November 19, 2014 by Kim Kemp. Posted on http://www.constructionweekonline.com/
In an interview with CWQ, Shamma elaborated: “I think the requirement of good project management is to ensure that the person who is in charge of the projects management, the director of a particular project, has the experience within the field in which he will be project managing. For example, if he is to project manage a mall development, it makes sense that his experience is within that sector of the industry.
“Their skills are best utilised in areas in which they have most experience. The worst mistake is to bring someone with no experience in that field and then put them in charge of it. These people know what’s coming and they’ve seen the problems before; it’s lessons learnt.”
With a number of project tenders on hold, it makes sense to ensure that information gathering is accurate and timeous. Shamma concurs that tenders are often incomplete when submitted, leading to delays.
“MEP has traditionally been a problem area. Typically there are clashes between MEP and structure. However, there are certain new technologies that help deal with this. BIM is certainly a tool that we are successfully using [on the Doha Festival City project] as it helps iron out the clashes before they occur. Case in point is IKEA, which has a significant MEP portion to it, and through using BIM it ran smoothly and we were able to deliver the project in good time.”
Shamma stressed that the project manager must have these additional skills: “The PM must have good MEP experience, with dedicated MEP staff and a specialist who has his own expertise in MEP in a specific discipline. He must also have BIM skills, specific to the category of project on which work is undertaken eg: malls, entertainment areas, hotels etc.
“Project management is about advanced planning and getting the right people.”
According to Shamma: “Good project manager dip into their pool of experience from lessons learned and anticipates what is going to be the problem and deal with it from an early stage. Then it will not run into delays or extra costs as they can be mitigated.”
Source: www.constructionweekonline.com/article-31334-good-project-managers-avoid-project-delays
