Adventures in Construction-#3 Execution- a brief explanation of the Execution Process- funny stories, Lessons Learned

From the Desk of Mark A. Annunziata, Sr. PMP

Construction Industry Project Management Lessons Learned

Phase 4-EXECUTION

Taken from my recent experiences in the Multi-Family and Large Project Scope areas

Construction Industry Project Management Lessons Learned

Introduction

In previous Articles, I explained the differences between Tier 1 Contractors (generally, Projects and Sales Volumes in the 100’s of Millions of dollars), Tier 2 Contractors (generally Projects and Sales in the 10’s of Millions of Dollars), and Tier 3 (generally Project Values less than 10 Million Dollars).

The following article explains the Tier 1 Contractor requirements for Project Execution.

This Article will focus on the following elements that constitute the Execution and Production of the Deliverable. These include Team Management, Reporting, Field Activities, Safety Practices, Equipment Tracking, Procurement Logistics, Change Management, and Workforce Management.

Following please find my brief description of these elements and some Lessons Learned:

Phase 4-EXECUTION- INTRO

In the Tier 1 Construction Industry the Project Manager is required by Contract to have certain skillsets within the Execution Team. Most of the Staff level Manager positions are listed by category within the Owner/Contractor Contract documents. My Tier 1 teams have consisted of between 35 and 150 engineers and support staff. My Staffs have always included Construction Managers, Quality Assurance/Control Manager, Quality Control Inspectors, a Safety Manager, Safety Inspectors, Project Control Manager, Project Architect, MEP Engineer(s), a Structural Engineer, Cost Control Engineer, Procurement Manager, various support staff and engineers.

1) Team Management-

 If you have been reading the Articles I have published prior to this document, you know my recent experience is with Tier 1 Contractors overseas. In every case, I was recruited and hired to turn around a Project heading in the wrong direction. In every case, the Project was 1 year into the Project Schedule and been managed by at least 3 Project Managers prior to my arrival.

Upon arrival at each Project, I was officially Appointed and Approved as the Senior Project Manager. Within 48 hours I was positioned in the PM Office on or near the Project Site.

My first act as the New Project Manager was to call together my Senior Staff for an introductory Staff meeting and to schedule daily staff meetings thereafter. We quickly established an Agenda for these meetings, with each Department Manager reporting their activities and challenges, and the Key Performance Indicators for their Departments. While I was acting as the Owner’s Rep, my team would report on the response times and concerns with Contractor submitted Requests for Information, Contractor requests for Material Submittal approvals, Change Management requests, Design and Constructability Requests, Procurement Approvals, etc. These Documents were routed through our Staff for responses and feedback to the Contractor, ultimately requiring my Signature. I closely examined every document prior to transmitting these back to the Contractor. In many cases, I challenged my staff and their responses during the examination of our internal work. In many cases, these responses and their durations within our system would indicate to me some shortcomings of skills within our Team.

Another first activity I performed as the new Project Manager would be to conduct an internal assessment of the Team I inherited. I would perform my assessment over the course of the first 60 days of my tenure. On some Projects, I discovered a severe lack of technical skills amongst my Subject Matter Experts. I explored assistance from the Talent Manager to Recruit and Onboard replacements for the low performing Team members. His Department’s participation was instrumental to my Project success. He allowed me to select Candidates from solicited CV’s, and conduct 1-hour interviews on behalf of the Company. During my Interview process, I performed a skills check as well as a Psychological check during my 1 hour Skype meeting with the potential candidate. For successful Candidates, I recommended approval for the Talent Management department to pursue the individuals and recommended the Salary Band.

 Unlike the PMBOK Guide suggestions, I had no time to provide additional training to Subject Matter Experts. I absolutely required these skills to be in place and active in order to provide services to our Project. I Transferred or Terminated those low performers as soon as I found replacements unless the Employee was disruptive to the Team as a whole (bad attitude). The disruptor individuals were removed immediately.

