Planning Skills for the Project Team

Instructor John Koontz

November 8, 2023 – 7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Breakfast and Lunch Served

Location TBD

See event on our calendar

Who Should Attend:  Junior and senior level project management personnel such as field engineers, project engineers, assistant project managers, project managers, senior project managers, estimators, senior estimators, etc.

All great project managers are master planners; there is no such thing as a great project manager who is a “decent” planner. All wildly successful projects are incredibly well planned by all members of the project team; project manager, foreman, fabrication manager, coordination manager, safety manager, warehouse manager, purchasing manager, etc. The project manager is the “president of the project” and is ultimately responsible for all project planning and the quality of that planning. This session will focus on the project manager’s role and responsibilities in project planning and the three stages of planning; 1) Information Turnover, 2) Preconstruction Planning, and 3) Short Interval Planning. This session will also focus on the direct relationship between planning, productivity, and profitability. Topics include:
• What is the “Project Outcome influence Curve” and how does it affect project success or failure?
• When do a project manager and foreman have the majority of their ability to control project outcome and when do they lose most of their ability to control project outcome?
• Why is project planning more critical to success than ever before?
• Why is project planning more difficult to do than ever before?
• How does project type affect project planning?
• How does customer type affect project planning?
• How does size of project affect project planning?
• This session covers all the fundamentals for conducting an effective turnover meeting.
• Energetic in-class discussion will identify thorough pre-construction planning as a mandatory process for all projects.
• Investing project management resources in pre-construction project planning yields significantly higher productivity and profitability.
• Conducting an effective turnover meeting to maximize project profitability through the timely and complete transfer of information from estimators to project managers. They provide for standardized information exchange and facilitate project planning and control.
• What is a turnover meeting and why are they mandatory on ALL projects?
• What are the primary objectives of a turnover meeting?
• What is the relationship between planning, productivity, and profitability?
• What is the foreman’s role and responsibility for planning and how is it related to the project manager’s role?
• Why must the project manager and the foreman plan the project together?
• Why must all projects have a mechanical schedule? If you have no schedule you have no plan.
• What is short interval planning?
• Why is short interval planning so important?
• How does short interval planning affect productivity?
• What is the connection between great planning, great documentation and great cost control.