implementations, I suggest the following steps to be considered during designing the policies and governance of the […]

15/03/2023 Ziad Al-basir Cost Control, Planning, Planning & Control, Portfolio Management

How many Details do you need in your development schedules?

From day to day work and experience I have this lesson learned to share with you. Once one of the planning managers had a view that detailed construction schedules on an early development stage, where we are still in the early stage of studies and concepts, is just wasting the focus of the planning team on confirming what had been considered completed and becomes clear on (what, why and how) we are doing the works and the uncertain works. The […]

25/01/2023 Ziad Al-basir Main Pages

Why We Fail to Deliver Projects on Time and Budget?

In 2013, global investment in energy, infrastructure, mining, and real-estate-related projects was estimated about $6 trillion. By 2030, that could be $13 trillion, according to McKinsey research published on 2017. The same research estimates that 98 percent of megaprojects suffer cost overruns of more than 30 percent; 77 percent are at least 40 percent late. Considering any megaproject budgeted billions of USD, the cost of the overrun is $300 million per one billion. In a sample business case, any effort […]

16/01/2023 Ziad Al-basir Planning & Control, Portfolio Management, Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office

Fighting Corruption In Construction Industry

The USA, Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs released the following on 14th Nov 2022 “A construction company owner became the third person to plead guilty for his role in a bid-rigging and bribery scheme involving California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) improvement and repair contracts. According to a plea agreement filed today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento, Bill R. Miller engaged in a conspiracy, from April 2015 through at least December […]

15/01/2023 Ziad Al-basir Cost Control, Planning & Control, Portfolio Management, PPMO, Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office

Bidding Project Portfolio System

Winning new projects nowadays is very tough considering the market conditions and high competition. To compete successfully, businesses must have a clear understanding of their industry, the competition, and their customers. They must also create and implement strategies to differentiate themselves from the competition. This can include having a unique product offering, providing superior customer service, offering competitive pricing, and utilizing effective marketing and advertising tactics. Additionally, businesses must stay on top of industry trends and be agile in responding […]

15/01/2023 Ziad Al-basir Cost Control, EPMO, EPPM, Planning & Control, Portfolio Management, Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office

Cost Management For Contractors

Cost management is more crucial to the contractors than other parties during contract execution. Some contractors are still in the dilemma on working on huge unsecured excel sheets and late reports from site and misalignment between the construction team and the head office departments which support and monitor the project. EVM system is on tool to monitor the cost and profit on real time every single day using Primavera P6 EPPM system. Earned Value Management (EVM) is a widely used […]

27/11/2022 Ziad Al-basir PMO, Portfolio Management, Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office

Project Charter

The project charter is an important part of the project development. It is the first control ground for the project. If the project doesn’t have a project charter, the project owner is missing a very important control of the project. Having an approved project charter / brief means that the project manager and the board are: 1- Understand and agree the terms of reference of the project. 2- They are willing and able to commit their time to the direction […]

16/11/2022 Ziad Al-basir PMO, Portfolio Management, PPMO, Strategic Planning

The Project Director / Manager Governance

Most certified project managers know about project governance. However, some of them would have different understanding of their liability when a project doomed as failed. For the experienced project managers, when they take over a project, they will ask about the used project’s governance model. Usually, the relevant department will give the governance system to them to apply and comment. Most of the time, they are worried about its practicality and applicability. In PMI Global Congress 2015 – North America, […]

12/06/2022 Ziad Al-basir Project Portfolio Management Office

أهم مصطلحات تخطيط المشاريع

هيكل تجزئة الأعمال Work Breakdown Structure – WBS أو هيكلية تقسيم العمل، ويُسمّى أيضًا مخطط تحليل الأنشطة (Activity Decomposition Chart) أو نمذجة شبكة المشروع (Project Network-Modeling)، وهو الهيكل أو المخطط الذي ينتج من عملية تقسيم نطاق المشروع (Project Scope) بأكمله بيانيًا إلى عناصر عمل ليسهل إدارتها ومراقبتها والتحكم بها. يَعرض هيكل تجزئة العمل الذي يُعر نطاق المشـروع Project Scope هو مصطلح يُستخدم في مجال إدارة المشاريع ويشير إلى جميع المتطلبات والأعمال اللازمة لإتمام مشروع ما، حيث يتيح تحديد نطاق المشروع […]

19/06/2019 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation, Portfolio Management

Do You Apply The Right PPMO Methodology?

