SIMPLY PROJECTS

Being where the action is..

If you are the project leader, you have to be in the "trenches" with troops.Not only the troops will be motivated and energised but you also can learn the problems first hand .To lead,the leader must listen and learn from all levels,especially from those at the front-line.

Accidental Project Manager

Seated from left to right:Mr KE Lau,Dr SM Yeoh,Ir Mohd Adib Noh and Mr Peter WA Wood.The picture was taken during the opening ceremony of the 3rd PM course for contractors and consultants and it was officially opened  by Dato' Ir  Mohd Razali Othman,the Director of Road Branch of PWD ,Malaysia. The above are members of XPROJECT MANAGENT team who have conducted structured project management (based on PMBOK) training for professional staff of PWD,IWK,consultant engineers and contractors since October,2002. To-date ,about a few hundred  persons have attended their PM courses. Talking from experience, I explained to the participants the rationale for learning project management even though you are half a century old!In the case of managing contruction projects,the project managers are usually architects or engineers. Yes, they are professionally qualified in their own technical disciplines but are they qualified/competent project managers? What knowledge  have they learnt about  PM during their studies at the universities? Most participants agreed that it was very little indeed. They become project managers by default or by accident due to their positions in their respective organisations. Hence, everyone who is involved in implementing projects needs to learn project management.We can't afford to learn on the job like before anymore if we wish to remain competitive in the age of globalisation. Alhamdulilah,I am glad to be a member of the team who had created some awareness that will be the catalyst of continuos improvement in project management in Malaysia.When an idea has arrived,no armies in the world can stop it! Special note: May I record my special thanks to my mentors cum advisors who deserved most of  the credits of the positve outcomes of my activities in imparting and spreading the knowledge of project management.

You are lost,Sir!

During the Q&A session at a conference which I chaired the session yesterday, a senior government officer told me about his project. He confided that he does not know the status of the project and where his project is leading to.He also told the conference that there were no metrics to measure how efficient and effective in the project execution. Considering the billion ringgit project, I was shocked!

In my reply, I qouted to him a saying in the book entitled Alice in the Wonderland: "If you donot know where you are going,any road will take you there! ". And I added: Sir, you are lost.

To know the project status,one must have a monitoring system to measure the project performance against the project plan. For this project to be implemented successfully,it needs:

1.The Project champion
2.Competent project manager
3.Competent project team
4.The right organisation
5.The delivery system

In another example, my friend told me that his project architech can't even tell him what is the actual progress of the work done by the contractors ,let alone giving him the expected date of project completion!