Tuesday, July 29, 2003

Failure to start

It is a front page news in the NST to-day.The Work Minister warned to terminate contractors that fail to start work within a month from the date of possesion of site.The main reason is to avoid delays in project implementation.

As a student of project management( I also teach sometimes), we must list down ALL type of delays and the major causes of project delay.When we understand what, where, who,why,when and how,then only we can properly address the issue.

How about the higher issues of achieving project goals and objectives?

IMHO,most projects will have problems due to incompetent stakeholders.
Failure to start is failure to complete.

Monday, July 28, 2003

Risk management

I am pleasantly suprised when a friend talked about risk management in his company projects.He is the project director in his company and he told me the project get into problems not because of technology but due to problems from his people.That is music to my ears. And thank God, this gentleman knows something about project management.Many pretend they know a lot about project management;in fact they know very little.

Then, as usual, I began to talk more than I am supposed to in this subject of my passion.What else? I ended getting a talk to deliver to my friend's staff on 7.8.2003 .That is my small contribution to the good project management practice in Malaysia.

My first guru in project management told me that 80% of PM is risk management.He agreed.

Thursday, July 24, 2003

School Lab Project

According to newspapers reports, the Minister of Education blamed solely the PMC and the Contractor for the delays. The MOE is just the project owner.Period!

Who appointed the PMC and the Contractor?
Does outsourcing the work to others relieve the responsibility and accountability of the project owner?

Thursday, July 17, 2003

To-day I conmpleted the part 11 of JKR PM course for 3rd batch. A few of them said that our course should also be given to the project people at state level. My team has taken note as were customers focussed and we practise PM methodology ourselves. Next week, we will come with proposals.

My partner bought two latest books on PM.I think they are also good for my reference. One is Portable MBA in Project Management by Eric Virzuh and the other is from UK.

Tuesday, July 08, 2003

JKR requires that contractor must submit a program of work within 14 days. What quality of work program can contractor comes up within such a short time? It will be full of assumptions and certainly there will be a lot of uncertainties built within the program. I think three months is more appropriate.

Friday, July 04, 2003

On the 7th of July,2003, I am starting another session on PM course.
Books recommended for further reading:

1. PMBOK-Project management body of knowledge-PMI
2. The fast Forward MBA in Project Management- Eric Virzuh
3. Project Management for Dummies-Stanley E Portny