In today’s market challenges, many organizations adopt a shared resources concept with the belief that they are employing project portfolio management (PPM) offices. However, this belief is a fallacy that often starts when they consider shared resources as the critical component of PPM. This misconception is harmful to the organization’s productivity, leading to a backlog, unclear policies for service and project demands inclusion in the portfolio, resource depletion, and ineffective management of projects. To determine if your organization suffers from […]

25/05/2019 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation, EPMO, EPPM, PMO, Portfolio Management, PPMO, Project Portfolio Management Office

How Old Are You In The PPMO Maturity?

How old are you in the PPMO maturity? The integration maturity of Project Portfolio Processes with Business Processes is the core of a successful PPMO to achieve the business goals of selection the right projects and delivering the projects according to its established goals. This article is a an important to read to understand the organisation maturity to manage expectations and to do the right implementation planning. This article is discussing , the project portfolio management office (PPMO) maturity levels […]

20/05/2019 Ziad Al-basir Planning & Control, PMO, Portfolio Management, Project Cost Controls, Project Portfolio Management Office

Project Controls Vs. PMO

In the world of project management, there are several different terms used to describe the organizational structures that oversee projects. These terms include project control departments, Enterprise Project Management Offices (EPMOs), Program and Portfolio Management Offices (PPMOs), and Project Management Offices (PMOs). While each of these structures serves a similar purpose, there are some key differences between them that are important to understand, particularly for contractors and developers. Project Control Department A project control department is a centralized unit within […]

12/02/2019 Ziad Al-basir Main Pages, PMO, Project Cost Controls, Shared Resources, Strategic Planning

Do You Measure GDP Contribution In Portfolio Management Model?

Investment on infrastructure is a critical factor for country economic health and wealth. It enables the private sector and individuals to invest and produce goods and services more efficiently. Infrastructure spending by the government or in partnership with private sector is generally, expected to result in higher economic output in the short term by stimulating demand and in the long term by increasing overall productivity. However, there are many factors involved to understand and calculate the infrastructure contribution to the […]

12/01/2019 Ziad Al-basir PMO

PMO Starts With P For People

People are the core for any initiative. That’s the fact we might forget sometimes. An important idea I am finding it everyday so important since I graduated and since I started reading about project management on 1994. After that when I got PMBOK 1996 first edition , I became so addicted to project methodologies and processes. If someone asked me to do something, I will ask “do you have a process”. If they do not, I create it for myself […]

19/08/2018 Ziad Al-basir Primavera P6 18.8, Training

Primavera P6 18.8 Training Videos

Whats new in Primavera P6 EPPM and Professional ver 18.8 which released on August 2018? Refer to our training videos pages in English and Arabic. Subscribe to our channel in YouTube and activate the alerts to receive it when we publish it. Subscribe here https://www.youtube.com/zalbasireppm

11/07/2018 Ziad Al-basir Annual Budget, Budget, Cost Control, EPMO, EPPM, Forecast, PMO, Project Cost Controls, Resources Planning, Shared Resources

How to Budget EPMO/EPPM – Part1?

Calculation of the annual forecasted cost for budgeting purposes for EPMO and EPPM is a challenge for many Project Based Organisations (PBO). I am not talking here about contracted defined projects which is easy to forecast. I am talking here about permanent staff, shared staff and non-project cost budgeting. We see this also in pre-construction stage where the development of the project studies and design are on progress. We see this mainly in the client’s side, developers, consultants, project management […]

29/06/2018 Ziad Al-basir Bidding & Tendering

Can We Increase The Bidding Price Now?

Global oil prices hit 11-year low on Jan 2016 with around $30 per barrel dropping form $115 on June 2014. Last month May 2018, it rose to $80 per barrel for the first time since 2014. The year to date average price for Brent oil is close to $70 per barrel. Historically, over the duration of 2002 to 2008, the price of oil rose from $20 to $100+ which helped the construction industry to boom to historical record. Consequently, can […]

08/06/2018 Ziad Al-basir PMO

Is It PrPMO Or PuPMO?

PMO is a new methodology to manage portfolios and projects. It is less than two decades of age. All limited publications and books are from personal experience more than approved methods which might (or not) give the right framework and processes for PMOs implementation and operation which applicable and fit for all organisation types. We can’t generalise PMOs governance and processes for public sector and private sectors. Even we can’t generalise it for computer software developments projects, micro management and […]

13/05/2018 Ziad Al-basir Strategic Planning

Do you have a VSP?

