30 Jul 2021 Project Controls News

Dear Planning Planet Member,

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New eBook: Earned Value Management Guide

Earned value management is a valuable method used by many leading project organizations as well as federal and government agencies around the globe. Instantly access our new Earned Value Management eBook [2] that dives into project management with EVM versus traditional management without it. It also covers basic concepts of EVM, earned value methodology, EVM history, benefits of earned value, and EIA-748 standard.  Read more [2]...

PRIMAVERA P6 PPM ACTIVITY NETWORK VIEW

The Activity Network, also known as the Program (or Project) Evaluation and Review Technique - PERT View, displays activities as boxes connected by the relationship lines.

Activities may be added, deleted and linked in this view in the same way as in the Gantt Chart View. 

This article is an extract from the book 99 Tricks and Traps for Oracle Primavera P6 PPM Professional explaining how to use the the Activity Network View:

Click on this link>>> [4].

Accelerate your understanding of scheduling software to advance your scheduling career and be able to prepare better schedules with Eastwood Harris books, online videos available through Udemy [5] and training material on:

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

Details at Eastwood Harris [6]

Paul E Harris

Discover how Burns & McDonnell has adapted its technology in order to deliver projects in the face of COVID-19

As COVID-19 began to affect the project world, organizations in the engineering and construction industries had to quickly adapt to the ever-changing challenges brought on by the pandemic.

For many companies, including Burns & McDonnell [8], this meant bracing for an economic slowdown implementing a business continuity plan and adapting current project protocols and schedules. To achieve their vision, the leadership team at Burns & McDonnell needed to find a way to easily identify, prioritize and report on projects.  After exploring a few alternatives, Hexagon’s EcoSys™ Enterprise Project Performance software [9] was selected as it offered the flexibility and configurability needed by Burns & McDonnell to quickly make changes to their system creating a process that allows to flag both new and inflight projects related to the COVID-19 response. 

Curious? Discover more about the use of EcoSys at Burns & McDonnell

• Read [10] our blog post of the COVID-19 response
• Read [11] the full case study
• Watch [12] the interview with Patty Sullivan

Construction CPM are running a virtual app for those who wish to share knowledge to past attendees and their associates.

So do read their newsletter [13] and view their current submittals [14].

Perhaps you would like to contribute and share?

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 [15] and sign up!  

In November this year COP 26 will generate a lot of Hot Air and many organisations will be virtue-signalling themselves senseless. Then it will go away and so will they. And we will sit there pretending the crisis will never happen to us and it’s someone else’s problem. 

So, take responsibility and become part of a movement that really can build back better BUT in a responsible way. A movement that wants to make it better for the many not the few, A movement not driven by a self-interested elite. Because they’re the ones that got us here and aim to keep it that way.

Become part of the Responsible Project Management Movement. Help form the next generations.

Get rid of old geezers like me.

Hassle the hell out of the people who claim to represent you who claim to educate you who claim to professionalise you who claim to know best to instead SUPPORT what you do. They sure as hell don’t do much leading do they?

Don’t wait for the training course or the Oxbridge elite to decide how you do it.

The day will be full of like-minded people creating a real Charter for Responsible Project Management with the vision the plan and the people on the ground to make it happen.

Attend. Support. Speak. Exhibit. Questions?

swprojects@blueyonder.co.uk [16]

Live Webinar

A new look at EPC Projects: Improvement via Digital Project Controls

Join the webinar [18] to benefit from a proven approach behind successful EPC projects.

Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) projects are highly complex and face many challenges. Whether you’re managing a complex capital project (CAPEX) or a time driven maintenance project (OPEX), EPCs often go hand in hand with schedule delays and cost overruns. 

Join the conversation [18] to discover how digital project controls can enhance the performance of your EPC projects. We’ll show you the best practices of monitoring cost and schedule, which leads to project cost efficiency and minimizing manual efforts.

In this webinar we’ll discuss:

• How EPC projects are managed traditionally
• Differences in cost control between EPC companies and owners 
• Cost-related challenges EPC companies are facing during project execution 
• How to overcome these challenges by
  • Digital Field Change Management
  • Earned Value Management
  • Forecasting
  • Reporting & dashboard visualization
• A brief introduction to Cleopatra Enterprise and how it can help improve the performance of EPC projects

E-learning

Cost Control & Earned Value Management

Keep reading if you want a quick, compact, and clever learning experience. Whether you’re a project manager or a cost controller, it’s essential to keep your skills relevant to the changing environment to advance in your career. 

The Cost Engineering Academy helps you to achieve this goal. Boost your skills with the flexible online course about Cost Control & Earned Value management. The e-learning offers you the opportunity to learn at your optimum pace, depending on your personal learning style, and available time.

What you’ll learn during the e-learning:

• The basics of cost control and how to report the project’s status.
• That cost control is cost management rather than cost reporting.
• How to use Earned Value Management to solve problems related to cost management & project controls.
• To setup real-time analytics and indicators to better measure project progress and performance.
• How to setup proper change- and risk management processes.

Register now [20] to get a classroom experience from the comfort of your own home or office.

Sometimes in a Microsoft Project schedule, you might want a quick visual indicator of when a task is behind schedule or in progress and a good way to achieve this is through the use of a traffic light system. This tutorial will show you how to configure your Microsoft Project schedule using a custom field with graphical indicator to highlight progress of tasks as at current or status date. 

Read the blog post [21]...

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 [22]...  Ask questions here [23]...

Build your network and keep up to date by following us on social media, just click the icons to get started.

ScheduleReader, the leading standalone viewer for existing XER and XML project plans releases version 9.0.

The new version is accompanied with several new features designed to improve the work with the Assignments View, including the added support for the new Assignment Codes, who were recently implement in the Oracle® Primavera P6software. See what’s new [30].

ScheduleReader provides project teams and stakeholders with interactive view access to schedule data. The software visualizes the data from existing XER and XML project schedules and allows users to view and analyze data and even report back progress details in a controlled environment.

• Fast access to project information, without connecting to database
• Personalized view of relevant tasks and assignments
• Regular feedback channel to propose updates to schedulers from field

View tasks, activities, calendars, resources, and other schedule data without using PDF prints and improve your project communications. Try ScheduleReader for free today! Read More. [31]

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