As the Project proceeded to turn around and move forward, my Staff meetings allowed me to continually re-assess the personalities, work ethics, and success of my Department Managers. In my opinion, it is the Project Manager’s responsibility to closely examine the “needs” of each staff member. It sounds like child psychology, but it is imperative for the PM to discover what PM responses motivate each Team member. In some cases, a Senior Manager requires excessive public praise for overcoming a difficult challenge to spur them to perform at an even higher level. Others require a personal face-to-face counseling and mentoring session to feel good about attacking problems and conquering logistical challenges. Some Staff members require stern advice from the Project Manager in order to function properly; the proverbial “kick in the ass”.

My story

       One of my Subject Matter Experts was on the Team from the beginning of the Project. He had outlasted 3 Project Managers prior to my arrival. During my performance of my Constructability Review of the High Rise Project, I called in the Municipality IT Hardware Experts (Key Stakeholders) to meet in my Conference room to closely examine the Structured Wiring/Communication/IT portion of the Electrical Design. As I pored over the Line Drawings prior to this meeting, I discovered the Plan called for 100’s of ?” conduits emanating from one central Plant location in the lower level of the 3- level underground parking garage. These were to be distributed through the 5 elevator core locations and disbursed toward the 90 office locations.

During this meeting with the Key Owner Stakeholders, I requested their professional opinions on why the Project Structured Wiring should not be designed around a Fiber Optic backbone, instead of the cumbersome current Design. In the following 2 hours, we agreed to redesign in-house and produced marked up line drawings which converted 100’s of conduit to 5 major Fiber Optic Cables. I considered this meeting hugely successful in results. The meeting also provided Stakeholder Feedback to me in my Role as the watchdog on behalf of the Owner (the local Governor).

However…….as the meeting adjourned and the Stakeholders departed, our Project Subject Matter Expert (Electrical) turned to me and asked: “what just happened in there?” 

He was removed the next day.

2) Reporting-

 At the Tier 1 level (and a Best Practice for Tiers 2 & 3) it is a Contract requirement to conduct a weekly Progress Reporting Meeting (at the lower Tiers this is referred to as “AOC”- Architect/Owner/Contractor meetings). These Progress meetings occur at the same time and day each week, include an Agenda and official Meeting Minutes, and require the participation of the Senior Staff members on both the Owner’s Team and the Contractor Team. Highlights of these meetings include:

·        Opening statements by the Owner’s Rep., followed by the Construction Project Manager.

·        A Project Safety Report (always first on the Agenda), consisting of a report on Hazards, Accidents, Injuries, Water testing, Health conditions, Testing results (Air, Water, Temperature).

·        The Execution Construction Manager reports on progress and Challenges (typically discussing the Critical Path objectives and weekly positioning of manpower), usually accompanied by short term scheduled work packages and a 2 week look ahead prediction.

·        The Procurement Manager discusses challenges to his submittal Process, typically requests Owner team assistance of overdue or missing Submittals, and reports on his Schedule Performance Index for his Procurement Schedule.

·        The Project Controls Manager reports all the Earned Value Management items under his purview. These include P6 Schedule Performance, Manpower quantities, and Invoice requirements.

·        The Technical Manager discusses Design Issues and Challenges, the Status of his Plan Revisions, current issues presented during his Correspondence with the Detailed Designer. 

·        The Quality Assurance and Quality Control Managers report on the latest challenges from the field, and communicate with the Owner counterparts during this meeting.

·        Closing Statements are made by both the Contractor PM and the Owner PM, usually directed at the Meeting Minute keeper for inclusion and tasking at the next meeting.

·        The Group adjourns and agrees upon the next meeting location and time.

In order to avoid extensive Technical discussions during the Main Progress Meeting cited above, it is common for the Safety, Quality, Procurement, Project Controls teams to collaborate with their Owner counterparts in smaller technically focused meetings on a weekly basis.

My Story:

I have attended many of these meetings during the past 10 years, sitting on both sides of the table. I was acting on behalf of the Governor (Owner) while supervising a High Rise Project, and as a Contractor, I participated as the Meeting Presenter opposite the USACE Project Management Team and the Saudi Aramco Project Management Team. I chaired most of these meetings, but as a training exercise, I would allow some members of my team to chair these meetings, or participate heavily. This required some advance preparation with some younger Team members who had no experience with Public Presentations.

