If you work on an alliance project or any project where some tasks are done by a collection of organisations, make sure there is a clear and simple procedure for making purchase orders.

A designated group of people should be responsible for this and should know the system. That group should be able to process purchase orders for work even if that work will be paid for by the head companies and not the alliance.

For example, I needed to get some external design work done. I had an external person who could do a set of designs for a set price. Yet it took ten weeks to actually make the purchase order so that work could start, including 10 hours of my time in going backwards and forwards trying to sort the system out.

The process included these steps:

1. Try to find out which head company was paying
2. Get the correct forms for the purchase
3. Find the sub consultant agreement forms
4. Wait until the head company could send me the right forms
5. Fill these out and sending them to the head office accounts department
6. Get them returned to me saying they were wrong and a different form should be used (different people thought different forms should be used)
7. Send the agreement forms to the sub contractor to agree to.
8. Get them back with alterations.
9. Send them to the head office corporate solicitor to check and advise.
10. Get a new form recommended and send them again to the sub consultant for agreement.
11. Get agreement and then get signatures from alliance managers.
12. Send the signed form to the head company for signatures.
13. After agreements are all signed, give these and sub consultant details to accounts department for a purchase order to be made.
14. Get this purchase order signed by alliance managers
15. Get the purchase order signed by head company.
16. Alter purchase order and agreement because different designs are now required (because of the time delay some internal staff had done some designs themselves as they were needed urgently)
17. Get signatures again (alliance, head company, sub consultant.
18. Send purchase order and agreement to sub consultant for work to be commenced.

Many of these steps took one or two weeks for review and responses. It would have been cheaper, quicker, and easier to get these designs done internally and pay overtime to get them done.

Management cost to get these processed $2000

Cost of designs $8000

These costs do not include all the purchasing and accounts department time and costs, only the direct design management costs (my time and my manager’s time).

If there was a division in the alliance office who could do all this, I could have taken the sub consultant details and price to them and they could have done this whole process in less than one hour, at a cost of perhaps $50.

• They would need all the correct forms and agreements from the head companies.
• They would need to know who authorises these forms and have easy access to these people.
• They should know what forms and agreements are used for each purpose.

Tagged with: alliance project • forms • project delays • purchase order • sub consultant

Filed under: Cost • Design • Documentation • Procurement

Although alliance systems can lead to great cost and time savings, it is important to pay particular attention to internal communications and authorisation systems.

It can take a lot longer to get information circulated or authorisations done properly compared to if everyone was from the one company.

Verification of designs can be particularly time consuming as the designs may need to pass between lots of departments.

It can help to indicate clearly on the communications or forms who is responsible for replying or taking action, when that action is due by, and who they should return it to or pass it on to when they are completed. For other people copied in the communication, make sure it is clear that they are only copied for information only and do not need to act or reply.

Keeping urgent or important labels for truly important communications can speed the process.

If necessary, make a, simple to follow, one page procedure for processing documents (so that people can know what to do easily).

Tagged with: alliance • authorisation • verification

Filed under: Communication • Documentation • Time

Make sure you allow enough time in your project plan for designs and drawings to be approved, internally as well as by the client.

It is common to need 1-2 weeks for each step of FDR (Final Design Review), IDC (Interdisciplinary Check), Verification, IFC (Issue For Construction) etc reviews and approvals, especially if more than one person must approve these.

It is important to keep track of the approval status of these and follow up on people to review and sign them. I often find that although people get notified, they overlook signing the reviews or it sits on a desk waiting and gets buried.

If all the approvers are collocated, it is often worth having someone walk the documents around personally to each person for their approval, this can dramatically reduce the time taken and stop the documents being buried under other work or being forgotten about.

Tagged with: approval • drawings • review • verification

Filed under: Design • Documentation

Document storage and retrieval is a vital aspect for most projects.

If your company doesn’t have a good file storage system then I would suggest you make your own.

For an electronic system, storage needs to be easy to use and logical.

I suggest you make a system of folders or similar with a standardised approach to their use.

E.g.

1. Correspondence
2. Design
3. Suppliers etc

I find that if there is no system or if it is badly organised I may spend about 25% of my time trying to figure out where to store files I made, or where to find files I am looking for.

Tagged with: documents • files • folders

Filed under: Documentation

Using the Word Float

It is a good idea to avoid using the word “float” in a schedule or cost report to a client.

Instead you could use phrases such as “Critical Evaluation of final commissioning items”, or something similar.

Using the word “float” usually leads to management or the client wanting it reduced.

Of course only use the alternative wording if it is a necessary float and the words reasonably describe the use.

Tagged with: cost report • float • schedule

Filed under: Client • Communication • Documentation • Planning

If a specification is older than 5 years, it is probably outdated or inaccurate.

If you are reusing specifications from old projects or tenders, make sure you check that the information in them is still current.

