30 PM NETWORK JUNE 2016 WWW.PMI.ORG
Perry Daneshgari, PhD, is the president
and CEO of MCA Inc., in Grand Blanc,
Michigan, USA. Heather Moore, PhD, is
MCA Inc.’s vice president of operations.
the contractors. During the construction phase, we
had all the field leads and supervisors report their
daily obstacles encountered. The obstacles were
then codified and prioritized. Because of regular
reporting and reviewing of the issues encountered,
the project’s number of repairs and errors were
more than 35 percent lower than a similar project
managed without this methodology.
Largely thanks to this risk identification and
reduction process, the project finished 60 days
ahead of schedule. But that’s not all: It also saw a
13 percent increase in productivity from original
estimated hours required to finish this project and
a more than 20 percent improvement on initial
estimated and expected gross margin for the participating contractors.
By working closely with construction teams,
project managers have the opportunity to understand the project’s risks and get valuable information that can help optimize quality, cost, time and
safety. PM
contractors, we knew how valuable technicians’
experience and training can be for reducing risks.
In projectized environments, the work break-
down structure (WBS) can help take advantage of
their expertise. But, what we learned from previ-
ous experiments and applications in other
industries is that the project’s fundamental
WBS had to be created and owned by the
technical leader of the project’s work—in
this case, the foremen from each of the six
electrical contractors. That’s because no
building is ultimately constructed the way
it was designed. By letting foremen control
the build-process WBS, we were able to
clearly separate the sequence of work and its
required resources, then plug them into the
timing and space provided by the general
contractor.
Most projects carry the highest risk in the area
of integration—bringing together all the required
components necessary to produce the final product or service in a timely, cost-effective manner
and with expected quality. Here again, we involved
Getting It Done PROJECT MANAGEMENT IN ACTION
By working
closely with
construction
teams, project
managers
have the
opportunity
to understand
the project’s
risks.
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