Monkeys or Humpty Dumpties… Which is Worse?

Brad...



Lack of ambition? Don’t knock it... I started as a trainee planner in 1977 and I am still a planner, I just hope I am better now that I was then - but I can’t guarentee that!



David

Brad



There is a myth that, in 1899 a US Patent Office official resigned and recommended that the Patent Office be closed because he thought that everything that could possibly be invented had already been invented! Isn’t that a bit like saying there are enough books out there to last a lifetime? What if Rapheal has discovered the secret of [planning] life?



My original intent in starting this thread was about people in glasshouses throwing stones – maybe I was too subtle though (but that is not usually one of my strongest suits). In my opinion, it takes someone to be very narcissistic, or over-confident, to criticize the efforts of other so roundly when they themselves are, apparently, not paragons of good practice and, as far as I am aware, have not experienced some of the things that they imply others ought to.



I do tend to agree with you that to become a planner is from experience and of working on projects at a junior level and learning from experienced planners, PM’s etc; though not necessarily the only way and perhaps the ‘perfect planner’ would have other ingredients too. Our problem in today’s market seems to be to me that no-one wants to stay the course in planning and after a few years the preferred career move (especially for high-flyers) is up and out into project management and contracts management.



As I said before the world is full of ‘experts’ – and the assumption is that if someone studies a subject, passes exams and perhaps just writes a book they are fit to tell us all where we are going wrong; some might be, some might not. The same is true of experience; just being there is not enough, it has to be the right or ‘good’ experience that counts.



And Brad, whilst your contributions are amusing (?), and we all need levity at times, they don’t really raise the level of the debate or help in determining answers to some of the problems posed.



No offence intended, just think I got out of bed too early and on the wrong side today.



David



ps. I say I am in ‘Forensic Claims Analysis’ because that is the closest match in the list to what I mainly do. Projects I work on are not always run badly by my clients, as often as not I work on projects that have been run badly or administered by others or that have got into delay or trouble for a whole list of reasons that can’t be accurately described as someone’s fault. Whether it is a nice market to be in or not is debatable, it is a lot less comfortable than being an ‘overhead’ in a large organisation for instance.

R... you answered already - put them in the box marked ’Brad’ (or did Brad already contribute with the theme!)

D

Raphael



I forgot to ask - what are you going to do with the suggestions/contributions from Charlie!



David

Hey Raphael...



And I thought I was the oldest planner in town!



I look forward to your book... will that solve the perceived problem... I mean what is to stop Johnny-come-latelys saying I read a book (or even worse, ’I wrote a book’) therefore I am a planner.



I can’t remember where I read it (maybe it was somewhere on PP) but someone said the problem is that the world is full of ‘experts’ - the assumption is that if someone studies a subject and passes exams they are fit to tell us all about it. What they don’t mention is that without basic common sense, people cannot interpret what they have been taught - in fact they may not even have been taught correctly (as other ’experts’ tend to be their teachers!).



David

Dave…



I think, with respect, you are missing the point if you were addressing my reply to Clive’s post. I was trying to make the point that, in my opinion, there is no connection between 1998, Pentium chips and the fall in the skills of planners and that planning and programming was not better in the good old days before computers were in everyday use. And, again with respect, do you mean KP agrees with your theory that Planning is an Art (that you agree with him).



On one hand you say the “ability to analyse a project and critically review the information thrown out by the software is one of the most important skills a planner has” and then “one of the fundamental problems is the complete and total lack of understanding of the contractual implications of their work, and the potential damage it can cause to an entitlement claim etc”. Does the latter skill depend on years of experience too?



What I am really finding difficult in all this is the apparent general accusation/presumption that the majority of planners are crap and are merely software jockeys. If that is the case, what sets those who criticise apart from the rest of the dross? Whilst I am guilty of paraphrasing it seems the general response to this posting is ‘I agree, most of the planners I have come across are rubbish, but not me I’m one of the few good ones’. As far as criticisms of software jockeys go, you might recall the following from the Skanska judgement:

It is evident that the reliability of Mr Pickavance’s sophisticated impact analysis is only as good as the data put in. The court cannot have confidence as to the completeness and quality of the input into this complex and rushed computer project.





Art or Science? Surely too much of a philosophical question and one that needs more analysis. I tend to think that Planning and Programming are inseparably linked, so it is too simplistic too say one is an art and the other is a science as if they are separate entities. I am an ardent supported of the principals of scientific management, Henry Gantt was a mate of Frederick Taylor; would HLG be considered a scientist or an artist? In the Mirant case KP was cited by the Judge, at paragraph 122:

In the helpful work, Delay and Disruption Contracts by Keith Pickavance (LLP 2005), the author makes the point that the Critical Path Method requires detailed and sophisticated analysis and that in complex projects it is unlikely that a critical path can be identified inductively, i.e. by assertion. "It can only reliably be deduced from the mathematical sum of the durations on the contractor’s programme to be completed in sequence before the completion date can be achieved." This is an important cautionary word in this case where a number of witnesses were convinced, without the benefit of any such analysis, that they knew where the critical path lay.

It seems to me that the mere assertion of where the critical path lay without scientific analysis (99 times out of 100 by use of computers and software) is what ‘artists’ do.



David

Clive...



No doubt you will be able to meet up for dinner or more :-)



As you would expect I am not overly swayed by KP’s meat, and that he should be saying this sort of thing about likely members of the CIOB on the even of his presidency amazes me. He seems to be forming an opinion based on the programmes that land on his desk – it’s odds on that they will be a bit suspect, part of the reason the projects get into dispute in the first place.



And, I don’t think the good old days that he suggests really existed. I am one of those old farts who drew boxes on paper and did the sums. Not sure if it made me or makes me any better – back then I would never even think about planning in the detail I do now, the maths was just to tedious and for a similar reason we did not do lots of ‘what ifs’ or testing of different scenario. Even on big projects with big networks that we sent away for processing the cost and turn-round time meant that real-time planning was not a reality.



Of course there is a hint of inconsistency and bluff here… KP seems to be implying that he is not a ‘monkey’ planner but and, far as I know, as he is an ‘architect with construction management experience’ he was not involved in planning when it was necessary to draw networks by hand for jobs from scratch but somehow has managed to rise above being a mere calculator operator with little or no idea of what the answer should be. He also seems to be of the opinion that the ‘problem’ began in 1998 because of the Pentium chip – again that shows either a lack of practical long-term experience or a reshaping of history. Software and PCs were able to ‘instantly’ redraw (reschedule?) programmes long before then – even I was using Pertmaster in 1985 on 80286 chips (or was it 80386) and processing was pretty must instantaneous then.



David



ps. please explain "possibly he preffered pink to red chuffing t**t"

Thanks for your reply Raviraj



Well perhaps, except I though the saying was ‘as rare as hen’s teeth’, maybe I am being pedantic. You might have read that hen’s teeth do exist “What we discovered were teeth similar to those of crocodiles - not surprising as birds are the closest living relatives of the reptile”. I am sure Mr P is not intending to say planners are also similar looking to crocodile’s teeth! Anyway, if we believe all we are told about the UK economy, good anythings, let alone planners, are in short supply!



David