The Effective Management of Time on Mega Projects

The Effective Management of Time on Mega Projects [P126]

The construction industry’s ability to effectively manage time is getting worse. If the Burj Khalifa in Dubai had been built at the same speed as the Empire State Building (completed in 1931) it would have opened two years earlier! Research by the CIOB undertaken in 2007 found most complex/mega projects failed to adequately mange time, most finished late and the situation was getting worse over time. Interestingly, the degree of failure seems to be the same regardless of the size of the penalties imposed for late completion and regardless of the form of contract used. PPP, Alliance, Partnering, D&C, and traditional forms of contract all experienced similar trends and similar levels of failure.

What the CIOB research did uncover was the significant difference in performance between simple and complex projects and on complex projects, between those using effective time management compared to those that did not. The research found:

The outcome on simple projects was not influenced by the use, or non-use of time management; success and failure rates remained the same.
The outcome on complex projects (mega-projects) was directly influenced by the effective use of time management processes. The better the use, the better the outcome.

In response to this challenge, the CIOB assembled an international team of project planning and scheduling experts (including the author) under the leadership of the then IPP, Keith Pickavance, to implement a three-phase strategy to provide the required standards of performance in effective time control. Phase 1 focuses on the education training and accreditation of project schedulers; it includes:

The development of a Guide to Good Practice in the Management of Time in Complex Projects (the Guide). This work has been completed and the Guide will be published in November 2010.
The production of an educational framework for current and future project schedulers. This work has started and Patrick Weaver is part of the development team
The accreditation of qualifications in time management.
The dissemination of the Guide to other professions in the industry.

Phase 2 will focus on the promotion of amendments to standard forms of contract to facilitate effective time management. Followed by Phase 3, which will focus on the education, training and accreditation of project planners.

The Guide has introduced a range of practical ideas to enhance the effective management of time in mega-projects which will be the focus of this paper:

The need for effective planning ahead of scheduling and the different objective of these two processes.
The concept of ‘schedule density’ and the need to schedule at an appropriate level of detail based on the contemporary knowledge available to the project team.
The need for on-going dynamic scheduling to manage time. Traditional contracts set up a fixed schedule that is used for the ‘historical reporting of failure ’. The Guide advocates processes for proactively minimising delays using schedule density.
The need to contemporaneously assess the impact of delaying events in real time based on accurate and current schedules to allow effective mitigation.

CIOB research has clearly demonstrated time is not money and the effective management of the use of time cannot be achieved by measuring cost performance or imposing cost penalties. The team that developed the Guide have between them, well over 100 years of experience managing time on major projects world-wide. This paper will identify the key elements within the Guide that proactively contribute to the successful delivery of mega projects, relate these ideas to practical examples of their use on mega-projects and offer a way forward to improve time management.

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