e-Builder to Host Webinar on Integrated Project Delivery

Construction industry thought leaders to share their insights on Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and technology’s role as an enabler. The presentation will include a discussion on how the use of BIM, Project Information Management Systems, and the Internet can impact Integrated Project Delivery.

Ft. Lauderdale, FL (PRWEB) May 24, 2009 — e-Builder, a provider of capital program and project management software, will host an executive webinar on Integrated Project Delivery June 4th at 1 p.m. EDT. The webinar, Integrated Project Delivery: Theory and Practice, will be presented by Mr. Charles (Chuck) Thomsen, FAIA and Mr. Sid Sanders, VP Facilities and Construction, The Methodist Hospital System, who will discuss the principles of IPD, and on the practical side, review the challenges, hurdles, and benefits of applying IPD to a $2 billion healthcare program. Please register at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/847663593

The discussion will address integrating diverse project teams, defining diverse and changing facility requirements, integrating diverse information, and managing diverse leadership and organizational behaviors. Part of the presentation will include a discussion on how the use of BIM, Project Information Management Systems, and the Internet can impact Integrated Project Delivery. Jonathan Antevy, e-Builder co-founder and CEO, will moderate the session. Learning objectives include:
1. Understanding how to assemble extended project and program teams, including AEs, consultants, CMs, manufacturers, fabricators, and specialty subcontractors at both the project and program levels
2. Learning to identify IPD principles designed to lower project costs and to shorten schedules
3. Producing high-performance, cost-effective designs that are sustainable, code compliant, and that are adaptable to the change that is common during and after health care construction.

About the Speakers
Sid Sanders is Vice President for Facilities and Construction at The Methodist Hospital System in Houston, Texas. He is responsible for a $2 billion capital construction program. Mr. Sanders is also a member of the Design Committee for the George W. Bush Presidential Library.Prior to joining Methodist, Mr. Sanders was the Associate Vice Chancellor for Facilities Planning and Construction for The University of Texas System, responsible for a $5 billion capital construction program for the 15 Institutions (9 Academic Institutions and 6 Health Institutions) within the UT System.

Mr. Sanders has a degree in Architecture and an MBA in Finance from the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to graduate school, he was the managing partner of a regionally based Architectural/Planning firm.

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The difference between projects and programmes

Many of us would class ourselves as project managers, and some of us aspire to be programme managers.  But is programme management just about managing bigger projects?  PMTips spoke to J. LeRoy Ward, author of Dictionary of Project Management Terms and Executive Vice President at ESI International, a global learning company.

What’s the difference between a project and a program?

In my book, Dictionary of Project Management Terms, I define a project as a temporary undertaking to create a unique product or service.  A project has a defined start and end point and specific objectives that, when attained, signify completion.  A programme, on the other hand, is defined as a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing the projects individually.  A programme may also include elements of on-going, operational work.  So, a programme is comprised of multiple projects and is created to obtain broad organizational or technical objectives.  There are many differences between a project and a programme including scope, benefits realization, time, and other variables.  One notable difference is time; for example, a project by definition has a beginning and an end (or at least one hopes so!); certain programmes, while having a beginning may not have an end.  A classic example of one of these types of programmes is an annual construction programme.

There seems to be more information around now on programme management.  Is it really taking off?

I have found in my travels and experience that programme management, although firmly embedded in certain industry verticals such as defence, is a new idea and concept in the commercial area.  During the past several years, I have had many conversations with our clients who are realizing that many of the work initiatives they have undertaken, either for themselves or for their clients, are really programmes, not projects, and they are looking for the best way to manage them.  The U.K. government (Office of Government Commerce) recognized this a while ago when it published Managing Successful Programmes. One can consider it a guide for programme management.  Since it was published in 2003, I have seen an increasing number of books and articles on the topic, but it pales in comparison to the wealth of literature available for project management.  The Project Management Institute has also recognized the value of programme management and recently introduced the Program Management Professional (PgMP®) credential. It appears that programme management, although a concept that has been around for many, many years, is now seeing a greater level of interest in the global community.

How would you define the difference in skill sets between a project and a programme manager?

The skill sets definitely overlap and it’s a bit artificial to try to separate the two.  Nonetheless, there are differences which I tend to see along a continuum.  In my experience as both a project and programme manager, the latter requires more refined skills in business areas such as negotiation, organizational change management, financial management, consensus building, and political savvy.  Additionally, a programme manager needs to always keep his or her eye on the achieving the intended benefits of the program which can be different and apart from the objectives of any individual project.

What differs for a programme manager is the degree of expertise, application, and focus.  Because a programme manager is really more of a business manager, programme managers do not necessarily have strong project management backgrounds.  They hail from a variety of disciplines.  To be sure, one finds many MBA’s as programme managers as well as those having backgrounds in various technical and scientific fields.

Can a project manager ever be a good programme manager?

Yes, of course, but one may never assume that simply because an individual is a competent project manager that he or she will be successful in programme management as well.

One problem that programme managers come up against is the terminology.  If you are working on a programme but your stakeholders still insist  on using the word ‘project’, what can you do to ensure the  message gets across that it is bigger than just one piece of work?