Sometimes a client will send you a specification that is from their files from previous projects. It can often be outdated information and needs to be checked that it matches the current standard or expectation.

For example, the electrical wiring might be specified to be a certain colour, yet new standards call for different colours. If you are supplying those specifications to a contractor, you would be responsible for specifying the correct colour; otherwise the contractor may install the wrong colour and ask for a variation to rectify it.

Tagged with: specification

Filed under: Client • Documentation

When reading a large specification, to avoid inducing sleep, scan it by key words.

If possible, when given a specification by a client, get the it in electronic form. This allows faster scanning and you can easily come back to important parts by a quick search function

If you have it electronically, use the find command to search it by one word to focus on one area at a time.

For example, search for pipes to find all the mentions of pipes areas of specification (colour, size, joints, type, etc).

Tagged with: pipes • scan • specification

Filed under: Contract • Documentation

Make sure to write the lessons learned for each project. This should include what has been done right, wrong, and what you would do differently if you could redo the project.

• This is for your benefit as well as for other project managers.
• When starting a project, it is useful to be able to find a similar project your organisation has done and look at its lessons learned.
• It should include both technical and management areas.
• It should be added to your organisations database to be easily searchable by project type, project manager’s name, key functional areas, etc.

Tagged with: lessons • redo • right • wrong

Filed under: Documentation • Training

Find a template showing the common responsibilities on your type of project. Your organization may have one.

This helps with assigning responsibilities and makes sure nothing is forgotten.

Tagged with: responsibilities • template

Filed under: Documentation • Human Resources

As a project manager you should produce performance measurements of your project.

These could be measurements such as:

• Planned Value
• Earned Value
• Actual Cost
• Budget At Completion
• Estimate At Completion
• Estimate To Complete
• Cost Variance
• Schedule Variance
• Cost Performance Index
• Schedule Performance Index
• Estimate At Completion
• Estimate to Complete

Many of these can be automated outputs (depending on your software tools).

They are important to supply to management and are the easiest and most specific way of presenting your project status to management.

They help you know if your project is over or under budget and also ahead of or behind schedule. They should be checked regularly (at least once a month for long projects) to spot problems.

In some cases you should present the schedule measurements to the client.

The Project Management Body Of Knowledge (PMBOK) from the Project Management Institute (PMI) (www.pmi.org) has details of all of these performance measurements in its “Cost Management” section.

Tagged with: performance measurement • status

Filed under: Communication • Documentation

Use a template for your work breakdown structure

Before starting on your WBS, check if your organization has a template for the WBS for similar types of projects. If no templates are available, get samples of WBS from previous projects in the organization to base yours on. While you do that, make it a template for your future projects.

Even better would be a project management system with a built in work breakdown structure building system.

Tagged with: system • template • WBS • work breakdown structure

Filed under: Documentation • Planning • Scope

As a project manager you should make sure all your team members submit claims, hours, expenses etc as soon as possible, and definitely before the end of month accounting date.

If that information comes in late the profit/margin on the project can quickly change and affect plans.

The hours must also be made to the correct project. You don’t want hours suddenly being transferred to your project from a few months ago because they were incorrectly allocated. This could make an in profit project suddenly be making a loss. If it was done correctly first time, the losses could have been seen earlier and planned or allowed for.

Tagged with: claims • expenses • loss • profit

Filed under: Documentation • Human Resources • Planning • Training

You should make sure that terminology that is ambiguous or unclear is made clear with definitions.

This can avoid mistakes and reduce the time necessary to re-design.

For example:

• “Rail Overbridge”. Is this a rail bridge that goes over something, or is it a rail with a bridge over it?
  • A Rail Overbridge is a bridge over the railway.
  • A Rail Underbridge is a bridge carrying the railway and allowing a roadway, river etc. to pass under the railway.

You may have to get clarifications of definitions from you project sponsor for organizational specific terms.

Don’t assume all your team knows the terms.

Tagged with: definitions • mistakes • terminology • terms

Filed under: Communication • Design • Documentation

Instigate and enforce a good change management system

Change management coordinators and people who have to approve changes spend a lot of time chasing signatures, putting information in to spreadsheets, and general admin duties that could be automated.

It is easy to lose track of changes, or not document them properly.

Documentation for changes often lags a long way behind the actual change occurrence.

Many companies use a collection of spreadsheets. This can be cumbersome because different copies are in different locations, people forget to fill in details. The change coordinator ends up having to fill in all details (when that person may not understand the change).

A very good system would only need the coordinator to set up the initial templates in the system and file hard copies of signatures on approvals as they are received.

Ideally want a system in which the internal instigator can log-in, tick boxes to show effects of changes, type the title and description, allocate who is responsible to enter costs and who should sign. The system should then send messages to those people to review the item fill in details (and attach supporting docs) and approve (all on the system), with printouts available for the person to print, sign, and send to coordinator to file (if required). Ideally want instigators to be able to do all with little work from coordinator except for filing hard copies.

