When most people think about risk assessments or risk management: they think only of avoiding potential risks. Sometimes, risk can also mean issues or problems. But risk management has another important component: opportunity. A thorough risk assessment will evaluate potential opportunities that can be exploited along with risks which can be avoided. Dr David Hillson
(Read More…)
The Panama Canal was, and probably still is, the biggest construction project in the history of the world. Billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives were sacrificed in order to create a connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. The building of Panama Canal is an amazing story that involves interesting elements
(Read More…)
The Napa River Salt Marsh Restoration project is a pretty big endeavor. We’re moving a whole lot of dirt. It’s a complex project with many details that cannot be overlooked. For instance, there is an endangered bird that nests in that area, so you can’t do any work within 500 feet of its nesting and
(Read More…)
For mega-construction projects, organizations usually borrow money – because, of course, most organizations don’t have a few billion dollars sitting around. If you’re going to borrow money, it’s important to know how much money you will need to borrow and when you’ll need to borrow it. Project management in the construction industry creates plans in
(Read More…)
Risk management is a broad term, the application of which can vary in the extreme depending on the field in question. For instance, many of the tales told about the 2008 financial disaster reference disenfranchised or disemboweled risk departments within organizations such as AIG and Merrill Lynch. The field of international relations has its own
(Read More…)
Pat Weaver has an excellent-as-usual piece on the emergence and role of Building Information Modelling (BIM). The key feature of BIM is that it does 4D modeling of schedules (the fourth dimension is time). An image of the project is rendered in 3D, while the schedule is rendered in more traditional form (like a Gantt
(Read More…)
“What this tool does most helpfully is allow…people to get together and actually talk about the consequences of doing one thing or another and having those consequences appear in real time.” “…you can tell instantly the effect of extending a deadline for three weeks or missing a deadline by two weeks or advancing a deadline
(Read More…)
I recently read Andrew Filev’s article Critical Pathis Easyas 1,2,3, which first defined Critical Path Method (CPM) and explained how to build out a schedule. Mencken said that for every complex problem there is a clear solution that is simple and wrong. Graphical Planning Method argues that the tools for getting the robust, correct solution need not
(Read More…)
When we plan, we think. But we have very little insight into how we think and how our systems of cognition impact our decisions. During an interactive planning session we interact with each other, we think, and we come to decisions. But how our brain actually works is not well understood by most of us.
(Read More…)
The First Amendment enshrines every American’s right to the freedom of expression. Our goal is to elevate and facilitate the exercise of that right in project planning. “Chase after truth like hell and you’ll free yourself, even though you never touch its coattails,” said Clarence Darrow, US defense lawyer (1857 – 1938). Sticky notes on
(Read More…)