Despite the advance coaching, almost every person participating in this process would do very well with their prepared remarks. However, during those awkward short stretches of silence or inactivity, each speaker elected to fill those awkward voids with some excess communication that was totally unnecessary. Some of the speakers would decide to deliver news about our internal procurement failures, or our internal Vendor conflicts, or even lodge a public complaint against another Team member! We called this “Airing the Dirty Laundry”. Looking back at these incidents now I laugh, but at the time I was surprised and sometimes shocked. Eventually, I realized this would always happen when introducing new presentation opportunities to younger, less experienced members of the Team.

I refer to the phenomena as the “Little Ballerina” effect. In preparation for these opportunities at Public speaking, I would describe to the Team a Story taken from my life, where a Parent (me) had a daughter who was very shy and self- conscious. The daughter was so shy we debated whether to hire a Clown to perform at her Birthday party, eventually, we decided to go forward. The Clown arrived, started his act, and called upon volunteers from the audience. Surprising all of us, my shy, reserved daughter volunteered first. She not only acted as the Clown’s foil, but she also grabbed the Microphone and acted as if her part in the show was pre-planned by the Clown. The Clown was pleasantly surprised, but I was shocked. I would explain to the Team that this example was all about my daughter, my little Ballerina who blossomed after finally receiving everyone’s attention focused upon her, on stage.

As I said, prior to our Progress Meetings, I would discuss my prior experiences with the Team member who was going to be a Presenter- referring to the opportunity to be on stage and suddenly take over the show as the “little Ballerina Effect”. Despite my pleas and prep, almost every participant in these Public Speaking opportunities fell into the trap of the Ballerina Effect at some point during the Meeting.

3) The Field Activities

Management of the Field Activities is supervised by the Construction Managers. I have been very lucky on my Projects to have some excellent Construction Managers. When I arrived at a Project that had some bad Construction Managers (Bad attitude, Bad skills, and Bad work habits) I immediately replaced them. The Construction Managers are the Field Generals for the Project, driving both Quality and Schedule Performance.

On my Projects, we divided the Areas of Responsibility between the 2 Construction Managers. Recently, One CM assumed responsibility for all the activities associated with Building Construction. These included Slab Installation, Precast Installation, framing, roofing, MEP, drywall, cabinets, trim, pavers, flooring, windows, etc.

 The other CM handled all the Site Activities including underground utilities, grading, paving, street signs, Parks, walks, curbs, drives.

In conjunction with all of the Daily Activities, the QC team performed Daily Inspections of Construction Activities as well as the Inspections associated with receiving materials at our Warehouse.

The Safety Team performed surveillance of the daily activities and tested the Workforce water supply, sanitary requirements, and Air Quality associated with deep excavations.

My Story-

I arrived on a Project where my Construction Managers were already on site. After examining their performance in the field, and their failures to produce any teamwork or results, I was forced to consider my options. I attempted to mentor both of them to concentrate on their Field Activities but soon discovered both of them were spending more time in their Air Conditioned offices e-mailing complaints about each other. Since one of them was supporting night activities, I elected to perform a surprise 3 am inspection of the site and his office. He was nowhere to be found.

I solicited the CEO of the Company to allow me to interview both internal and external Candidates to replace these 2 Employees. I found one great internal Construction Manager, and we hired an External Candidate.

Within several weeks, our Productivity on site, our vendor coordination, and our Schedule Performance improved dramatically.

The Down Side- Our Project was started with one of the CM’s cited above, he had been with our Company for 5 years before my arrival. At Project Start-Up, he made some major logistical decisions regarding our on-site storage and operations facilities directing sizes and locations of Site Warehouses and buildings. Eventually, each of his decisions required correction by me, at some added costs to the Project.

4) Safety Practices-

It is my opinion that the Tier 1 & 2 Project Manager must work closely with the Project Safety Manager. The Safety Team performed daily close surveillance of all the Construction Activities. They were charged with accident investigations, hazard analysis, Testing, and managing the Health and Welfare of our workforce. The Safety Team was familiar with all the proper OSHA and NEBOSH procedures that applied to our Project.

