Practicing sustainability in PFI project management

This paper investigates the relationship of the project management in Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and sustainability. A live PFI project is selected as a case study, where contract review and monitoring on project management are carried out to evaluate the sustainability of project management. The PFI procurement shows great advantages in increased contractual responsibilities of the contractor in sustainable construction, and also in practicing sustainability in project management. Six main sustainable attributes of the project management are selected to evaluate the sustainability of project management in the PFI project. The project management process in the case study is closely monitored in order to verify how the PFI project promotes sustainability in practice. The project management in the different stages of the PFI project, including tendering, design, construction and operation, contributes to the six sustainable attributes in different ways. The project management in PFI project paid more attention in sustainable development during its whole process. As the private sector is responsible to the whole life of the building project, the project manager has to consider the long-term benefits during the management process. The government should take advantages of PFI project management in practicing sustainability therefore to promote sustainable development of the national infrastructure services.

Role conflict and role ambiguity in construction projects

Role conflict happens when a person faces different and incompatible expectations regarding a particular social status which they occupy. The literature on role conflict is reviewed for a better understanding of project dynamics in construction teams. The discussion focuses on issues surrounding the miscommunication of role expectations and tensions owing to differences in expectations of the same role. This ongoing doctoral study involves a qualitative research design, based on interviews with practicing professionals. Analysis will focus on the relation between formal expectations, as evidenced in contracts and other types of written communication, and informal expectations as observed from the interviews. Insights from the literature review suggest: 1. that the differences between formal and informal expectations is a major sources of role conflict in construction teams and 2. that this effect is exacerbated by the failure of team members to recognise it and take it into account.

The human side of project management - an investigation of critical chain concepts in the Argentinean Project Environment

The global marketplace is rapidly intensifying. Longer product sales lives, greater profit margins or simply survival, is dependent on management¿s ability to create and lead change. Project Management has become an important competency, combined with other business practices to adapt to the trend of changing conditions. Critical Chain is a relatively new project methodology, elaborated by Eliyahu Goldratt in order to complete projects faster, make more efficient use of resources and securing the project deliverables. The methodology is based on the assumption that traditional project techniques such as CPM and PERT, do not recognize critical human behavior. The methodology claims that many project failures are a direct result of how safety is built into the task delivery times, and then wasted by human behavior such as Student Syndrome, Parkinson Law and Multitasking. However, there has been little or no previous research regarding this topic in the Argentine marketplace. This study intended to investigate to what extent the human behavior concepts of critical chain project management are present, by performing in-depth interviews with Argentine project stakeholders. It appears that the four human behavior concepts are present in Argentina and that the majority of Argentine companies are yet to apply project management techniques.

Estudos de caso : implantação de sistemas ERP - uma análise crítica à luz da metodologia de Project Management

Este documento constitui-se em uma dissertação de mestrado, requisito parcial para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Gestão Empresaria e Pública. Este estudo procura mostrar que a adoção dessa nova tecnologia através de projetos de implantação de sistema de ERP não só mudam processos administrativos como também produtos, serviços e estruturas organizacionais e que a sua implantação se constitui em um grande projeto que envolve um número considerável de recursos e tempo das organizações. Este estudo procurar mostrar também que os impactos que tais projetos trazem, são mais fortemente sentidos ou não pela organização de acordo com uma série de fatores, entre eles, a resistência à mudança e o quanto a organização está preparada para enfrentar essas mudanças, o medo da perda do emprego pela adoção de uma nova tecnologia, problemas com a falta de comunicação das mudanças, questões relacionadas à cultura organizacional vigente, a falta de envolvimento da alta administração, entre outras. Para gerenciar todas essas variáveis, as organizações modernas adotam técnicas para garantir o sucesso da implantação dessas novas tecnologias. o estudo aqui proposto tem como objetivo determinar até que ponto a utilização de metodologias e de técnicas de Project Management é o suficiente para que esses projetos alcancem o sucesso esperado pelas organizações. A quantidade de variáveis que influenciam o resultado de um projeto são muitas e cada uma delas possui um papel importante que deve ser avaliado. As conclusões desta pesquisa demonstram que o sucesso de um projeto nem sempre se resume a atingir os objetivos inicialmente propostos, relativos ao cumprimento do prazo, escopo e custo de um projeto, conforme define a metodologia de Project Management. Outros aspectos considerados por essa metodologia, se melhor ou pior aplicados, também contribuem para o sucesso ou fracasso de um projeto de implantação de um sistema de ERP sendo o seu fracasso traduzido ou não, no cumprimento do prazo, do escopo inicialmente previsto ou no custo inicialmente calculado. Outros aspectos que não apenas a aplicação correta da metodologia de Project Management contribuem para os resultados alcançados pelo projeto.

