Dear Nailya,

One page is enough if you are going to have 1-2 hour meeting. The weekly meetings are for reviewing the important issues and ensure that the project is on track.

You can have the different processes in the columns and up to 35 projects in rows on one page.

You can have a separate page for the issues that you want to discuss. Overall, one page, two sides is more than enough.

Details are left to special meetings.

With kind regards,

Samer

Arnold,

How’s the weekly meeting going?

Have you come up with a weekly generic agenda that you might want to share in PP?

Best regards,
Rommel

Hi

I believe you received a lot of value information.
Just some items I might ask during the weekly meeting to get the real feel on the project.

1. What are the key (TOP 2) issues which is affecting the schedule
2. What are the key (TOP 2) risks which might affecting the schedule
3. Is there any changes in the Critical Path
4. If the risk + issue is affecting the critical activities, (HOW/WHAT/WHEN/WHO) to resolve the item

HTH

Regards

Alex

Dear R.

Can you please provide us with a link to that document. To download or purchase.

Best,

Samer

Dear Nestor,

Because if it is a Big project then you need a full time planner to support and keep the program of works updated. It is a lot of work on a Big project and usually it is maintained by more than one person. At least one planner in each discipline.

For small size project, you can run your program of works in addition to your other assignements.

Best Regards,

Samer

Dear Nestor,

Very good points and very good positive action. Works well for small size projects.

But you will not have the time to do all the work on big projects.

Best Regards,

Samer

Dear Arnold,

I would like to add a comment on your original question about what to discuss in a regular weekly or monthly meeting.

The following has proven to be comprehensive:

1. Material submittals progress; all disciplines.
2. Shop drawings progress; all disciplines.
3. Procurement status; all disciplines.
4. Program of Works.
5. Issues.
6. Variations/ changes requests/ Invoicing status.
7. Commissioning and handing over.

Best Regards,

Samer

Dear Arnold,


I want to mention what I will try to do. I would try to request all the reports that are mentioned in Contract or Planning & Cost Control Procedures. Push CONTRACTOR to prepare all in time and in a good quality. Ask for a Recovery Plan with all of the Production Analyses depending on quantity surveys. According to me the CONTRACTOR will have the correct quantity surveys not CLIENT. Ask for detailed handover dates for systems or areas that you can also match with QA/QC and certification process. Also ask for preparations of CLAIMS or VARIATIONS put a control system in.

For the recovery plan (revision) you asked, please survey it in detail and response to the CONTRACTOR with the all logic, resource and end-date defects. After agreeing on a baseline you can check the site performances of work being done weekly as an indicator. I think CONTRACTOR is obliged to submit a progress report on a dashboard or similar control system weekly. So you can have your own tracking sheets to compare the actual manhours spent (From daily reports) with manhours earned(% * Discipline Total Budget) and manhours planed(From Target Schedule).

As a CLIENT, if you want to punish the CONTRACTOR at the end with the penalties in CONTRACT. Leave them to their own, and make them regret not to give importance to project management. (I know this is not ethical and it can effect project completion).

I encounter similar kind of problems (but I was from CONTRACTOR side), the main problem at my case is that the top management (from both sides) has a history and ongoing business relationship apart from that project and very huge compared with it. The latest project seems to be less important than other relations and bla. bla. bla.....

If CONTRACTOR is hiding information and being late at the same time, they are going to regret these actions at the end. I assume that late mobilization is the key factor for the delay, CONTRACTOR has defects and due to this fact they are playing as a closed box. But they forgot something; they should issue variations or claims (probably time dependant) before (best) or immediately after the situation occurs. But in this case they will hold this because they have something that they need to hide. At the end it will not effect how the parts relationships is good, the clash will be settled by CONTRACT and they will regret because of Performance and Liquidated Damage Penalties that are going to be cut from their last 5-6 payment certificates. Or closing the commercial works after months of project completion which will cause profit loss.


Best Regards,

Safak

Arnold,

As a fellow consultant, it sounds to me like you’re doing a pretty good job! With regard to:

"The only problem is the resource loaded (Cost & Quantities) in their programme is not consistent with the one we had in Project Measurement Sheet (PMS). However, their PMS came from Primavera Programme extracted and generated in Excel. Then they modified and altered it in Excel. That is why the figures are not matching with the one in Primavera."

If you don’t have accurate data, you’re hamstrung! Perhaps their behavior is acceptable somewhere, but it’s hard to believe. I think you are justified in encouraging your client to make a huge ruckus about the contractor unilaterally making changes that are not integrated into the PM s/w, or indeed into a dynamic CP-based tool.

Hi, Arnold.

Are you doing earned value tracking? If so, schedule and cost variances, and schedule and cost performance indices should be noted, along with any changes and trends from previous progress reports. (Of course, it would be best if the SPI baseline were on the backward pass, where any delay is really making the project late.)

If you have the financial infrastructure to break down the CPI so as to have separate CPIs for each discipline or subcontractor, then you can attribute underperformance on cost to specific areas of responsibility in a quantified format, as well as predict future patterns for the rest of the project.

While Mike’s idea of a Float Bank will give you something to say that might sound impressive, tracking a large pool of float is pretty pointless, and very gameable -- starting one path that has 50 days of float, and getting it to 70 days of float, will render invisible the impact of a path going from 25 days of float to 5 days of float. This is one of the big problems with SPI also -- it’s distortable by starting things with lots of float early, when the only thing that actually delays the project is items without float being delayed.

I’d suggest instead a combination:

1. Restricting the pool to the float of just those paths that on the baseline plan have less than a specific amount: say, 20 days,; and

2. Noting any new paths that enter the "under 20" category.

You didn’t mention it, but I assume you are doing risk reporting and updating? Every risk/opportunity factor that was scheduled to occur during the most recent progressing period should be reported on, and every risk factor due to occur during the upcoming period should be noted.

Finally, no progress report should be complete without identifying the top five/ten/twenty DRAGs of upcoming activities and recommending potential ways of reducing at least some of them.

Fraternally in PM,

Steve D.

Arnold,

The best reference on what to discuss during periodic meetings is the General Requirements (Division 1, if using CSI coding) of the project Technical Specifications.

The above document covers all administrative and procedural requirements for submittals required for the performance of the Work.

At the start of the project, I normally prepare a table showing the list of all documents to be submitted periodically and the date of submissions.

Hope this helps,

R. Catalan