It was my practice to meet the Safety Manager and his team every morning during Project Mobilization, usually around 5 am. We provided the PPE example to the thousands of workers entering the Project. During some of these meetings, we discussed daily challenges that included high temperatures (up to 140 F), security choke points, safety barricades at recent excavations, Water and Ice Vendors, Bus Parking (up to 55 buses), etc. Routinely, we would discuss Procurement/Finance items, and personal Requests- my Team knew I was the last resort to resolve HR and Life Support Facility challenges. Once they presented their frustrations in these areas to me, I had to take Action. In one case, 120 of our workers had no water at their housing location. I immediately sent several of our Project Water Tankers to their Housing location to resolve the Problem. In other cases, our local HR representatives were treating our workers poorly in general, refusing to act on vacation requests or Visa renewals. I forced several obnoxious HR employees off our Project to improve Company/Employee relations. I solicited the HR Company Director to assist me.

Our Safety Record-None of our Tier 1 Projects experienced any Serious Construction Accidents. I associate this Safety Performance Indicator as a direct result of my PM relationship with the Safety Manager.

My Story-

Despite our best plans, Projects with 2000+ workers are inherently dangerous. Within these large numbers, the statistical prediction of an Accident is fairly high. Also, it is unfortunate that the Risks are augmented by a low-skilled, sometimes illiterate workforce from third world Countries. We cannot stay on top of the mental Health of the workforce; in short, there are/will be some crazy people on site.

One morning, I observed the start-up of our heavy equipment and the movement down the main access road to the Project. Our workers also used the sides of these access roads to walk to their latest work location. You can picture a steady stream of workers, some side-by-side, some single file, but less than a meter between the moving stream of workers. As I watched the Largest Front End Loader (2.5m Bucket?) startup, the Operator decided it was a good idea to accelerate immediately at a rapid speed down the road. The loader was the type where the Bucket moved from side to side at each steering adjustment, at high speed it appeared to swing very close to the walking workforce.

I hopped in my SUV to try to catch the Loader Operator, but I was not willing to put our workers at Risk from my Vehicle. It took me 10 minutes to reach the Loader driver when he arrived at his work location.

I called the Safety Manager to meet me at the Loader location, filed a Violation Report, and directed the Safety Manager to remove this individual from our Project permanently.

5) Equipment Tracking & Controls

On my recent Projects, My Team utilized a mixture of Rental and Company-owned Heavy Equipment to prep and grade the Site, excavate and install Underground utilities, prep, and compact building pads and roadways, and install precast. At any given time during a recent Project, we had up to 80 major pieces of Heavy Equipment and Cranes working on site each day. Since our Project Schedule was dependent on the Activity Level and Status of the Dozers, Front End Loaders, Graders, Bobcats, Backhoes, Track-hoes, Forklifts, Delivery Trucks, and Cranes our Team Heavy Equipment Manager was forced to produce a daily Status Report for my examination. Essentially, the Report was a tracker in Excel that listed the Status- Down for Repair, Operating, Partially Operating, Not in Use. The Report also listed the name of the Operator for each machine, their Operator certifications, and their attendance. Additionally, the Report separated the Rental Equipment from the Company Equipment.

The equipment Manager and I would examine this report each day. I would be distressed to see any Rental Crane performance anomalies due to the High Costs associated with the Local rental Market and note the success or failure of the problem resolution of the Breakdowns by the Vendor. On several occasions, I contacted the Vendor directly and informed him to remove his equipment from my Project due to repeated maintenance incidents. (At one point we also had 25 active Mobile Cranes working with the Pre-cast Vendor placing walls and floors throughout the site.)

My Story-

During one week where we experienced continuous rain and then flooding at all the Projects in our area, the beginning of the Main access road (nearest our Project) flooded to depth of 4 ft. This was an existing Owner built road that had some obvious flaws built into it, the most important to us were the low “dip” in the roadway and the location next to an obvious wetland that easily flooded. This flooding occurred near the entrance to our Project and next to our largest storage warehouse.

