Managing Projects Flashcards
What information would you expect from the design team at RIBA Stage 4?
Technical design.
- Fully coordinated services, structure & architecture
- Fully detailed
- Specialist subcontractor design & spec
- Construction issue - in Traditional procurement this is what is priced and built against
What’s the difference between RIBA Plan of Work 2013 and 2020?
- Adapted to increased use of BIM
- Aftercare activities starting in Stage 6: Handover
- Different options for planning permission depending on the procurement route
- Reinforces intention that Stage 4: Technical Design includes all the design information required for construction
- New Sustainability guidance
- Reinforces requirement to appoint a sustainability champion to create a sustainability strategy at the outset of the project
- Stage name changes: Developed design is now Spatial Coordination; Construction is now Manufacturing and Construction
What level of information would you expect at Stage 2?
- Architectural Concept incorporating Strategic Engineering requirements and aligned to Cost Plan, Project Strategies and Outline Specification
- Final project brief issued
What level of information would you expect at Stage 3?
- Spatially coordinated design
- Updated proposals from structural design and building services systems
- Aligned with Cost Plan and Outline Specification
What is ISO 9001?
A certified quality management system for organisations who want to prove their ability to provide products and services that meet the needs of their customers and other relevant stakeholders
What information is included in a PEP?
- Project overview
- Project programme
- Project organisation
- Control procedures
- Stakeholder management
- Communication strategy
- H&S strategy
- Quality assurance approach
- Soft landing approach
- Commissioning / handover strategy
What is a project audit?
- An opportunity to review project challenges, risks and processes
- Reflect on whether the project is still meeting core objectives
What could be included in a post-project audit (lessons learned) review?
- Quality of briefing documents
- Quality of design
- Quality of cost information
- Effectiveness of communications
- Performance of the project team
- Construction issues - quality, H&S, programme
What is value engineering?
- Method to eliminate any unnecessary costs and/or increase the value of a specification or product
- Could be related to design, specification or cost
What are the benefits of value engineering?
1) Improved performance
2) Identification of alternative designs or solutions
3) Reduced costs
4) Added value
What are the risks associated with value engineering?
- Becomes detached from Value Management
- Undertaken too late to be effective
- Inadequate information causing incorrect assumptions
- Insufficient participation by stakeholders (buy-in)
- Insufficient time allocated for the process
- Unknown knock-on effects to other elements of the design
- Reduced ability to meet project brief
- Reduced design performance
What is Value Management?
- Overall concept of managing the balance between benefits and costs throughout the project
- Clearly defining a client’s strategic objectives
- Considering optimum solutions
- Deciding which provides the optimum lifetime value to the client
- Includes value engineering as part of the process
What advice would you give a client on how to deliver a project with no scope creep?
- PEP including control processes (change control, stage gate governance)
- Stakeholder Management
- Effective communication
- Effective project management
- Robust Project Brief
How would you go about managing a site manager who is really excellent at managing the operatives on site but very poor at communication and project administration?
- Be proactive - set up regular meetings, develop simple reporting tools
- Recommend a contract administration system
- Offer constructive feedback on reports, etc.
- Scrutinise the programme
- Maintain good records and communication
- Maintain a client-side reporting structure
- Issue early warnings and escalate poor performance
Imagine I’m a client and I give you a project very similar to your case study project, what advice would you give me on what needed to be in a feasibility study for that project?
1) A feasibility study is completed at RIBA 1 to determine whether or not a proposed project is practical and affordable, and to select a preferred option if there are different solutions.
2) It should contain:
- Project objectives
- Site details / constraints
- Statutory requirements, e.g. Planning
- Options appraisal
- Space requirements
- Sketch arrangement plans
- Order of cost estimate
- Conclusions and recommendations (preferred option)
When would you implement a change control process and what would you do?
Usually from RIBA 3 when the Project Brief is fixed
Process:
1) Identify the need for change, using a form
2) Design solution is explored
3) Cost impact evaluation
4) Report to client
5) If rejected, design solution revisited
6) If accepted, project management action to instruct the change, direct detailed design, update cost documents and programme
Earned Value Management is one of the tools we can use in project controls – can you explain how you used it?
A technique used to assess project progress by comparing the amount and cost of work that was planned to have been done by a particular stage with the amount that has actually been done and what it has actually cost.
This gives a good indication of how the project is progressing compared to what was planned and enables forecasts to be made about the eventual cost and time that will be required to complete the project.
There are two indicators of Earned Value, do you know what they are?
- Cost Performance Index (CPI) is the Budgeted Cost of Work Performed divided by the Actual Cost of Work Performed (BCWP / ACWP)
- A negative number indicates that the project is overbudget, a positive indicates that its underbudget
- Schedule Performance Index (SPI) is the Budgeted Cost of Work Performed divided by the Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWP / BCWS)
- A negative number indicates that the project is behind schedule
In earned value analysis, what is ACWP, BCWP and BCWS?
You must first understand the duration of an activity, the cost/day and the total cost of the activity.
Actual Cost of Work Performed (ACWP) - the actual cost of the work completed
Budgeted Cost of Work Performed (BCWP) - the budgeted cost of the work completed
Budgeted Cost of Work Scheduled (BCWP) - the budgeted cost of the work scheduled to complete
Cost Variance (CV) = BCWP - ACWP
Schedule Variance (SV) = BCWP - BCWS
What is the Earned Value metric?
The money we should have spent for the work we have actually completed, i.e. the Budgeted Cost of Work Performed
What is Soft Landings?
A collection of processes to ease the transition between Project and Operations in order to drive maximum benefit.
What are Statutory Consents?
Consents you must obtain by law. I.e., Planning and Building Regulations
What is a S106 Agreement?
The legal agreement between an application and authority to implement a mitigation of the development. I.e., a bus stop, junction or provide money.
What is a Section 278 Agreement?
Legal agreement between Highways Authority and Application to create an interface to the national network.
