Global growth is spawning numerous mega projects to provide infrastructure for increasing populations and economic development. The current era of mega projects will enjoy the experience of decades of modern growth and innovative 21st century technology to provide improved cost and schedule management with a higher quality of life in the project community.
In another essay, the above writers said experience in mega projects needs five critical elements for success: they are
planning, community development, collaboration, third party facilitation, and technology use.
Each element has corresponding information technology and other advances that augment performance. In this way, experience is integrated with technology to optimize mega project performance.
What follows is a strategic review of each element. Owner/investors, engineering/procurement/construction and operator executives and managers, and community leaders should familiarize themselves with the elements, and then enhance their plans through addressing them in a timely and complete manner with the new technology.
They stresses that one of the important challenges in a mega project is getting your hands around what needs to be done and working the priorities.
Planning efforts need to help people at all levels of the mega project anticipate the demands on their time and resources. As there are many different components of the project which are moving concurrently, the task of mega project planning is complex.
One of the dangers to planning in mega projects is getting too caught up in the complexity and shutting out things like the end result, what is next, and how to cooperate or share information to enable others. This phenomenon of over delving into the complexity can even create a contagious psychological depression in leaders and workers, making people think the task is impossible.
This is why the planning process needs to lift people's heads up to see progress and where the project is headed, they said. Periodic progress reports and the celebration of either project advancement or tough challenges managed are important to motivation. At times it may just be recognition of difficulties and stating appreciation for settling down to the work which will move the project forward. In good or bad situations, recognition of the challenge and the good effort being made motivates forward motion.
Transparency is an important value in planning. They underscored that the engagement of people at all levels in the periodic reviews is a beginning to transparency. People in the project need to be taught the importance of seeing a problem, surfacing it quickly, and mustering resources to address the problem; or surfacing a problem and accepting it is in cue for resources but must wait. Rumors, panic and resentment of being placed in line to await resources to solve a problem can foster dysfunctions in the project community. Knowing that pushing your agenda can hurt the overall project is an important learning. At some point in the project, others will have to show such restraint to permit your progress. Workers at all levels benefit from progress reports and other feedback. They benefit too from training in which the nature of projects is explained, offering explanations for events or decisions, and giving pause to not launch into speculation or rumors. Otherwise, project workers will guess at what is happening and that can be bad for project performance.
Two technologies promote good project awareness and communication. Internet website broadcasting, especially if tied to an alerting system, can tell people what is happening. It is important to have employee involvement in administering the broadcasting and to not have everything sound like company spin. Telling people honestly what is happening is going to bolster the credibility of the broadcast system. When issues and reports are on the Internet website, employees can "tune in" to find out what is happening and help squelch rumors and panic.
Another technology of use is an enterprise business system that promotes instant messaging and emails throughout the work system in concert with documentation exchange, scheduling and tracking, work order systems, pay systems and more that are components of enterprise systems. Proper training is needed to keep the focus of the system's use on the project. By in large, promoting easy communication will foster a focus on project momentum rather than distractions. The enterprise system contributes positively to a work emphasis by making work communication easier. Systems that solve problems and make things happen close to the work to be done shift attention to project performance.
Transparency is not always 100 percent all the time. There are times and places for closed door discussions. These may involve employee rights, sensitive security matters or financial and operating issues that need to be worked into clear options before engaging broader audiences. "Transparency must be carefully managed. Too many 'secret' sessions, and people will doubt transparency. Every secret session opens the door to manipulation and rumor as people claim knowledge they do not have and present their guesses as fact, or people spend time trying to find out what took place ... time better spend doing work," they said.
There is no way to completely defeat "organization grapevines" or the rumor mills of projects. "You can minimize their impact with openness, timely reports and other good communication. Technology making information easily accessible about project status and issues encourages workers and others to turn first to the website and avoid rumors. Rumors have short lives when people have a means to quickly and easily find out what is really happening," they pointed out.
Plans are not static, in particular in mega projects. There is a careful balance to be managed between moving forward on a plan and adaptation. Too much adaptation can initiate of pattern of decline in other aspects of the project or future plans. The original plan may have taken into account all the interfaces that the suddenness of the on-the-fly change does not permit or is forgotten. Every significant change needs to be reassessed along numerous other influences to project progress.
This is one place where technology can help. There are many decision-making tools that can help project leadership and other stakeholders to "see" the entire project. When a change is made, these tools prompt consideration of other influences to the decision.
One technology is the establishment of a command center. These are facilities in which information is managed. All the key issues and decisions with background information are put at the fingertips of project leaders. The facility in concert with websites providing a virtual experience, is a sophisticated multi-media center that display visualizations in real time with data, analysis and even images of the project as things are happening, or previously recorded. In the command center, the pulse of the project can be taken and pertinent information to a decision assembled. There is also a network reaching to the many stakeholders to gather information and share decisions.
The command center's many multimedia tools permit project leaders and staff to see the landscape of the project at once. Included in the landscape is computer-guided analysis to look at "What If's," permitting the command center to look at several scenarios before choosing a direction. The many influences impacting the project along with experts' statements can be seen. The command center can even promote group consensus by electronically polling and posting preferences from all angles.
The command center can be augmented with decision-making software that assists planning and creates audit trails for project stewardship. The same suite of information technology solutions can alert people anywhere in the project to a decision or event; and expedite accounting for payments, permitting technicians and work teams to better manage their work by acquiring what they need when they need it. Mobile computing engines bring these transactions and work scheduling to the lowest possible level closest to where work actually gets done ... pre-approved limits, instantaneous fraud detection, and audit trails to bolster confidence in delegation. Again, security permits people access to what they need to know and both protects sensitive information and deters abuse.
Mobile computing brings the capability of the command center to any project location and fosters optimization of tasks. When plans need to be adapted, the multitude of interfaces can be better anticipated for their influence or need to be taken into account for the optimal needs of the project.
Command centers are no longer static facilities. Involvement can be managed to include people in multiple locations at different levels of information technology, from the highly advanced blade processors to lap tops to personal digital assistants (PDA's). People in the field or far away locations can be involved. This empowers self-initiation in harmony with overall plans.
Human resource planning includes the important tasks of bringing on the people with the right skills and talents. Decision making software can align requirements with the talent pool. Further the software can assist in selection and placement.
Moreover, they emphasized that training is a big part of human resource planning and technology now expedites this process with higher quality instruction at less cost and more means for reinforcing learning on the job where it counts most.
Dynamic simulations are used that are attractive to young people who have been raised with game technology and computers. The simulations are often more effective than classroom training and certainly a significant reinforcement.
By J. Garrett Ralls and Dr. Nazir Khaja
© Arab News 2007