Web system to aid project management

This work describes a new web system to aid project management that was created to correct the principal deficiencies identified in systems having a common purpose which are at present available, as well as to follow the guidelines that are proposed in the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) and the quality characteristics described in the ISO/IEC 9126 norm. As from the adopted methodology, the system was structured to attend the real necessities of project managers and also to contribute towards obtaining quality results from the projects. The validation of the proposed solution was done with the collaboration of professionals that used the functions available in it for a period of 15 days. Results attested to the quality and adequacy of the developed system.

Resource-allocation capabilities of commercial project management software. An experimental analysis

When project managers determine schedules for resource-constrained projects, they commonly use commercial project management software packages. Which resource-allocation methods are implemented in these packages is proprietary information. The resource-allocation problem is in general computationally difficult to solve to optimality. Hence, the question arises if and how various project management software packages differ in quality with respect to their resource-allocation capabilities. None of the few existing papers on this subject uses a sizeable data set and recent versions of common software packages. We experimentally analyze the resource-allocation capabilities of Acos Plus.1, AdeptTracker Professional, CS Project Professional, Microsoft Office Project 2007, Primavera P6, Sciforma PS8, and Turbo Project Professional. Our analysis is based on 1560 instances of the precedence- and resource-constrained project scheduling problem RCPSP. The experiment shows that using the resource-allocation feature of these packages may lead to a project duration increase of almost 115% above the best known feasible schedule. The increase gets larger with increasing resource scarcity and with increasing number of activities. We investigate the impact of different complexity scenarios and priority rules on the project duration obtained by the software packages. We provide a decision table to support managers in selecting a software package and a priority rule.

Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling with Project Management Information Systems

Most commercial project management software packages include planning methods to devise schedules for resource-constrained projects. As it is proprietary information of the software vendors which planning methods are implemented, the question arises how the software packages differ in quality with respect to their resource-allocation capabilities. We experimentally evaluate the resource-allocation capabilities of eight recent software packages by using 1,560 instances with 30, 60, and 120 activities of the well-known PSPLIB library. In some of the analyzed packages, the user may influence the resource allocation by means of multi-level priority rules, whereas in other packages, only few options can be chosen. We study the impact of various complexity parameters and priority rules on the project duration obtained by the software packages. The results indicate that the resource-allocation capabilities of these packages differ significantly. In general, the relative gap between the packages gets larger with increasing resource scarcity and with increasing number of activities. Moreover, the selection of the priority rule has a considerable impact on the project duration. Surprisingly, when selecting a priority rule in the packages where it is possible, both the mean and the variance of the project duration are in general worse than for the packages which do not offer the selection of a priority rule.

An improved way for evaluating competences: A different approach to project management learning .;

This paper presents a formal initiative for monitoring the competence acquisition by a team of students with different backgrounds facing the experience of being working by projects and in a project. These students are inexperienced in the project management field and they play this game on a time-shared manner along with other activities. The goal of this experience is to make some improvements in determining the competence levels acquired by means of how the work is being done. The use of this information, which is out of the scope of this particular work, could make possible to bring additional information to the students involved in terms of their individual competencies and the identification of new opportunities of personal improvement.

The use of computers for graduate education in Project Management. Improving the integration to the industry.

This paper presents an initiative for monitoring the competence acquisition by a team of students with different backgrounds facing the experience of being working by projects and in a project. These students are graduated bachelor engineering are inexperienced in the project management field and they play this course on a time-shared manner along with other activities. The goal of this experience is to increase the competence levels acquired by using an structured web based portfolio tool helping to reinforce how relevant different project management approaches can result for final products and how important it becomes to maintain the integration along the project. Monitoring is carried out by means of have a look on how the work is being done and measuring different technical parameters per participant. The use of this information could make possible to bring additional information to the students involved in terms of their individual competencies and the identification of new opportunities of personal improvement. These capabilities are strongly requested by companies in their daily work as well as they can be very convenient too for students when they try to organize their PhD work.

