The Changing Role of Project Management

MIDDLE EAST

When you ask Engineering and Construction (E&C) professionals if they would like to change the way their firm operates, most will eagerly say ‘Yes’. If you ask them whether they want to change, then the ‘Yes’ answers would be uttered with less excitement because of the difficulties that they know about. If the question turns into whether they can change, then the answers turn into a whispered ‘No’!

As in all industries, E&C is flooded with business/management and technical problems. However, the interesting aspect is that most of these problems are common across all companies, with very few exemptions. These problems can be categorised whether they fall within the control of the firm’s senior executives or not.

In management thinking and practice, skilled management (the people who lead and manage the firm) concentrates on what it can control, do, and change, while leaving space for contingencies and scenarios for the issues that it cannot control. Why is this easier said than done? Because managing firms in complex industries is a difficult undertaking.

Let’s initially consider the two ecosystems that deal with value creation in E&C project- based firms; the first is the project-based ecosystem that creates value; and the second is the corporate-based ecosystem that supports the value creation. Any attempts of finding solutions that do not holistically align these two ecosystems will only fall short to successfully lead the firm through the industry’s uncertainties, complexities, and disruptions.

Each of these two ecosystems require a different set of management tools and expertise, but they must be linked to create the holistic value that management seeks. For example, a firm cannot reap the benefits of having an excellent operations director, or even an excellent CxO team, when its project and construction managers and engineers are of poor or mediocre calibre.

It is not a secret to state the fact that project management in the E&C industry is hovering around mediocrity, at best! This is a bad reality, especially since many of the problems mentioned above are solved, in the majority, by project personnel. Moreover, having high-calibre project personnel can altogether prevent the occurrence of these problems.

What contributes in failing to build a holistic value for the firm – and for the industry as a whole – is the unfortunate trend of management blaming project personnel for being poor or mediocre, when management itself does not support them with fit-for-purpose construction project management processes, or documentations that are aligned and linked with ISO standards (9001, 14000, 45000), and ERP systems that they are properly trained upon, followed without exemptions, and maintained to reflect clients’ needs and industry changes. Management must consider that young project personnel got employed because they have the minimum requirements, which is in most cases a university degree. However, they do not carry skills in project management and thus they must learn it, either by observing and doing (and in many cases, what they are currently observing is not worth learning), or by getting trained and upskilled to think of projects as a business, technical, and managing endeavours. As engineering knowledge must be learnt, so must construction project management knowledge.

To clarify, the benefits of what a well-established (aligned and linked to ISO and ERP), welltrained upon, and fit-for-purpose construction project management process and documentations can do for the project are:

• Provide better alignment between different internal stakeholders.

• Ensure better understanding

Eight Steps For The Successful Implementation Of A Change Initiative From Dr John Paul Kotter

Steps

Create a Sense of Urgency

Build a Guiding Coalition

Comments addressed to the Management

Most of E&C firms share the same set of problems. There is no need to hide; face it and state the existing situation, and inspire people to think about a better future

Pick up visionaries, high-flyers, and those who are eager to improve and grow.

Search for those young site engineers who complain about the current situation; they might not be the best of technical engineers, but they might have a holistic view on things and thus can become good managers.

Train them and make them actively participate in the coalition

Form a Strategic Vision and its plan

Agree on a vision where the above-mentioned problems are minimised or even avoided. Put forward a narrative on how this vision can benefit you company, your people, and your clients and partners.

Let the team participate in putting the plan to achieve the vision.

Enlist a Volunteer Army

The vision and plan must cover all the topics but choose a list of priorities.

Pick up a department or a project that is led by a visionary manager and rally its people and your coalition around the priorities related to this department or project.

Enable Action by Removing Barriers and soften the opinions of naysayers

Generate Short-Term Wins

Empower people and help them see the pig picture. Remove unnecessary bureaucratic red tapes. Dare to challenge your previous decisions.

Do not allow the naysayers to hold things, despite their apparent power

Every change counts. Celebrate the change in a procedure or workflow, for example. Make sure that the changes are properly implemented in the project management and ISO manuals/documents, and in the ERP if applicable.

Sustain Acceleration

Institute Change

Learn from the successes and failures. Do not get discouraged. Think of the big picture and keep talking about it. Keep the momentum on-going, reward the success

Link these changes to the strategic vision and firms’ values, and wisely institute the change

Problems That Are Common Across Most Engineering And Construction Firms

of the relationship with external stakeholders.

• Improvement on performance and productivity because obligations, duties, responsibilities, and accountabilities are clear.

• Clarity on schedules and inherent risks for better planning and follow-up

• Access to the required procedures and method statements

• Visibility on technical and business risks to avoid delays and disruptions.

• Production with highquality workmanship that abides with HSE.

• Elimination of bad behaviours and minimum tolerance

For Poor Performance

• Minimisation of time and material waste that improves performance and productivity.

• Avoidance of wrong, delayed, and/or missing paperwork and reporting.

• Improvement on progress reporting that can minimise billing issues and consequently cashflow disruptions.

• Better management of subcontractors, with all the good things that come with it

• Transparency for better relationship with Engineer/ Consultant and Client

• Building holistic business and project management thinking that encourages innovation to solve ad-hoc problems.

•

To

A Note On Change Management

As per Doctor John Paul Kotter, the Professor at Harvard Business School on leadership and Change, these are the eight steps for successful implementation of a change initiative: Through my project work, I have conducted a lot of research on both successful and failed initiatives, advisory work (my successful and failed ones), and discussions with many CxO’s and directors. It was apparent that most of the firms likes and wants to change; however, only few could.

Those who could (and I know many of them) were able to combine strong strategic and operational thinking, dared to navigate through the ocean of obstacles and hurdles, and succeeded in negotiating the needs and wants of their people with the interests of the future of the firm.

Easily said that done? Yes! And the first steps are always hard. Is there a chance of failure? Yes, of course; but we learn from our failures to succeed later.

About The Event

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2023