Keep the central internal project contact list up to date.

This should be a company wide database that is frequently updated with the names, positions and roles of each employee and the project they are associated with.
The user should be able to open a page by project name and it would list each person on that project team and their role.
This makes it easy for anyone new to the project to look up who is responsible or contactable for what.

It should be at minimum editable by the project manager, project office, section managers (e.g. design manager for that project).

Tagged with: contacts • project personnel

Filed under: Communication • Human Resources

Make sure all stakes on a construction site are capped with coloured safety caps.

This is probably a requirement in many countries. It obviously reduces the risk of injuries, and it makes stakes easier to find. Health and safety inspectors may fine your company if they find stakes not capped.

It’s not a difficult task. Packs of the caps can be bought and put on site ready for use.

This is usually a task the construction contractor will do, but if you are running a smaller project, if you are the project manager you should check they are capped.

Tagged with: caps • injury • safety caps • stakes

Filed under: Construction • Contractors • Safety

Keep a record of all your achievements.

• List of projects worked on and your role in them.
• Your position description for that project (may be different to your official job description). You may be listed as a graduate engineer but because of staff shortages you could be assigned to manage a project. If that means you are listed as the project manager to clients, then certainly record that role.
• Record the length of time in each role.
• Roles you played in the project
  • Design manager
  • Site engineer
  • Site design engineer
  • Project manager etc
• Skills, knowledge, and experience you have gained. E.g.
  • Risk analysis
  • Specific machine experience
  • Commissioning of certain things
• Also record the number of people you managed and their roles.

This assists with resource allocation for future projects (tenders)
It also assists with annual performance reviews (your career)

Tagged with: achievements • performance review • roles

Filed under: Documentation • Human Resources • Training

Make sure your company has a good system to record contacts information. This should include:

• Clients
• Suppliers
• Contractors
• Industry contacts.

Everything known about the contact should be able to be put in to the system.

• Name
• Address
• Phone
• Fax
• Email
• Industry
• Status (client, supplier contractor)
• Special expertise
• Reliability
• Comments on the contact
• Meetings
• Sales made to them
• Items or services bought from them
• Phone conversations
• Correspondence
• Their promotional literature

You should be able to have an entry for the company and a separate entry for each employee of the company.

You should be able to sort people or companies by:

• Industry
• Geographic location
• Expertise
• Potential clients
• Top list (most reliable suppliers or preferred suppliers)
• What they sell (multiple entries can each be searched, e.g. pumps, valves, compressors, concreting, signals design, etc). This information is useful for sales but it is also important for project managers, who might need to find a reliable supplier quickly without having to call around a lot of people.

A folder of business cards is not good enough. It is only available to the person who knows about it, it cannot be searched quickly, and it relies on remembering details about the contact. As soon as a contact is made, the details should be added to the database, ideally by the person who made contact. All employees, in particular sales, procurement and project managers should be encouraged to add to and use the system. A summary printout of the contact should be possible.

The database should be kept private (within the company) as ratings on reliability etc could embarrass or anger the contact if it ever got to them.

Tagged with: address book • contacts • database

Filed under: Communication • Documentation • Human Resources • Marketing

Change is easier and cheaper to make at the start of a project than later on.

The later a change is made on a project, the more expensive it becomes. This means good planning is very important.

Tagged with: change

Filed under: Cost • Planning

Selling and marketing your company’s projects is important. It builds future business, confidence in your company’s abilities, and pride within the company. So make sure your company has  a projects list.

If your system doesn’t already collect it a brief name and summary of each project (maximum of a couple of lines) should be made by each project manager (or tenderer).

This should be put on a highly visible board somewhere in the office. It could also be put on the company intranet and possibly the company public website.

It should be kept up to date, with a separate list of current projects and completed projects.

Each project listed should list the project manager’s name or the contact person for the project.

Doing this list means that all employees are kept aware of what is happening, what projects are underway, and what the company offers.

This means that if employees are asked what the company does or is capable of, they can easily give examples. It also makes it a lot easier for all employees to advertise the abilities of the company when the opportunity arises.

