As a client have you chosen to manage the project yourself or leave it to your Contractor or have you decided to utilise a consultant? If it’s too much to do it by yourself and Contractors are, well they’re contractors aren’t they… you have little choice but to engage a Consultant.

Once upon a time, in bygone days, we had Consulting Engineers who would see projects through from inception through to fruition and even decommissioning. and thought of the project as “his” rather than “yours”. But that is almost history now.

However, in this day of faster, better, and more cost-effective (cheaper) we have the Project Management Consultant (PMC). They provide ideas and innovations to make the project a success. However, will your PMC develop and grow to know the project and nuances that make it unique, or will they just influence the project based on the scope gleaned during the tender rather than managing your whole project. After all the ‘project appreciation’ is done while costing up mythical man months and obtaining curriculum vitae of people who may very well not be available. The people who tender will, inevitably, not be part of the PMC team and will have little or no accountability for its execution.

PMCs, no matter how well known, will not have enough in-house resources and will hire their team from the international pool of available, and appropriately skilled and experienced, personnel; although “immediate availability” is fast becoming a skill set.

Will the newly formed PMC team really know what to do or will it apply what somebody has recalled from a ‘last job’ and apply that nugget to your unique project through reaction and imposition rather than judicious application? Such imposition may be to your cost and, if wrong, at repeated cost as corrective nuggets are applied.

And then there’s your Contractor who, by necessity, has to get things done and make them work. The project knowledge of the Contractor must, by necessity, increase exponentially after the start of the project. If the PMC’s knowledge does not stay ahead then any positive influence that a PMC may have on the project can quickly become interference as they fall behind the Contractor. In these circumstances if opinions and egos develop and become obstructive, then the project could well suffer intellectual harassment that, if left unabated, becomes intellectual abuse.

Inevitably, adverse interference leads to delays, disruption and frustration; frustration leads to confrontation; and confrontation leads to disputes. This downward spiral is caused by differences in the rate at which the project is understood, elaborated upon, and progressed. “If in doubt…stop” may be a good analogy in fog but not all parties to a project are, or want to be, fog-bound. Some want to see the way and are able to proceed with knowledge as their shining light; Contractor’s are also expected to see in the dark!

So who do you want to manage your project and how? Who will use project knowledge to light the way based on experience rather than be bound by last-job syndrome resulting in interference, delays, frustration and confrontation. It’s your choice.

Bio:

MBA, MSc DIC, BSc; Chartered Engineer, Chartered Geologist, PMP

Over thirty years’ experience on large multidisciplinary infrastructure projects including rail, metro systems, airports, roads, marine works and reclamation, hydropower, tunnels and underground excavations.

Project management; design & construction management; and contract administrative in all project phases from feasibility, planning & design, procurement, implementation, execution and completion on Engineer’s Design and Design & Build schemes.