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Project managers developed despite economic slowdown

19th July 2013

By: Chantelle Kotze

  

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While there are enough projects under way to employ the number of project managers in South Africa, there is a shortage of competent project and construction managers.

The challenge, therefore, is to find and retain good project managers and project team members in specialised sectors such as shaft sinking and minerals processing, says WorleyParsonsTWP project delivery officer Pieter Louw.

Despite the fact that the South African economy and global economy are slowing down, WorleyParsonsTWP will, through the acquisition of engineering project house TWP, a global mining engineering and project management company within WorleyParsons, continue to develop project managers for its current and future business, he says.

“The economic slowdown has seen a reduction in the number of mining projects in South Africa; however, mining companies are focusing on and taking advantage of the slowdown to explore and exploit prospects elsewhere in Africa, owing to lower costs for project work,” notes Louw.

WorleyParsonsTWP requires capable project managers who have a relevant tertiary qualification, in engineering or project management, which provides them with a base on which to build and train as a project man- ager. The key strengths and capabil- ities of a project manager are to motivate, inspire, lead by example and mentor and coach team mem- bers, as well as develop teamwork.

Project managers must also share a vision for the project, be good communicators, act with integrity, have empathy for team members and their competence must be reflected through experience; they must also delegate tasks and build a team that can perform and deliver the project, says Louw.

When candidates meet the relevant criteria and entry requirements and have the required strengths, they would start at junior project manager level to gain the experience and competency required at senior project manager level.

Besides this, project managers within WorleyParsonsTWP can also become portfolio managers responsible for several projects, project sponsors or project directors.

WorleyParsonsTWP continues to train and certify project managers in accordance with the American Project Management Institute’s (PMI’s) industry- recognised Project Management Professional certification, which, on completion, aligns a person who has the experience, education and competency to lead and direct projects.

The company also trains its project planners to qualify for the institute’s PMI Scheduling Professional certification, which certifies a planner to be a planning and scheduling professional, and trains its risk managers in terms of the PMI Risk Management Professional curriculum, which certifies a person to assess and identify project risks, mitigate threats and capitalise on opportunities.

“In addition to this is the collection of WorleyParsons project management processes, systems and procedures that WorleyParsonsTWP currently uses for its own project manager development,” says Louw.

Further, the WorleyParsons training school, in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, established at the start of 2012, reports that it employed all of its trainee planners on current WorleyParsonsTWP projects to expand their experience.

There are 30 trainee designers enrolled at WorleyParsons’ design school to meet the demand for designers, says Louw.

Critical Aspects
The most critical aspect of delivering a project on schedule is the management of all the project phases, says Louw; however, he highlights that projects often fail owing to a lack of sufficient preproject planning, also known as front-end loading.

Front-end loading is the process through which an understanding is gained of what a project comprises early in its life cycle and the resources required to plan and execute its specific phases.

Louw emphasises that, too often, phases are skipped and project managers move to the next phase without undertaking proper front-end loading work in an attempt to accelerate the project, but this, in turn, increases the level of project risk.

Meanwhile, it is important to define and develop the roles and responsibilities used to describe project accountabilities for each project team member, owners’ team members and the contractor party working on the initial phases of the project.

“If this process is successful and reviewed regularly throughout the development of a project, it will support the understanding of the scope definition and the capital expenditure development and management, as well as the schedule management for the execution of the different phases of the project,” explains Louw.

Also critical to project management is the management of changes either in scope or design, as working in an integrated team makes it difficult to identify changes because of the close nature of the project team, he notes. To overcome these changes, project managers need to identify when a change occurs and manage the subsequent project risks that develop, by implementing plans to mitigate the impact on the project.

WorleyParsonsTWP uses the fifth edition of the American PMI’s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBoK) as the guiding principles for its project management and execution.

The five phases of project management in the PMBoK are applicable to all projects as well as mining and mineral processing projects, while WorleyParsonsTWP also uses its own project processes and procedures to add to the volume of information available to project managers, explains Louw.

Project management relates to management of capital expen- diture to timeously deliver the project at the necessary scope and required level of quality. As a result, WorleyParsons has established so-called high-value centres worldwide, with WorleyParsonsTWP being one of these centres. They can execute project packages for clients that not only improve the delivery time and efficiency of a project but also decrease its costs.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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