Six Projects came to a halt during this flooding event since their access was cut off to their Projects due to the flooded main roadway. However, on day 3 of inactivity, the Owner directed all Project Traffic to depart the main road at Our Project and traverse through Our Site as a backdoor shortcut to their  Projects.

 This resulted in the additional traffic combining with our mobilizing of 2000 workers near a chokepoint entrance to our Project. The additional Traffic added 200 buses and 400+ cars to the Traffic load in addition to our 50 buses and 50 cars and trucks at the Site entrance. At my typical 5 am site meeting with my Safety Manager and Equipment Manager I observed the fiasco unfold in front of me with shock the first day. Later that working day I attempted to request an alternate plan from the Owner, both unofficially, and in an Official Letter, with no response.

At the 5th Flood day, I watched several “other Project” buses and cars speed through our site- I stopped one of them and demanded they meet our Project Posted speed limit of 20 kph, without results. Immediately after this Speeding Incident, at 5:30 am, I pulled my Equipment Manager and Safety Manager together on the street and directed them to take our Heavy Equipment and Road Base Materials to fill and compact a new roadway above the flooded Owner roadway, but with a much higher elevation.  At first, they were concerned about the potential criticism and response from the Owner, but I convinced them I would accept the full responsibility. The potential Safety Hazard exposure far outweighed my political capital with the Owner. My Team agreed and immediately began calling Equipment Operators and Flag Men as they jumped into action.

My Team had the New Section of Road installed by mid-day, and the problem was resolved permanently by day’s end, and throughout the remaining rainy season. We continually maintained this section of our road for the next 2 months, until the Flood hazard was eliminated.

The Owner did criticize me for resolving the problem unilaterally at the next Progress Meeting. (My only response was to inform the Owner that his team left me with no alternative due to the increased hazards of Other Project speeding vehicles and increased hazard exposure to our workers.)

After we agreed to fill the roadway and solve the problem at 5:30 am, one of my Construction Managers entered my office at 7:30 and informed me “we resolved that flooding problem..”. As any good Project Manager would, I responded with “Oh, very good idea…..”

6) Procurement Logistics

The Tier 1 Contract requires the submittal of a Procurement Schedule along with a long list of Owner required submittal packages that must be approved in writing prior to purchase. Typically, the Procurement Manager and his Teamwork their way through this list until all the Submittals are approved, and Contracts are completed with Subcontractors, Vendors, and Suppliers. This process continues well into the Execution phase of the Project.

For obvious reasons, The Procurement Team attacks the Long Lead Items first. These usually include Electrical/Power distribution equipment, Cables, Sanitary and Drainage structures, Specialized appliances or Equipment, Automatic Sprinkler Systems, Electrical Panels, and sometimes various types of PVC pipe. Some of the Items we normally consider as routine purchases can qualify as a long lead item depending upon local availability; Metal Trusses and Roof tiles have required special attention on some of our Projects.

In order to have the materials ready and available for installation, we designed and installed Warehouses adjacent to the Construction Site. These were Metal Structures with spans determined by modular dimensioned Structural Steel. Each of our MEP Managers had their own warehouse to store and secure Pipes, Conduits, tools, and equipment. We had a separate storage area for the Concrete Installers. Another large warehouse housed mostly tools, Lights, equipment, PPE, pumps, meters, lumber, steel parts, bolts, nails, etc. This warehouse had a team of workers and a supervisor controlling the daily ins and outs of the inventory. In many cases, a Quality Control Engineer double checked the incoming product deliveries to assure conformity with the previously approved submittals.

Inventory Controls were critical to this Warehouse.

Additional warehouses were provided for worker use at breaks and mealtimes.

My Story-

Our Project Warehouse area was an extremely dangerous environment. When I first arrived at the Project we were parking 25 buses each morning within the warehouse Security area. Many Trucks, Vehicles, and Equipment moved around the roadways every day. Our workers checked into work through this area each day. I did not like all the moving parts and hazards. I was disturbed that my original CM had planned the Warehouse layout fiasco.

