BRAMCON PROJECT CONSULTANTS LTD.

TRAINING PROGRAMS

One-Day Project Management Workshops — General Audience

Avoiding the High Cost of Poor Communications

Why be concerned about communications?

It is reported that 70% of unsuccessful projects list poor communications as a root cause of failure.

Every audit we have ever conducted included better communications as a lessons learned.

Our experience is that most problems in projects can be traced to some kind of communication failure.

In this one-day session, we will look at:

root causes of poor communications
failure-prone areas
barriers to effective communication
body language - communicating without speaking

Remedies will include:

understanding the various channels of communication and their limitations
identifying personality types and their preferred communication style
selecting the appropriate communication channel and style
enhancing communication clarity in emails and meetings
tools and templates for improving both written and verbal communications

Influencing Decisions — Politics in Project Management

The politics that will be covered during this seminar have nothing to do with elections! This seminar is about the ability to influence decisions while maintaining ethical behavior. While the politically naïve would believe that engineering projects are above any non-technical considerations, the reality is that managing the interests of multiple, diverse stakeholders is an essential skill for those involved in engineering projects of any size. Organizations need engineers who are not only technically and managerially competent, but also politically savvy. Participants will learn to assess the political climate within an organization and/or project team to determine how support can be enhanced and opposition reduced.

Topics presented will include:

What is Machiavellian and is it Relevant in the 21st Century?

Sources of Power

Intimidation Rituals

Organizationsal Structures and Governance

Organizational Politics Mapping Technique and Case Studies

Developing Strategies

Negotiating Skills and Case Study

Managing Capital Project Costs

The subject of managing project costs has always been a challenge, but in our current environment of rapidly escalating costs and competition for scarce resources, it is even more so. This full-day course is for engineers involved in capital projects, not for accountants. Although we must cover how project cost managment systems tie in to corporate accounting systems, it is more about forecasting future costs than recording historical costs.

Topics presented will include:

The Hard Skills of Cost Management

Influencing the Cost Curve
WBS and Accounting Codes
Cost Estimates and Work Packages
Contingency and Reserves
Recasting a Capital Cost Estimate into a Control Budget
The Budget Change Process
Forecasting Final Costs
Assessing the Outstanding Risks
Managing Contingency, Reserves, Escalatioin, and Interest during Implementation Phase
Systems for Cost Management (Excel, PMT for MOTI, Integrated Systems)
Earned Value

The Soft Skills of Cost Management

Extracting the Forecasts for Work Packages
Risk-Based Approach to Contingency Analysis
Managing the Sponsors and their Reserves
Politics and Cost Management
Communications and Cost Management

Project Delivery Options

Regardless of whether one calls them project delivery options or contracting strategies, there is a seemingly-endless list of different ways to achieve the same end. Methods have evolved from the Master Builder approach in the ancient world to the highly-fractured options that have dominated construction projects over the past decades. We now appear to be on a trend of integrating design and construction.

Traditional Project Delivery Options

Design-Bid-Build
Construction Management —For Fee or At Risk
Engineering, Procurement & Construction(EPC) and Engineering, Procurement, & Construction Management(EPCM)
Design-Build

5-Step Selection Process

Number of Packages
Organization Type
Method of Payment
Type of Award
Evaluation Method

New Project Delivery Options

Bidding the Risk
Competitive Dialogue
Design-Assist
Job Order Costing(JOC) and Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ)
Early Contractor Involvement(ECI)
Trend Back to Teamwork (Master Builder and Alliancing)
Lean Construction
Integrated Project Delivery(IPD)
Bleeding Edge

All workshops will consist of a number of group exercises to provide useable experience.

Management Consulting Sessions For Specific Projects

The Partnering Process — Prevention not Protectionism

Even after contracts are signed, the parties can choose how they will conduct themselves within the terms of the contract by consciously choosing to be partners in success (the win-win approach) rather than just protecting their respective interests (the win-lose approach). After presenting the what, why and how of a typical partnering session, the attendees will break into groups and simulate a partnering session.

Project Governance — Managing Your Sponsors

Governance gets a lot of press these days and generally refers to organization structures that prevent unethical corporate practices. In the project environment,the term governance is used to describe the processes for managing "up the organization". While the project management literature has significant material on the organization of the project team (those who report to the project manager), there is little on what governance structures are desirable and how to implement them. This interactive workshop provides some lecture material on the topic, followed by a workshop on establishing an appropriate structure for technology projects.

Project Success Criteria and Team Building — Based on a Technology Project

The workshop starts with an outline of an actual international mega-project without actually identifying the project. After the preamble that sets the stage for the workshops, the attendees will break into groups and independently develop their lists of criteria for project success. After providing more background on the sponsors of the case study project but still not identifying the project, the groups will be asked how they would enhance project success by creating a project team out of diverse or divided groups.

The facilitator identifies the Case Study Project and its history after which the attendees review:

their Success Factors in light of the case study

their Team Building Proposals in light of the case study

other lessons learned from the case study