PM War Stories #28 – Delivering Capital Projects on Time: A Case Study on the "Road" to Success

Download PMW_0028_Capital_Projects.mp3 (21.8 MB)

For the State of Delaware, managing the construction program of roads and bridges involves hundreds of projects with thousands of resources to be managed all across the state.  Throw in a mixture of large scale multi-year projects with multiple smaller projects and poor project scheduling, and you can end up literally stopping an entire city in its tracks.  With that in mind, it is critical that a capital program of this magnitude requires extensive workflows and project scheduling capabilities that move beyond the basic scheduling of project dates based on an existing resource pool.   In fact, project scheduling can in effect become both program managers and project managers doorway to obtaining the visibility they need with through the centralization of project information to achieve project success while keeping their constituents satisifed.  

In this episode we sit down with industry insiders, Bob Perrine and Connie Post of the Delaware Department of Transportation or DOT to discuss the challenges and complexities of managing a portfolio of capital projects.

Bob Perrine is a civil engineer with 30 years experience in the vertical and horizontal construction industries. He has worked in federal government, private industry, and state government. Currently, Bob is the Constructability Review Engineer / Master Scheduler for the Delaware DOT where he is responsible for managing the master schedule for the capital construction program, performing constructability reviews of all capital construction and many maintenance and operations projects within the DOT, as well as for determining the construction duration for each of the projects within the capital program.    

Connie Post, my other distinguished guest, has over 28 years of experience in Information Technology, and 18 years of experience in Project Management. She is a member of the PMI Delaware chapter and has also served as an instructor for WorWic Community College. Connie is currently an independent consultant with the Delaware DOT and her responsibilities include project management, requirements analysis and implementation of new systems, systems integration, and business process review. 

In this episode, Bob and Connie will share how the Delaware Department of Transportation improved visibility, communication, resource planning, and delivery of capital projects by moving from an ad hoc system of spreadsheets, usually not synched, to Oracle Primavera.

Music Notes

1. The opening of the episode – “Offroad”
2. Interview with industry insiders – “Collins Avenue”
3. The closing of the episode – “Greasy Wheel"

Comments

[Efren]

Good post. Thanks a lot.

[PM War Stories]

Efren, thanks for listening. If you would like to learn more about capital projects, then check out the sidebar on the right and follow the link to more episodes on that pm topic. Also, feel free to drop us questions at info(at)pmwarstories(dot)com

[vao]

How do capital projects maximize firm value?

[PM War Stories]

This is rather a broad question. Perhaps you can email us and we can discuss offline.

[Pen]

How do capital projects maximize firm value?

[pv]

Bob Perrine - great men!

[Roger]

Very interesting, thanks for that. I have read many companies are moving away from the hoc system spreadsheets and implementing Oracle Primavera.

Roger
http://www.rapidsloth.com

[PM War Stories]

Project management software can offer significant benfits to organizastions trying to do scheduling, resource management, setting priorities, etc through ad hoc processes and spreadsheets. Chief among the benefits are a single unified view, collaboration, and portfolio management.

 

If you would like more information about any of these topics, drop us an email at info(at)pmwarstories(dot)com

[vo]

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[BV]

The episodes are often based on current events; the episode which aired August 6, 2006 featured the history of Fidel Castro's rise to power (in light of Castro's temporary relinquishment of power) while the prior week's episode centered on Hezbollah.

[rfs]

Yeah does make a lot of sense.

[QL]

Thank you for this - I thoroughly enjoyed reading and felt compelled to leave a comment. Keep it up.

[jana]

The author thanks a lot!

I read with pleasure.

[pps]

great article! thanks so much for posting!