Training project management complexity in postgraduate and continuing education programs: a learning strategy in the eshe (European Space of Higher Education) framework

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of a teaching strategy for training project management complexity in postgraduate programs. The proposal is made up of different methods —intuitive, comparative, deductive, case study, problem-solving Project-Based Learning— and different activities inside and outside the classroom. This integration of methods motivated the current use of the concept of “learning strategy”. The strategy has two phases: firstly, the integration of the competences —technical, behavioral and contextual—in real projects; and secondly, the learning activity was oriented in upper level of knowledge, the evaluating the complexity for projects management in real situations. Both the competences in the learning strategy and the Project Complexity Evaluation are based on the ICB of IPMA. The learning strategy is applied in an international Postgraduate Program —Erasmus Mundus Master of Science— with the participation of five Universities of the European Union. This master program is fruit of a cooperative experience from one Educative Innovation Group of the UPM -GIE-Project-, two Research Groups of the UPM and the collaboration with other external agents to the university. Some reflections on the experience and the main success factors in the learning strategy were presented in the paper

Training project management complexity in postgraduate and continuing education programs: a learning strategy in the eshe (European Space of Higher Education) framework

The objective of this paper is to address the methodological process of a teaching strategy for training project management complexity in postgraduate programs. The proposal is made up of different methods —intuitive, comparative, deductive, case study, problem-solving Project-Based Learning— and different activities inside and outside the classroom. This integration of methods motivated the current use of the concept of ―learning strategy‖. The strategy has two phases: firstly, the integration of the competences —technical, behavioral and contextual—in real projects; and secondly, the learning activity was oriented in upper level of knowledge, the evaluating the complexity for projects management in real situations. Both the competences in the learning strategy and the Project Complexity Evaluation are based on the ICB of IPMA. The learning strategy is applied in an international Postgraduate Program —Erasmus Mundus Master of Science— with the participation of five Universities of the European Union. This master program is fruit of a cooperative experience from one Educative Innovation Group of the UPM -GIE-Project-, two Research Groups of the UPM and the collaboration with other external agents to the university. Some reflections on the experience and the main success factors in the learning strategy were presented in the paper.

A proposal for improving safety in construction projects by strengthening coordinators’ competencies in health and safety issues

The figure of the coordinator in health and safety issues in the construction sector first appeared in our legislation through the incorporation of the European Directives (in our case Royal Decree 1627/97 on the minimum health and safety regulations in construction works), and is viewed differently in different countries of the European Union regarding the way they are hired and their role in the construction industry. Coordinating health and safety issues is also a management process that requires certain competencies that are not only based on technical or professional training, but which, taking account of the work environment, require the use of strategies and tools that are related to experience and personal skills. Through a piece of research that took account of expert opinions in the matter, we have found which competencies need to be possessed by the health and safety coordinator in order to improve the safety in the works they are coordinating. The conclusions of the analyses performed using the appropriate statistical methods (comparing means and multivariate analysis techniques), will enable training programmes to be designed and ensure that the health and safety coordinators selected have the competencies required to carry out their duties.

A proposal for improving safety in construction projects by strengthening coordinators’ competencies in health and safety issues

The figure of the coordinator in health and safety issues in the construction sector first appeared in our legislation through the incorporation of the European Directives (in our case Royal Decree 1627/97 on the minimum health and safety regulations in construction works), and is viewed differently in different countries of the European Union regarding the way they are hired and their role in the construction industry. Coordinating health and safety issues is also a management process that requires certain competencies that are not only based on technical or professional training, but which, taking account of the work environment, require the use of strategies and tools that are related to experience and personal skills. Through a piece of research that took account of expert opinions in the matter, we have found which competencies need to be possessed by the health and safety coordinator in order to improve the safety in the works they are coordinating. The conclusions of the analyses performed using the appropriate statistical methods (comparing means and multivariate analysis techniques), will enable training programmes to be designed and ensure that the health and safety coordinators selected have the competencies required to carry out their duties.

A Web-based Support System for Providing Effective Monitoring, Feedback and Evaluation in Project Management Education

This work introduces a web-based learning environment to facilitate learning in Project Management. The proposed web-based support system integrates methodological procedures and information systems, allowing to promote learning among geographically-dispersed students. Thus, students who are enrolled in different universities at different locations and attend their own project management courses, share a virtual experience in executing and managing projects. Specific support systems were used or developed to automatically collect information about student activities, making it possible to monitor the progress made on learning and assess learning performance as established in the defined rubric.