12 April 2019 Project Controls News

Dear Planning Planet Member,

We hope that you find this adds value to your day and if you'd like 1.5 million views for your content, blog, product or service please check this out [1]...

The team from HKA Tech, the largest implementing reseller of PMWeb globally, has been busy in the Fiji Islands, implementing PMWeb for the Fiji Government’s Ministry of Economy.

The implementation was carried out in less than three months across an extensive range of functionality, including program/project management, planning/prioritisation, estimating, scheduling, procurement, contract management, risk/issue management, general governance and long-term asset management.  Read More [2]

Kanban is a visual system for managing work as it moves through a process. Kanban visualizes both the process (the workflow) and the actual work passing through that process.

The goal of Kanban is to identify potential bottlenecks in your process and fix them so work can flow through it cost-effectively at an optimal speed or throughput… Read More [3] 

(Method123, Empowering Managers to Suceed)

We are global Oracle Primavera project management and planning specialists, trusted by the Defence industry for nearly 20 years.

From nuclear submarines to aerospace propulsion systems, our expert consultants can design and implement a solution that works. Once we’ve designed and configured your customised Oracle Primavera solution, we can deliver training for any size team, even across multiple international locations. To find out more about our services and solutions, please contact Mark Horne at:  p. 01943 222 001  e. mark.horne@rpc.uk.com [4] w. www.rpc.uk.com [5]

Guild of Project Controls News...

We are pleased to be able to report that the Chinese Government have been translating the Guild of Project Controls' Compendium of Best Tested & Proven Practices [6] and plan to have their very first COMPETENCY certification in Project Controls in Beijing on 29 June 2019.

Watch this space for more exciting news in relation to this.

In support of better project file organization in the EPS, P6 EPPM has several node band themes to choose from.

These themes provide clarity to the EPS view to help organize projects in a hierarchy.  This article demonstrates a quick tip to set the node band theme of the EPS view.  Read more... [7]

Facilitating secure sharing and control of confidential data in P6® schedules.

ScheduleCleaner is a toll that allows users to remove or anonymize sensitive data from Primavera^® P6^®, XER schedules before sharing them with project stakeholders.

Why not do the same when working with Microsoft® Project plans?

Meet ProjectCleaner

See Video [8]

A Microsoft^® Project add-in that allows you to remove or anonymize sensitive data in .mpp files.

In complex project schedules, multiple critical paths can exist between the project’s start and finish milestones.  

Each possesses its own critical/driving path.   Read more [9]...

Far too many people involved with CPM scheduling at any point in the process really do not understand what CPM logic is telling us and because of this misunderstanding make many logic construction mistakes and misinforms the schedule users and reviewers. Essentially making useless hard to follow schedules. The CPM creator, the CPM reviewer, and the CPM user fail the make proper use of CPM through misreading the logic workflow. CPM is essentially a language of logic and like all languages must be correctly understood and used for it to properly communicate and provide direction. Relationships are the brain of CPM - read more [10]

A project scope sets a project out on the right foot, it defines what the project is and is not meant to achieve and informs all stakeholders of the limits of its objectives. A project scope should concisely summarize the information and schedule of the project.  Though that may seem straightforward enough, knowing how to define a project scope properly is a key skill which all managers need to know.  Read more... [11]

TAKE A LOOK AT SOMETHING DIFFERENT?

Capital projects, shut-down and turnarounds, maintenance – whatever the project, there’s a product to help.  Safran PROJECT and Safran RISK [12]...

With all that goes into managing a project, making sure things are done right, within budget, and on time is a challenge; especially when we fall victim to the same mistakes.  

Knowing that there are a lot of moving parts that go into making a project successful, here is a compilation of the most common project cost management problems that have been seen and proposed solutions to fix them.  Read more... [13]

ScheduleReader^TM version 6.5 is out and some of the most interesting upgrades include:

New customization options to the DCMA14 Schedule Assessment Report

• Using the new customizing dialog, users can change the criteria for all (previously predefined) fourteen metrics calculated in the report.
• Users can now additionally see which project metrics are positive as well as the details of the activities and relationships that do not meet the set criteria in the specific report.

• Users will be able to assign baselines to each project from the master project plan in the XML file format.

Savvy schedulers understand how schedule project logic deprecates as the job takes on a life of its own, and develop workarounds to keep project logic functional or tautologous. This practice involves thinking outside the traditional box of bland project controls that limit most practitioners’ abilities. Stakeholders will find this thinking obscure and counterintuitive. But managing out-of-sequence schedules is where the best schedulers show their true mettle: the worst are over-reliant on third-party data - Read the full article [16]

We had so many emails about this we wanted to include it for a second time...

Ghost Schedules are employed behind the scenes on construction projects for various reasons and purposes. Contractors use them to record their original plan when owners refuse to approve early completion schedules or fail to promptly grant time extensions, as well as to manage the activities of subcontractors and suppliers to earlier finish dates than the official project schedule.  

Read more... [17]

The new schedule analysis metric, critical path drag... 

The most intuitively obvious enhancements are to scheduling metrics: critical path drag and drag cost.