The Safety Manager and I agreed to relocate the bus parking to an area nearby that we created for Bus and Heavy Equipment parking. The Owner expressed displeasure at our initiative, but the Safety Manager and I agreed the decrease in our manpower exposure to Buses and Equipment was worth the apologies that would be required later.

We also imposed a 15 kph within the warehouse security area. This applied to the remaining supply trucks and forklifts.

Unfortunately, I received a frantic phone call from the Safety Manager that an accident had occurred within the Warehouse area, damaging a warehouse. I left my office, totally confused how an accident could occur within a 15 kph speed zone. When I arrived on site, I discovered a flatbed truck with a significant amount of passenger side front end damage and a structural steel warehouse straight support leg with a significant v-shaped bend about 1 meter high.

A Root Cause analysis was performed by the Safety Department. One of Our truck drivers was seen speeding at 50 kph through the warehouse roadway system, he missed a 90-degree turn and took out our warehouse support, threatening the structural integrity of the Warehouse. Thankfully, no workers were hurt, a driver and 2 passengers were in the front seat at the time of the accident.

We decided to revoke the driving license of this employee and transferred him to another Project elsewhere in the Country.

7) Change Management

Owners and Contractors will always need to address positive and negative Changes to the Contract. The Owner/Contractor Contract might be 1500 pages or 100 pages but will never cover every challenge presented during the Construction and Execution process.

A structured Change Management process is necessary for every Project for several reasons.

First, nobody can predict the Politics or Weather. Most Construction Contracts contain a “Force Majeure” clause that identifies the Acts of God or Governmental actions that will affect the Process and/or Costs of the Project. Some of these Hazards include Floods, Hurricanes, Shipping, Wars, new Taxes, etc. The Clause usually identifies the specifics of the Change Management process regarding Hazards.

Secondly, no Project Design is perfect. I have seen situations where the Owner’s Front End Engineering and Design are supplied to the Contractor with incorrect drainage elevations. Notification of the discovery of the mistake was sent to the Contractor 8 Months after the Date of Commencement for the Project. Obviously, the Contractor utilized the final grade elevations supplied to them during the Proposal development to determine exactly how much fill will be required to bring the Site up to grade. In one case recently, the additional fill required to support the Owner’s Revised Drainage plans was valued at 20 Million USD. The Owner admitted the problem but insisted on a body of evidence prior to negotiating the Change Order.

Lastly, every Project experiences some form of Scope Creep. In Tier 3 construction it will usually be an Owner who decides to upgrade flooring, or cabinets, or the Pool. In Tier 2, the Owner may want additional Parking spaces, or upgraded Interior spaces, or different Kitchen layouts in many apartments. In Tier 1, the Owner may want all the buildings to have upgraded elevators, appliances, upgraded office spaces, or decorative building lighting. These incidents occur during the submittal/procurement process, or with Interior Designers that can’t seem to make up their minds. Despite the reason, these are examples of Scope Creep. Scope Creep means the Scope of Work has been changed from the Original Contract Scope of Work. These Changes impact Project Costs and Schedule.

In my experience, it is a “Best Practice” to meet with the Stakeholders at Project Commencement and arrive at a specific process and name a committee to represent both sides of the Change Requests. The Project requires a decision maker to examine and approve or deny all the requests for Scope Changes and Change Orders. However, the key to successful Change Order requests will always be proportionate to the Project Manager’s ability to provide overwhelming supporting documentation to back up the Cost and Schedule impacts to the Project.

My Story-

I have worked on both sides of this process.

Acting on behalf of the Owner, my team would prepare for the Change Order negotiations by researching the Equipment or Vendors involved and ascertaining their Costs for the specific Change. During the negotiation, we would allow the Contractor to make a reasonable Overhead and Profit for executing the Change. In some cases, the Contractor demanded 3x the costs for a change request involving Parking Garage air flow. We proved the Costs associated with this change during our negotiations. Eventually, we settled on a Cost plus 30% Change Order. In another case, the Contractor was required to move a large Transformer cabinet 10 meters to avoid a Project Bike Path. They requested an amount that was less than our researched costs. My team shared some cost data with the Contractor, and our Team settled on a reasonably priced Change Order- but not below cost.

