08 May 2020 Project Controls News

Dear Planning Planet Member,

With all that is going on in the world we hope that this finds you safe and well.

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You should concentrate first on critical-path or near-critical-path work that has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Doing an update now will provide an immediate task to perform during the lull, capture details still fresh in everyone’s mind and get the update done before a project restart overwhelms everyone with work.  Read the Article [2]...

By Fred L. Plotnick

Ready To Be Wowed With The First-Ever "Fully Virtual"

Project Controls Conference?

Project Controls Virtual Summit is a whole new conference experience for project professionals. It provides you practical insights on how to implement real-world Project Controls strategies, how to be a better communicator and leader, and how to recover, rise up, and navigate tomorrow during and after these unprecedented times. By attending this game-changing conference, you not only help your company thrive but also take your career to new heights.  Read more [4]...

1. Filter which activity affect the critical milestones
2. Compare the Impacted Schedule with the Baseline
3. Present an effect of one delay or a combined effect of several events

Are you wasting time on creating hardcopies and PDFs of the time schedules for the management?

With Portfolio Project the management, like everybody else in the project organisation, can see directly into your time schedules and see the project status live.  Read more [7]...

In Primavera P6, there are three options in the Scheduling Options dialog as follows: Retained Logic Progress Override Actual Dates

These three options control how Primavera P6 calculates “Out of Sequence Progress”.

Read more [8]...

#EVA25 - PLAN B Following the unique circumstances that we are currently going through; we have had to re-schedule our 25th anniversary event that was due to take place in May to the following new dates:

• Thursday 09th & Friday 10th July 2020

In our aim to keep you all informed of any further developments, we will continue to monitor the situation and will review these new dates again on Saturday 6th June 2020. In the meantime, keep safe.

There is also a plan C.  Learn more... [9]

I often review P6 databases and I am horrified that users do not Summarize their database, nor understand the importance of this function, or understand the P6 functions that affect how Summarized data is calculated or where Summarized data is viewed.

This approach can be a career shortening step that should be avoided at all costs.

In summary when Projects are not Summarized then the information from unopened P6 projects seen in the Projects, Activities and Tracking windows will be blank when the project has never been Summarized or out of date if the project has been updated since it was last Summarized.

Click on this link>>> [10] to read an article on the importance of Summarizing P6 projects.

Accelerate you understanding of scheduling software and advance your career with Eastwood Harris books and training material on:

• Microsoft Project,
• Oracle Primavera P6 and
• Elecosoft (Asta) Powerproject 

Paul E Harris, Director, 
Eastwood Harris Pty Ltd

The impetus, of this narrative, through the detailed content of this work, takes a unique look into the industrial world and at many of the subjects in a manner and degree of detail as never seen in print before. There are many persons who don’t understand or just have a misconception of what exactly is the true meaning of the term: Project Controls.

Even many head hunters, through their utilization of poorly designed databases, evaluate process and project controls candidates as falling within the same genre.  Check it out [12]...

You’re invited to our Live Webcast [13].

Improving project performance requires thinking beyond the actual project. What happens before and after is just as important as the project itself.  

With proper benchmarking, you can gather and analyse meaningful data from executed and ongoing projects, and better understand your own strengths and the key drivers of project performance improvement.

To dive into this topic, we have collaborated with Innovate iPM, Rob Williams, who will interview Cleopatra project controls experts in this live webcast.  Learn more [13]...

This live webinar [14] will discuss why a Digital Field Change Management system is crucial for successful turnarounds and how it can replace the entire manual field change tracking procedure. We’ll also cover how this system fits in the total Progress & Cost Control TA Work Process.

Join Cleopatra TA management experts, to benefit from the proven approach behind the successful turnarounds.  Learn more [14]...

Ever wondered how YouTube or Netflix manages to suggest videos and movies of your preferred style? Using big data! Big data analysis is considered the next big thing if it isn’t a big thing already. A great number of companies are already using it. So, the question is: Can you use big data to improve your project performance? Yes, you can!

Given the fact that the big data and the technology are already out there, there is no reason not to use them for project control purposes. Before we get to the “how” part, let's discuss the “what” part.  Read the article [15]...

ScheduleCleaner prevents database pollution with unwanted data. It acts as a security filter that helps project schedulers, engineers, contractors, and other users to prepare and optimize an .xer or .xml file for database import.

ScheduleCleaner can convert Global Activity Codes and Calendars to Project level, as well as erases POBS, risks, costs units, rates and other data. Learn more about the features and functionalities of ScheduleCleaner here [16]...

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the world’s economy hard causing numerous disruptions to manufacturing materials, procurement, supply chains as well as the workforce in general. Negative effects spread across every industry including constriction.

But, ScheduleReader can help project controls and schedulers assess the schedule delays and lower the negative impact on the project. How? Read here [17]...

