By Martin Preston
THE majority of the features of a project finance loan agreement are the same as a corporate loan agreement. However, because the basis on which the lenders are advancing the loan is the forecast revenues of the project, rather than the assets or creditworthiness of the sponsors, the risks taken by the lenders and, therefore, the controls that they require under the loan agreement, are greater than would be required under a corporate loan agreement. Inevitably, some of these additional controls impact on the construction contract.

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by Sarah Blackman

zoomNets can be used to eliminate fall hazards but personal protective equipment should also be used when working at height.next »In order to prevent injuries or fatalities at work, companies should go out of their way to reduce hazards wherever possible. Where there is the slightest risk that someone could get hurt, personal protective equipment should always be used, as experts tell Facilities Management Middle East. (Read more..)

The Cost Management Plan describes the process that will be used to manage the project budget including tracking current expenditures, upcoming expenses, identifying potential budget overruns and evaluating overall project spending against the budget. The components of the Cost Management Plan can include:

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The Schedule Management Plan describes the process that will be used to manage the project schedule including tracking activities in progress, identifying activities to be completed, measuring activity performance against allocated time, identification of potential project delays, and evaluating overall project performance. The components of the Schedule Management Plan can include: (Read more..)

The majority of respondents pointed to improper planning and methodology (78 per cent), lack of communication (75 percent), and unrealistic target completion dates (67 percent) as the top three contributing factors to project failure. They also identified inadequate commitment and involvement from senior management (59 percent), insufficient budgets and resources (56 percent), too many assumptions and unknowns (51 percent), project politics and conflicts (38 percent), lack of set targets or measurable results (45 percent), and the formation of the wrong project team (27 percent) as other major causes. (Read more..)

Not everyone believes in project managers. Some common complaints include:

• They focus on planning and processes, and in the end, don’t produce anything of value.
• They speak using business and project management double-talk, and produce only papers, charts,
  graphs, analysis, etc, to justify why no actual product was going into production.
• They have a lack of real experience in the subject area, and they do not know how to actually build a final deliverable. (Read more..)

by Conrad Egbert
With the market having fallen 40% until now, many clients, contractors and suppliers across the region have begun to renegotiate contracts. CW talks to some of the top experts in the industry to find out what they think about the trend. Last week, CW discovered that City of Arabia – the Ilyas & Mustafa Galadari owned US $3 billion development – is currently renegotiating certain contracts. (Read more..)

Manage Change

It is said that the only constant in the world is change. You can make perfect plans, but they cannot account for every potential change that may occur. The longer your project, the more likely you will be dealing with changes. This is one reason why the TenStep process understands that the initial definition and planning processes do not have to be perfect. You and your team need to do the best job you can given what you know at the time. That is good enough. After that you need to manage the changes. (Read more..)

By Michael Strogoff, AIA

Effective negotiating requires that parties understand each other’s goals, aspirations and underlying concerns. Some of these can be ascertained indirectly: clients can gain a preliminary understanding of what’s important to design professionals through reading their statements of qualifications and other marketing collateral; design professionals can gain insight into a client’s perspective through reading their request for qualifications, talking to design professionals that previously worked with the client, or through third parties that know the client. No matter how much prior research is done, however, it is only when parties meet in person to negotiate that they can fully understand what drives each other. To design professionals, this means negotiating with a client’s key decision-maker. (Read more..)