It is even better if your system allows for electronic authorisation, eliminating the need to print and sign papers.

Often the problem with a system is that emails get sent and people don’t notice them, leading to change documentation to be overlooked. This can be avoided with a log-in system that lists what tasks are to be completed for that person.

A system should have a way of enforcing adherence. Ideally where each person who may have to authorise a change has an icon which tells them when something is waiting their authorization.

I system could be a simple database, or it could be a complete enterprise system. Having a system is the important part.

If a senior manager calls up and wants a report on all the changes on a project sorted by cost, with a good system you should be able to give it to him within a few minutes. If your change management system is just on a collection of spreadsheets, this may not be possible. Even better, a good system would allow the manager to log-in and look at the reports themselves.

Tagged with: authorisation • change management • change management system • database • reports • signatures • spreadsheets

Filed under: Communication • Design • Documentation • Planning • Time

Encourage your team (and yourself) to spend a specific time each week in tidying their desk. This should include:

• Stacking and filing piles of paper neatly.
• Putting papers into sections
  • By priority
  • By category

Possibly do this every Friday afternoon before leaving work so that desk is clean and ready for concentrated work on Monday morning. This should reduce the stress associated with not knowing what is on your desk and what needs to be done next.

If it is an enforced policy you will hopefully find everyone becomes more organised. It is important to remember that if your company is looking for people to fire (when in economic difficulty) a messy desk can make you look unorganised and unreliable.

What is your experience with work efficiency with a messy or tidy desk?

Tagged with: organised • tidy desk

Filed under: Documentation • Human Resources • Planning • Time

Consider using wiki software as an internal intranet.

Particularly for a company with no intranet yet, or for a large project.

• Is fully search-able
• All changes are recorded and stored (by user name, so you can see who made the change).
• Changed documents are backed up.
• Can allocate who has access to what.
• Is very fast if stored locally.
• Easy to use.

Tagged with: intranet • wiki

Filed under: Communication • Documentation

If you set a task for someone to update or change a document, you should clarify:

• What the purpose of the document is
• Who it is for, who will then use it or read it
• Who else will be altering it
• What is its priority over other documents (if info is different, which takes precedence?).

A person may be tasked with updating information in a spreadsheet. When they have done so, what do they do with it?

• Leave it on the server?
• Inform certain people it is altered?
• Move it to a “completed” folder?

Much of this information could be kept as a second work sheet in the spreadsheet.

Tagged with: altering documents • priority

Filed under: Communication • Documentation • Training

Get your organisation to implement an electronic authorization system.

This is where each person that must regularly sign paperwork can instead authorize documents in electronic form.

This will reduce the time taken to authorize actions (forms)

The originator could prepare an electronic form and send the link to all the people that must sign it. Those people log on, review the document, and authorize it by ticking a box. Confirmation would then be sent to the originator on which authorizations have been attached.

This will save a lot of server space, bandwidth, and ink as people would not have to print in colour, sign, scan, and email back again.

It can also reduce processing time from weeks to hours or minutes.

It should reduce the processing costs. To chase signatures can take the full time work of a person for each type of form (if done regularly). By doing electronic authorization, I would estimate 90% of the coordination time and cost could be saved (excluding the software cost).

Workflow packages are often used to implement this function.

Tagged with: authorization • forms • paperwork • signatures • workflow

Filed under: Communication • Cost • Documentation • Time

At the start of a project, take the time to make sure the documentation system is as simple and easy to use as possible.

Ideally, you shouldn’t have folders within folders within folders containing spreadsheets and documents on the computer system.

Preferable would be a well managed enterprise project management system, or at least a database system from where most things can be accessed.

Reduce time wastage by making sure files are stored as close to where they are accessed as possible. If your server is based in one city and most of the project team that accesses it is based in another, make sure you either have a very fast connection to it or have the files stored locally instead. A delay of 30 seconds to open every file can add up to hours of wasted time each week per person.

Proper complete training should be provided to all members of the project team on how to find and access files. A standard filing system should be used across all projects so people can easily start work in a project without wasting time. Standard templates should be easily available to cover most common uses, including change or variation tracking, costs changes, and anything that would commonly be used to store information.

You don’t want lots of people using their own style of spreadsheet for the same type of information. It should be standardised and known by all, yet as simple as possible.

Changes or updates to these templates should be easy yet centralised. It should not need lots of signatures and days of waiting. Anyone should be able to easily submit a change to template proposal which will be enacted as soon as possible. (This could be a difficult process to manage, it is better to get the forms right the first time).

Tagged with: database • document system • enterprise project management system • filing • folders

Filed under: Documentation • Planning • Time

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