Project based organisations (PBO) visionary leaders must have a Visual Strategic Portfolio (VSP) within their enterprise project portfolios management (EPPMS) system. Visualisation of the SP means visualisation of your ultimate goals. The current or near future goals are business as usual. It doesn’t reflect the main existence of your organisation. Another reason to have the VSP is that the visionary leaders know they will face many challenges to manoeuvre defining initial targets to make it easy to manage. However, not […]

22/04/2018 Ziad Al-basir Cost Control

Does Client’s Contract Help To Share Resources To Reduce Project’s Cost?

The most used method to manage projects is by considering each project as a separate cost centre where you have full budget and resources allocated to deliver the project. This project might extend form a day to years. Here it comes the difficulties that, it will cost the project more if you will consider a cost for a machine or a person as a full-time for the project even he/she/it will operate not full time. For example, an asphalt paving […]

17/04/2018 Ziad Al-basir PMO

Project Portfolio Implementation Check List

Project Portfolio Management is a dynamic ongoing process of selecting and delivering projects on a shared portfolio model to achieve the maximum benefits realized from the available resources to deliver the organization vision on a long term and the assigned business plans and targets on the short term (monthly, quarterly and annually). Project based organizations (PBO) are managing portfolios, programs and projects. However, are they delivering it to the maximum efficiency. In most organizations, they would have big load every […]

03/04/2018 Ziad Al-basir Bidding & Tendering

Are You Burning Your Cash Flow?

Project Based Organizations (PBO) are struggling when market is slow on two stages. The first is what to bid stage and the later is the bidding’s markup price stage. They feel the pressure more on the later especially if they lost many bids recently and they feel like the year is finishing by burning the overhead cash flow with no results. The mark up price includes the hard cost, the soft cost and the profit. Hard cost is the estimated […]

28/03/2018 Ziad Al-basir PMO

Do You Have Portfolio Analysis Skills? – Part 2

This article is a second article for the first related article in my LinkedIn profile. please refer to it for more understanding of the article. https://zalbasireppm.com/pmo/do-you-have-portfolio-analysis-skills-part-1/ Portfolios might be defined for certain type of projects with similarity or not, with shared resources or not. The main goal is to have a director who is responsible to deliver the projects goals and the strategic goals. The following scenario is for a small consultant who defined portfolios for each region. Please refer […]

28/03/2018 Ziad Al-basir PMO

Do You Have Portfolio Analysis Skills? – Part 1

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 […]

12/03/2018 Ziad Al-basir Bidding & Tendering

Project Cash Flow Forecast, How Much Details You Need During Bidding?

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 […]

22/02/2018 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation

Are You Ready For The New Construction Technology Disruption?

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 […]

21/01/2018 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation

VAT And Construction, How To Manage Your Proposals and Invoices?

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 […]

18/01/2018 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation

Carillion Collapse What Went Wrong ?

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 […]

12/12/2017 Ziad Al-basir Planning & Control

What type of Project Controls System Fit You More in Functional Organization Environment?

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 […]

10/10/2017 Ziad Al-basir PMO

Who Plan and Deliver the PMO / EPMO ?

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 […]

03/07/2017 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation

What Went Wrong?

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 […]

26/06/2017 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation

Do You Find It Difficult To Get Your Organisation Financial Report?

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 […]

25/06/2017 Ziad Al-basir PMO

Why PMO Is The Solution Not To Fail?

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 […]

03/03/2017 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation

Retaining the Know How?

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 […]

12/12/2016 Ziad Al-basir Strategic Planning Leave a comment

Projects Delivery KPIs

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 […]

10/12/2016 Ziad Al-basir Strategic Planning

Do You Have A Competitive Mechanism?

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 […]

04/11/2016 Ziad Al-basir PMO

How to Manage Projects’ Design Shared Resources – Part 2

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 […]

02/11/2016 Ziad Al-basir PMO

How to Manage Projects’ Design Shared Resources ? – Part 1

17/10/2016 Ziad Al-basir Bidding & Tendering

Earthwork Tender’s Schedule – What Level of Details You Should Include in it?

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 […]

04/10/2016 Ziad Al-basir Bidding & Tendering

Bidding Portfolio Process Map Framework – Decision Making Analysis

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. […]

22/09/2016 Ziad Al-basir PMO

Project Portfolio Implementation – The Secret Strategy

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 […]

01/09/2016 Ziad Al-basir Leadership

Leadership Communication

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, […]

01/09/2016 Ziad Al-basir Business Transformation

The Importance of Choosing the Right PM Software

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 […]

01/09/2016 Ziad Al-basir Leadership

Diversity and Successful Leadership

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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