If your small or medium sized company doesn’t yet do this, it could be an opportunity for you to increase your value by taking on the role (in brief moments) of collating all the basic project info and making the list.

Tagged with: advertising • project list • projects list

Filed under: Communication • Documentation • Marketing

Your company should have regular projects review meetings. This should include all the head project managers, production managers, installation managers, purchasing manager, tender manager, etc.

The aim of this meeting is so that everyone understands what is happening, how busy teams are, and what resources are committed or available. This shouldn’t go into too much detail of problems or issues unless the group is small.

Set a maximum time limit to each manager’s comments or report.

Should report on:

• Realistic projected completion date.
• Budget over runs or savings.
• Problems or issues that could be company/industry wide (e.g. jumps in steel prices, long lead time on booking cranes).
• What resources your project will soon need, or be releasing.

Minutes should be kept, but old notes should be updated, not left for a long time on the minutes list when they are irrelevant. PM’s who cannot attend a meeting should be encouraged to send in a brief report before the meeting so that it can be read out to all. It is important to set a start and finish time and that this is kept to. Everyone is busy and will more likely attend a meeting if they know the meeting times are reliable.

Don’t let this become a meeting that people want to avoid. It should be a time for the project managers to get an idea of what is happening in the company and in other projects and how these may affect their project.
It should not be a status meeting (something which will seem like a waste to most of the PM’s as they will just be waiting until it’s their turn to talk and not listen to the rest).
Any status type info could be briefly mentioned, but only focusing on things that may affect others (such as running over schedule, thereby using resources expected by others to be available).

A regular meeting like this is important. Emails sent around instead will not be read or will get pushed down a long list.

Tagged with: resources • review meeting • status

Filed under: Communication • Planning • Principal Posts

Bid teams / tender teams often bid for projects that the company can’t do.

They will make a schedule that is too tight, or have milestones that are impossible to achieve.

You should make sure that the bid teams know what resources are available, how busy everyone is, and what problems have arisen in projects.

Ideally the leaders of the bid teams should be included in regular project summary meetings (the meetings where project managers meet together to report on the different projects to the program manager). Including them in meetings (perhaps once a week) will give the bid managers the opportunity to understand the current issues in the projects.

Remember, they are trying to sell, usually as much as possible, you have to make them aware of just what is possible.

Tagged with: bid • milestone • project meetings • schedule

Filed under: Human Resources • Planning • Tender • Time

Put risk activities in your schedule (plan).

Your client is more likely to accept allowances for risk if you can show how it is worked out, how long it is for, and how the cost reduces/increases over time.

Tagged with: risk activities • risk allowance

Filed under: Planning • Risk

Make sure every document you create has the file path and file name in the header or footer.

This will mean that all printouts will show where the file was from, so people can easily see where to find it. This can save a lot of time searching for documents.

Of course this shouldn’t be necessary if your organisation has an automated document system. One in which each document created is automatically stored in the correct folder under the relevant project.

Tagged with: automated • file name • file path

Filed under: Documentation

Check if “unsuitable” soil/fill is really contaminated. It might me that it was just wet or not compact-able. It may not be contaminated.

Avoid paying for removal of “contaminated” material unless it really is. Some people will assume “unsuitable” means “contaminated”, this may not be the case.

Unsuitable (not contaminated) could be used for sound barriers, or other non structural areas.

Tagged with: contaminated • fill • removal • soil • sound barrier • unsuitable

Filed under: Cost • Testing

If everything on a project is going well, take the time to look for things that have been overlooked.

Going too well may mean something is wrong.

Tagged with: overlook

Filed under: Planning

Allow for wet weather days.

You should get a list of the average number of wet weather days for the area of your project (if the project can be affected by the weather). This will allow you to put this into your plans.

The contract should allow you to get extensions of time because of wet weather above the average for that area, and also allow you to claim extra costs for that time.

Tagged with: delays • time extension • variation • wet weather

Filed under: Contract • Planning • Time

If you have control of the system at the start of a project, make sure the project (or even at the program level, project office level, or company level) uses a document and accounting system that can record and output everything.

