General Management, PMP Hints, Project Management

Getting Better from Poor Performers

In organizations where poor performers are (involuntarily) allowed to thrive, the levels of productivity and morale take deep plunges, and turnover increases. When organizations impose no checks on performance, top performers leave because they want to avoid associating with a management that tolerates mediocrity. With only mediocre employees staying on, the work culture evolves to accommodate mediocrity. This has a damaging, long-term effect on productivity and, even worse, the organization’s reputation. …

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PMP Hints

Find Errors as Early as Possible

A Hewlett-Packard executive once noted, “If you catch a two cent resistor before you use it and throw it away, you lose two cents.  If you don’t find it until it has been soldered into a computer component, it may cost $10 to repair the part.  If you don’t catch the component until it is in the computer . . . the expense may exceed the manufacturing cost.” …

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Contract Administration

Insurance and indemnities

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by Dennis Brand

The insurance clauses or provisions in a contract will often state the employer’s requirements as to the types of insurance and the required minimum amounts. Sometimes the amount of insurance is linked to the limit of liability under the contract – and, while there is no objection to this in principal, the required amount of insurance should not be more. Moreover, one must take care to ensure that the insurance provisions do not allow for liability which is separate or in excess of the overall limited liability under the contract. …

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PMP Hints, Project Management

Pareto Analysis

Pareto analysis can be used when you encounter multiple related problems or a common problem with multiple causes. In this technique you are also able to collect metrics on how many times each problem or cause occurs. The purpose of Pareto Analysis is to observe the problems and determine their frequency of occurrence. This, in turn, gives you the information you need to prioritize your effort to ensure you are spending your time where it will have the most positive impact. …

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Contract Administration

Factors to consider when preparing a disruption claim

by David Merritt

Disruption claims are routinely made during the course of a construction project yet they remain notoriously difficult to prove. One of the main reasons for this is that productivity losses are often extremely difficult to distinguish, as opposed to other money claims which are more directly concerned with the occurrence of a distinct and compensable event, such as an instruction for a variation during the progress of work or a properly notified compensation event.
Most claims for disruption are dealt with retrospectively and the claimant is forced to rely on contemporary records to try and establish a causal nexus for identified losses (cause & effect), which are inadequate for evidencing a loss of productivity claim.
When this happens the claimant is often forced into the situation where it advances a weak global or total cost claim to try and recover its losses. The claimant must first establish that the factor causing the disruption is compensable risk under the contract.
To do this, the contract needs to be reviewed to understand the basis of the agreement as certain productivity issues may have been foreseeable and therefore accounted for within the claimant’s productivity allowances. The contract may also identify if a party expressly accepted certain productivity risks. Common causes of disruption on projects that may lead to a loss of production include site access restrictions, unforeseen site conditions, late or incorrect design, changes in the work, labour availability, remedial/corrective work, testing/inspections, client and third party interference, changes in construction methods and adverse weather.
The primary challenges the claiming party faces in preparing a disruption claim are to identify the root cause of the loss of productivity and quantifying the associated labour and equipment productivity losses. Many methods exist to quantify a disruption claim such as the measured mile; the modified total cost approach; a time and motion study or a comparative work study.
Alternatively research data published by the Mechanical Contractor Association or the National Electrical Contractors Association on the effects of disrupted working may be utilised but care must be exercised because no one size fits all.
Productivity is normally measured as production per unit of effect or output divided by input (ie units/hr) or it may be expressed as input divided by output (ie hrs/unit). A loss of productivity occurs when it takes more labour and equipment to do the same amount of work, thereby increasing project costs. A common error made by a claiming party when preparing a disruption claim is to confuse productivity with efficiency.
Efficiency is a measure of productivity as a ratio or percentage during the affected periods. If target production is 50 units per day and actual production is 25 units per day then given the same input the efficiency of the operation would be 50%. If actual production was equal to the target production efficiency would be 100%. The efficiency formula must take into account the variable input (resources) as well as variable output (production).
For instance it is possible to increase productivity but reduce efficiency. A decrease in efficiency is often associated with one or more secondary factors unrelated to the original excusable event but which are implemented to negate or mitigate the effects of the root cause. These secondary factors include out of sequence working, multiple work fronts, new learning and unlearning curves, fatigue (overtime/shift working), dilution of supervision and stacking of trades in confined spaces.
So when preparing a disruption claim for a loss of productivity it is very important to consider not just immediate effects on the rate of production but also the inefficiencies of some of the secondary factors.

Disruption claims are routinely made during the course of a construction project yet they remain notoriously difficult to prove. One of the main reasons for this is that productivity losses are often extremely difficult to distinguish, as opposed to other money claims which are more directly concerned with the occurrence of a distinct and compensable event, such as an instruction for a variation during the progress of work or a properly notified compensation event.

Most claims for disruption are dealt with retrospectively and the claimant is forced to rely on contemporary records to try and establish a causal nexus for identified losses (cause & effect), which are inadequate for evidencing a loss of productivity claim.

When this happens the claimant is often forced into the situation where it advances a weak global or total cost claim to try and recover its losses. The claimant must first establish that the factor causing the disruption is compensable risk under the contract. …

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