Let’s start with an important distinction: there is a difference between CPM scheduling and critical path analysis - Read the article [18].

Construction CPM Conference next event is January 19-22 2020 at Disney World Florida.

Three Full Days Where Professional Planner Schedulers Gather to Discuss and Improve Critical Path Method Analysis Knowledge.

More information at www.ConstructionCPM.com [19].

• Difference between Retain Logic and Override Progress - read the replies [20]
• Duration calculation for activities - read the replies [21]
• Activity Not Sorting Inside WBS Node - read the replies [22]
• P6 Activity Order and Sort Problem by "Start Date" - read the replies [23]
• Resource Linking - good/bad? - read the replies [24]

Watch the ARES 30-minute webinar to learn about contract management and the PRISM Contracts & Invoice Management modules.

This webinar covers the step-by-step process of awarding contracts, creating invoices for contracts, approving invoices, and invoice payments.

While PRISM can handle contracts both pre-award and post-award, this webinar focuses on the administration of a contract once it has been awarded. Read the full post [25]...

James Zack of James Zack Consulting, LLC

Management of Variations and Construction Claims Course, is up and running and ready for action. Go ahead and check it out. [26]

Advanced Management of Complex Changes and Claims in Construction - 2 DAYS, is up and running and ready for action. Go ahead and check it out. [27]

London, Thursday, May 2, 2019 - The workshop will be led by Glenn Jarrad. Former Pertmaster (PRA) developer and now CTO at Safran, Glenn will cover everything you need to know about integrated cost and schedule risk analysis - read more [28]

Alternatively - join us for a live and interactive webinar on April 24th at 10:00 GMT. The Webinar is aimed at project controls professionals looking to distinguish themselves by adopting forward-thinking practices - read more [29].

Do you seek PROMOTION or do you want to better UNDERSTAND YOUR Stengths and SKILLS (in private) or do you seek that NEW ROLE?

Proven Practitioner provides ALL THE TOOLS YOU NEED

Go to Premium [30] and sign up!  

We are now offering CONFIDENTIAL Project Controls Competency Measurements for our members!  

From this report, you will receive a summary, similar to the one presented above, showing your teams, company’s or projects "Competency Performance Index" across the full Project Controls capability arena.   If you are interested in transforming Project Controls capability and team measurement, and would like to find out more, click here [31].

Have you taken a look at the Guild of Project Controls' Role Descriptors yet?  - This is the perfect tool for those who want to find out the baseline knowledge required for their role and level of seniority - think of it as a job descriptor for all roles and levels of competence.  Give it a try here [32], find out more here [33]. 

Contact PPAdmin@planningplanet.com [34] if you would like to learn about getting our Project Controls Toolbox for...

• YOUrself,
• your TEAM,
• your PROJECT, or
• your COMPANY   (read more [31]...)

What is needed to come up with a production rate?

A duration of time, the manhours involved, and an amount of work produced this section of Planning Planet [35]is here to document this. 

What information do you have that you can share?

A superior alternative to the "most popular" software for us as planners?

Spider Project offers numerous unique functional features and is the only PM software that optimizes resource, cost, and material constrained schedules and budgets for projects and portfolios. 

Check it out here [36]...

If you wish to come to a project control gathering local to you please get in touch and we will share the details with you.

Email PPAdmin@planningplanet.com [37] for details

We are holding meetings near you so do get in touch.

If you would like your product, service or software or yourself to be put in front of the global (or local) Project Controls Community then you should consider subscribing to the Planning Planet Project Controls Market Place.

What is this?

Read how here [1]...

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The Compendium and Reference (CaR) is a document which forms The Guild Standards.

We have where possible offered advice as to previously written material which is in the public domain and proven to be of such quality that it can be used as a reliable reference of "best tested and proven practice".

The CaR is a living document being continually improved, supplemented and updated by the Guild community to reflect improvements to practices, opinions and methods in our chosen profession. The Guild is ready to receive suggestions at any time for updates to the CaR Standards.

Take a look here [6].

MEMBERS [43]

See who you know from within our 150,000+ membership pool!

GUILD [44]

Take a look at the worlds first and only competence based credentials supported by a career path, role descriptors, self-assessment tools and online compendium desk reference of best tested and proven tools and techniques for project controls practitioners.

BLOG [45]

Join other members who share their thoughts and ideas in the form of blog posts.

FORUM [46]

100,000+ questions and answers to the topics we struggle with (mostly software!) on a day to day basis.

WIKI [47]

A knowledge-base that can be contributed to or utilized by anyone with skills and/or interest in planning, scheduling or project controls. No Wiki page or article is owned by its creator or any other editor, and its content relies upon collaboration and teamwork. How can you contribute?

BUILD TIMES [35]

What is needed to come up with a production rate? A duration of time, the manhours involved, and an amount of work produced? Take a look and get involved.

JOBS [48]

This has been dusty and quiet place for some time now. We have been liaising with recruiters, headhunters and talent managers plus a ream of corporate leaders and very soon we will have the largest live repository of project controls jobs in the world. Check back soon.

ADVERTISERS [49]

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