This would include costs, labour, forecasts, statistics, billing, budget, expenses, changes etc.

It should be able to output things like:

• Weekly reports.
• Monthly cost summary
• Invoices
• Labour costs for a period
• Expense breakdowns
• Cost to date
• Variance
• Total cost at completion

This should all be available from one package or a number of modules that are automatically linked together. You do not want to have multiple spreadsheets that people record things in that are not linked. The result should be a significant reduction in paperwork.

Certain inputs could only be allowed by certain people (by log in), such as:

• Accounts (accountant)
• Billing
• Labour (site manager)
• Design hours (design manager)

Individual hours by each person could be input (linked) from time sheets. All staff/employees should have adequate training so that the system is used properly

To start with, I recommend looking at the list of project management software at Wikipedia.

Tagged with: accounting • budget • changes • expenses • forecast • labour • statistics • system

Filed under: Cost • Documentation • Planning

Keep track of and in contact with colleagues, former colleagues, industry contacts, old friends in similar or related industries, clients, former clients, uni friends, etc.

This can help getting introductions, building trust for new projects, and save you time getting information.

When you have a good relationship with these people, you can comfortably call them for specialized information (availability of resources, upcoming projects, advice etc).

You are not aiming for inside or illegal information, just smooth and easy discussion of things that would take you a lot more work to find out otherwise.

Tagged with: contacts • information • introductions • trust

Filed under: Communication

Make sure your team members know their roles, job description, and what they should be working on.

You as the project manager or line manager should define and clarify the role each team member plays.

When they first start, they should be given:

• Clear directions on what they should do
• What they are responsible for
• Their scope (what they can and cannot change)
• Who to report to
• A buddy for procedural questions
• The next tasks for them to work on once they finish the first one. This allows them to keep working if they finish one task and cannot find you to get directions on the next task.

There should be no confusion on what they are supposed to be doing, how they should do it, and where they can find the tools to do the task.

Tagged with: job description • job roles

Filed under: Communication • Human Resources • Training

Get certificates that are required for your job.

This will save you time, and enable your company to place you on projects immediately if you are selected (without having to wait for you to get the required certificates).

For example:

• First Aid
• Construction industry card (e.g. Blue Card – www.bluedogtraining.com.au)
• Pink Card (e.g. Queensland Rail)
• Drivers license
• Machinery licences

Tagged with: blue card • certificates • first aid • license • pink card

Filed under: Training

When starting at a job / project get to know the main acronyms for your work. E.g.
IFC – Issued for Construction
WAE – Work as Executed

Make a list of the main acronyms that relate to your project, program, or company.

A company or department wide list should be available in the intranet for all employees.

A project specific list (or a condensed list that covers most common acronyms) should be made available for each project member.

This should also be available on the intranet, stored by project.

Make sure they are easy to find.  Not a spreadsheet that is in a sub-folder of a sub-folder etc.

Tagged with: acronyms

Filed under: Communication • Documentation

If you are in the water industry or an industry that deals with pipes, valves, or pumps then make sure you have a copy of the pipe sizes available, internal diameter (ID) and outside diameter (OD), and also the flange types and codes (table, ANSI, etc).

You should pin it to a wall in easy view.

Pipe mismatch mistakes are very common in projects, often because the project manager (or procurement manager in larger projects) did not match the designed pipe ends to the supplied equipment.

If you don’t already have a clear copy of the pipe specifications, most good drafting departments will have one or a source to get one from.

Tagged with: ANSI • flange • internal diameter • outside diameter • pipe • pipe size • pipe specifications • pipes • pumps • valves

Filed under: Design • Procurement

Forms and templates should be easy to find on your company intranet.

An external auditor should be able to visit your company and use a computer to find all the forms, templates, etc easily and without instruction.

Search functions should be able to find forms by their code number directly or by their name.

This is a role for business management or the project office, but it affects project managers significantly.

A good, easy to use system saves a lot of time and money.

Tagged with: forms • project office • system • templates

Filed under: Documentation