Acting on behalf of the Contractor, My Team negotiated a cost related to the handover of the site to us from the Owner/Project Manager. Our evidence of additional costs and schedule impacts included site elevations provided within the Request for Proposal document and a survey supplied at the official handover of a section of the Project. Much to our dismay, a previously completed Owner Contract, with an outside Vendor, to prep the general Site grades for our use was not completed. The outside Vendor and the Owner Representatives failed to inform us that a 100m section of 36” water supply pipe was actually running above ground. The previous Vendor failed to remove what appeared to be a dirt Berm 1m high, and 2m wide. As our Site Crews approached this particular area they intended to simply remove the berm without seeking additional funding. However, on the day of removal, close examination revealed the 36” pipe hiding within this Berm. I was informed immediately and I proposed a meeting with the Owner/PM on site at the Berm.

We examined the Berm and surrounding area and realized this Berm was running through several of our Proposed Houses. We discussed our alternatives for overcoming this challenge, including additional costs and schedule impacts. The meeting was particularly uncomfortable for all of us, not due to the subject matter, but due to the midday Temperature at the location - 145F (we all needed a change of clothes after this meeting).  Everyone agreed that my Site Team was left with a task they could not have foreseen, and a Change Order was authorized by the Owner/PM as a result.

We hurried back to our Air Conditioned offices.

8) Workforce Management-

My Projects have included a Tier 3 Mansion (42 Million USD) with a maximum workforce of 300, to a Tier 1 level 225 Million USD Project with 3000 workers.  

At the Staff level, I discovered the importance of creating a Team atmosphere. I try to give each member of the Team whatever they require from me to be successful. In some cases it might be public praise of their fine work, for others, it might be difficult to obtain Computer or Hardware. My philosophy is two-fold. First, I believe in setting the example for work ethics, I arrive very early and usually leave my office late. I work hard and don’t task Team members with a level of effort that I would not produce myself. Second, I demand high performance and hard work from the Team, but I also drop whatever I am working on the minute a Team Member asks me to intervene with the Corporate offices or HR Department on their behalf.

At the Workforce level- As a team, we ask a lot of the workforce every day. Usually, they are performing field tasks during hot weather. We subject them to hazardous work conditions and sometimes place them in substandard housing.

I have witnessed my behavior and philosophies translate to the field through my Managers. When the workers were experiencing problems with the HR guys, I was informed by the Field Execution Team immediately because they understood my Priorities, and I personally intervened. When we discovered that our Housing Managers (Another Division) were failing to maintain the Water or Electric supply to the workforce Housing, my Equipment Manager informed me immediately, and we intervened using Project assets.

My Safety Manager also communicated worker issues with me on a daily basis. He and I addressed HR issues with the Workers, PPE Issues with the Workers, Sanitary issues with the workers, and solved many inter-cultural disputes.

My Story

You can imagine that thousands of workers queuing in 20 different lines to check into work each day might lead to problems. We witnessed several altercations during the Check-In process. Inevitably, no dispute was identified, no worker pushed another worker, and verbal abuse was not discovered. The Root Cause was simply this: One Indian guy objected violently to being forced to stand near a Pakistani guy. The Safety Manager and I decided to spread the Safety Engineers throughout the lines of workers during Check In and Check Out to resolve the problem.

Conclusion-

My goal for writing this series of articles was triggered by my surprise at some of the responses to the younger PM queries within the Construction Topic. Within our PMP group, I suspect most members are in the I.T. field and have little experience in Managing Construction Projects. Unfortunately, despite a focus on Construction, they feel obligated to offer construction related “advice” within the Construction Topic area.  

When Construction Topic questions arrive concerning questions similar to “What is the PEP”, or “what is in the PMP” the answers are startling to me.

If I can deliver this series of Articles to the Community, I believe the benefits derived will be an increased awareness of the non-construction Professional. Hopefully, everyone that peruses these brief explanations and funny stories will gain an insight into my world.

My next article will deliver some insights into Closeout and Handover of the Completed Deliverable Project to the Owner and Operations & Maintenance Stakeholders.