SYNOPSIS

A construction project’s success relies heavily upon a well-thought-out schedule and comprehensive planning. Projects are likely to fail if there isn’t an effective project schedule in place from the beginning. The purpose of project schedule is to provide a useful “road map” that can be used by project manager and project team members to assist them in completing the project successfully. A well-developed project schedule model is a dynamic tool that can be used to predict when the project work that remains to be completed can reasonably be expected to be accomplished. Simultaneously, it allows the project team to look at the performance of the project to date, and use that data to make more accurate projections about their intended work and actions in the future.

The project schedule describes what work is to be done, who will undertake the work (resources), and when it should be done. Establishing a realistic and achievable project schedule is one of the critical initial actions during the planning phase. Equally important is the regular updating of the schedule to support the on-going monitoring and controlling of progress as the project work is executed.

The purpose of this talk is to share the common mistakes made in scheduling practices and to offer a generally accepted good practices. The concepts and ideas in this talk are drawn from many sources and also from writer own experience in monitoring public project implementation and evaluating project teams’ performance, both from the government departments & the contractors.

Talk outline:

- Type of project schedules
- Common mistakes in scheduling practices
- What to do instead: Good scheduling practices
- Concluding remarks


BIODATA OF SPEAKER

Ir. Wan Ibrahim bin Wan Yusoff is a project management practitioner and a professional engineer with practicing certificate. He holds a bachelor degree in civil engineering and master degree in Project Management and has over 35 years of experience in the construction industry in areas of:

- Project Management
- Project site supervision
- Contract administration
- Structure design
- Project quality system: ISO 9001 (System development & internal quality auditing)
- Training / Coaching
- Training module development & training material preparation

He started his career in construction industry after joining Jabatan Kerja Malaysia (JKR) as structural engineer in 1983. During the span of his career, he has actively been involved in project site supervision, project management and staff/project team development. Ir. Wan Ibrahim is one of the working committee member who drafted JKR Quality Management System based on ISO 9001 back in the year 2000. Since then he has been actively involved in training JKR staff on construction project quality management and conducting internal quality audit in JKR offices throughout Malaysia.

Ir. Wan Ibrahim has had the privilege of working as a team member of Special Project Team who managed several high impact construction projects in Klang Valley, which cost more than RM 1 billion and were managed to be completed according to original schedule. Later in his career, Ir. Wan Ibrahim was selected as a team member of JKR Project Management Office (PMO) which was recently setup at that time. He was responsible for promoting usage of project management best practices in Government project implementation to ensure project success. Some of the best practices promoted are project planning and scheduling, project management plan, project health check, and project risks management. Besides promoting best practices, he also conducted assessments on JKR project team performance in managing the projects, and also coaches them on project management best practices.

Over the years, Ir. Wan Ibrahim has conducted multiple in-house & external training programs for other Government agencies in areas of project management, quality management system and project supervision for various levels of staff. He also conducted workshops on project management plan, risk management plan and project scheduling for many “live” construction projects such as construction of National Cancer Institute and Redevelopment of Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

Besides managing project and conducting training, coaching and mentoring, Ir. Wan Ibrahim also involved in developing JKR quality system manual and procedures leading to certification in ISO 9001, development of Guidelines on Managing Design & Build Projects, JKR Project Schedule Guidelines and development of training module & materials for JKR Project Manager Certification Program.

He has retired from JKR in Dec 2019. His last post was the Director of Engineering Competency, Certification and Accreditation Division, JKR’s Centre of Research and Technology Excellence (CREaTE). Air Keroh, Melaka. When he was at CREaTE, Ir Wan Ibrahim lead the development of competency-based training modules for JKR, a paradigm shift from traditional knowledge-based training. His is currently the lead trainer with WZ Training and Development PLT.