One needs to “drip feed” the notion that what they are working on is really a programme of interconnected projects rather than a project itself.  One way to do this is to make sure that, as a programme manager, one is meeting with all project managers on a regular basis as a group.   As each project manager is providing status and discussing his or her contribution to the greater whole, it will become evident that the work to be done is much broader and more comprehensive than a single project.  That said, there are many companies that have their own vernacular which may be very difficult to change so one should not buck the “system” too much as it simply isn’t worth the political capital.  Focusing on the work to be done, more than the way it is described, will mean success for the programme manager.

That’s great advice, thanks!  Do you have another top tip for effective programme management?

Always keep in mind the stated benefits for launching the programme in the first place.  For example, we are now implementing a content management system in the company.  The reason we are doing this, broadly speaking, is to enable ESI to develop courses faster, better, and with less cost.  The CMS program consists of multiple projects, from organizing our vast library of materials, to technical implementation, training, and other things.  As a programme manager, our VP for Product Development, while needing to ensure that each project is completed, needs to ensure that the sum total of all the projects will meet our overall business goal of facilitating our product development process.  In many programmes, there is a position called “benefits realization manager” simply to ensure that the business benefits are always front and center.

Thanks!

CMS adoption in Universities

I came across this rather interesting survey conducted by UCDavis. The focus of this survey was to analyze how Universities across the country used Content Management Systems.

With a total of 129 respondents the results were pretty interesting.

Listed below is a list of the scope and goals of this particular survey:

Project Goals

• Facilitate the creation and management of standards-compliant Web sites
• Support organizational consistency in messaging, branding and identity
• Meet legal requirements for Web content accessibility
• Implement technical and graphic design continuity throughout the University’s Web sites
• Decrease the need for specialized technical skills, staff, and resources for Web publishing needs
• Provide a centralized, dynamic, flexible and high quality campus Web infrastructure

Project Scope

• Define the university’s specific business and functional requirements for a CMS
• Evaluate available CMS solutions and their ability to meet the University’s needs
• Develop a plan for the efficient implementation of a selected solution, making the new CMS available to all UC Davis constituents
• Execute the CMS implementation plan, ensuring that all necessary infrastructure and functionality are integrated
• Deploy UC Davis Web content under a unified, centralized CMS
• Provide adequate training and support to campus web masters who will be using the new CMS

What was very apparent in the results was the fact that an overwhelming number of institutes seemed to prefer the low cost of an open source application. A very select number of institutes ( less that 10%) seemed to go in for a more costly enterprise level CMS.

Go through this survey and let me know what your thoughts are…

Justifying your Content Management Investment

The biggest problem most people face with internal WCM ( web content management system ) deployments is when someone asks you to justify the investment in the technology.

Let’s face it, at the end of the day there needs to be an ROI. Past experience, and common sense tells us that most companies feel its not a good practice to shell out large sums of money if they don’t see a value in it. So it now becomes your job to figure out how you can present a business case to your executive panel of decision makers ( i.e: the folks with the money ) .

Before we get into the details of the various benefits, the one thing you need to keep at the top of your mind is what your senior management perceives as a benefit. Always, lead with those benefits, the rest will serve as icing on the cake.

So what are the Benefits you can take to your senior management?

Accelerate time to market – as with most companies, the faster they get their products/services to the market the more they stand to gain. A WCM allows you to print and distribute marketing collateral and sales catalogs. This drastically reduces the travel time between the content owners to the content consumers ( clients ). This improves ROI and cash flow – definitely something your management would be interested in.

Process efficiency – A good WCM should reduce the time spent on product and information updates, the use of work flows would dramatically increase the efficiency of the information collation process. Version control also helps by improving the tracking ability of work being done.

Increased transactions – A CMS can help you organize your content efficiently and help provide a better context around your products and services. By increasing the quality and intractability of your content you can dramatically increase visitor interaction with the content.

Wiki’s in Organizations

A Wiki is a collaborative platform for information creation that takes online collaboration to a whole new level. Wikipedia is a classic example of how powerful a Wiki can get.

The form that it takes on Wikipedia is of a very open nature, allowing just about anyone to add, edit and delete content. While conventional thinking does give pause to the approach taken, the underlying thought here is that the constructiveness of users far outweighs their destructiveness, and so far this has proved to be true. However there have been a number of controversies  that have sprung up as a result of this, mostly dealing with two opposing views around a subject which after numerous edits and counter edits end up being locked down by moderators.

While this model does seem to prevail in the world wide web Corporations have a much lower level of tolerance for such “complexities”. To implement a wiki within an organization would require a tremendous focus on security controls. This being said there has been a noticeable difference in their willingness to implement certain “Web 2.0? tools.

There are a number of Wiki tools out there ( Open source and otherwise ). Choosing the right one would depend on the features you are looking for. If security is high on your list of items and your company is already leveraging a CMS like Sharepoint you might be happy to note that in its current release form i.e : MOSS 2007 there exists a Wiki functionality. However this is a Wiki in its most basic form and one that i would not recommend if you are pursuing a more advanced solution. Though it does address your requirements of hacking and virus protection considering it comes under the umbrella of a Content Management Solution.

In future posts we can discusss the functionalities and limitations of the SharePoint Wiki as well as how you can leverage Wiki’s within both your Project and organization.