San Luis Resort, Galveston Island, Texas JANUARY 17 – 20, 2021

Two keynotes – Seventy-plus breakouts – Six networking events – One conference

Planning & Scheduling 2021, Dealing with Corona Virus and other Black Swan Events

From our host Fred Plotnick:  How to run a railroad if not knowing which way the trains are going?  Plan two tracks!  Registration is OPEN [18]

Planning Planet Forum posts - Join the Conversation [19]... 493,191 unique views this year and counting...

During the Coronavirus pandemic its been challenging for sure, unprecedented in most of our lifetimes. I know that everyone will be trying their best whatever the challenge or situation they find themselves in.  As a recruiter I see and hear what both employers and employees are doing and feeling.

There is no doubt some companies are going about their communication with staff well, others poorly.  The good stories I am hearing are companies trying to keep employees engaged, retained, busy and not furloughed. I believe these employees will very much appreciate that and should give even more loyalty in return. However, many companies have furloughed all, the majority or some of their staff.  I have no issue with any company doing what it needs to be done to retain cash flow, profitability, retain jobs, and stay in business.  The issue many Planners have with their companies is the way their company have gone about communicating this, or lack of communication, or lack of appreciation on the importance the Planner provides in a company/ on projects. A Planner is probably more important than ever, with projects being delayed, there will no doubt be delay analysis and extension of time work required.

Here are some situations that I've been informed of over the last few weeks:

Positive situations

An MD I work with, is pulling out all the stops to keep all his team working.  Many are working from home, some continue to work on site.  His team know of the challenges the company faces and appreciates the efforts the MD is going to to keep all the team employed, not furloughing anyone.  Personally I believe with this particular company that what they are doing is the right thing to do.  All the team should return that loyalty shown to them, and I believe they will.

Furloughing staff that are on salaries close to the £2,500 a month, as they do not mind as much as Planners on salaries 2-5 times more, where being furloughed although understandable hurts a lot and they find it hard to pay the bills and they are asking me to help them secure part-time work.

Contractors being asked to be flexible for 1-3 months (or for as long as the company has challenges due to the pandemic).  I know of many contractors reducing their daily rate, or working a reduced hours week to help out.

Workers working a reduced week, 3 or 4 days I've heard of.

Negative situations

A Planning Manager furloughed, currently earning £100k salary.  How does he pay his bills?  Wants to leave the business now.

Other Planners put on furlough feel their respective companies do not value and appreciate the importance of the Planner within their organisations, and the damage that will be done with no Planning input for months.

A Senior Planner working for a consultancy, has had their pay reduced by 25%, yet his employer continues to get paid the same amount by their client, leaving a bad taste in this Planners mouth.

A Head of Planning at a main contractor put on reduced pay, then furloughed, then made redundant all in the name for saving money and now the company is "restructuring".

A Senior Planner working for a consultancy, has had their pay reduced by 25%, yet his employer continues to get paid the same amount by their client, leaving a bad feeling for this Planner.

There are many more examples I could mention, but I just wanted to give you a flavour of what's going on out there for Planners working in the UK construction and infrastructure sector.  Also, what seems to be a pattern is that many of the big companies, due to their high costs have had to put many of their team on furlough or reduced hours as it's not sustainable to pay 1000 of workers when no income is coming in.  I'm sure we can all empathize with that.

Challenging times for sure, but let's hope from this Sunday (10th May 2020) that the UK PM gives companies and people the green light to come out of the lockdown and try to get back into some form of regular working again. Around the globe we can see glimmers of hope as countries start to ease the lockdown, I saw progress in this regard was made this week with Austria, Germany and Spain to name a few countries.  No doubt the workplace and our lives will be different for many more months, but let's hope we can get back to a new normal soon, so we can all be back to work and the economy can recover.

All the best.  Stay safe.

Bill Wynn, Director, T: 0203 887 1893 | 07342 334819, E: bill@constructionfuturesuk.com [20]

Register for a Live Webinar on “Digital Transformation of Project Organizations” which will be presented by T.G. Jayanth who has 40 years of capital projects experience. The live webinar [21] will take place on Wednesday, May 13, 2020 at 12:00PM EST/ 9:00AM PST.

There is a lot of talk in capital project organizations about “Digital Transformations” and “going digital”, but relatively little information or agreement on what these terms mean, or even why you should embark on such an effort. Join this live webinar to explore answers to common project organization questions about digitization, such as:

• What are the key elements of a digital transformation?
• How is it planned, staffed, and implemented?
• Under what circumstances should you consider it?
• What does a comprehensive capital project transformation program look like, and where does digital fit in?
• How do you measure digital transformation success?

Sometimes during tender or bid submission for a project, the client might not provide a Project start date and bidders would be required to show ordinal dates in the Gantt chart timeline and calendar dates in the start and finish dates columns.

This tutorial will show you how to set-up your Microsoft Project schedule to display calendar days. Read more... [23]

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

Spider Project

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 [24]...  Ask questions here [25]...

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