Project Management

Topic 1. Overcome Team Resistance to Project Management

It’s one thing to build a Project Charter and the schedule. It’s another thing to effectively manage the project. If you could issue the plan and the work assignments and have everyone complete his activities on time, your life would be much easier. However, the process of managing the team and the schedule becomes complicated because of the people element involved. …

Managing StaffRead More »

Project managers need to be leaders. Leadership can be easy when things are going well; everyone will follow you then. However, when times are tough, leadership can be hard, but it is also more vital than ever. Here are some things to keep in mind to lead your team through the difficulty.

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Exhibit Leadership on Challenging ProjectsRead More »

Strategy is a subject that has exercised the minds of political, military and business leaders for centuries. The earliest recorded attempts to define strategy emanate from Roman military commanders who sought to document the strategic options available on the battlefield. …

Strategic Management in ConstructionRead More »

Professional salespeople love negotiation, but many soloists are more comfortable doing their job rather than negotiating about it. Here are nine tips for improving your negotiation skills.
As a proposal strategist and writer, my job is to get my clients shortlisted with the opportunity to negotiate for an important project or contract. During many hours spent burning the midnight oil together, clients become friends, and I usually end up caring about the outcome almost as much as they do.
By keeping tabs on the progress of some very long post-pitch negotiations and seeing the tactics employed by some exceptional salespeople, I have picked up some great tips for improving negotiation skills that will help you navigate this important, but nerve-wracking, part of the sales process. …

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Unfortunately the construction industry has become stereotyped as an accident prone industry, in fact only mining and fishing industries have higher fatalities. Depressingly, the accident rates experienced closely correlate to the level of activity within the industry, indicating that when work load is high, safety tends to receive less attention. …

Construction SafetyRead More »

An estimate is a calculation of the quantities of various items of work, and the expenses likely to be incurred there on. The total of these probable expenses to be incurred on the work is known as estimated cost of the work. The estimated cost of a work is a close approximation of its actual cost. …

Civil Engineering EstimationRead More »

Small Projects

Whenever a project manager has team members on the project, he needs to recognize the needs of managing human resources. However, these small projects will probably not need to worry too much with formal people management processes and techniques. First, if it is a small project the project manager does not have to acquire much staff (if any). The project team is most likely assigned by a functional (staffing) manager. There is not much opportunity to develop the team members since the project is probably short. There is also little opportunity to formally manage people other than making sure the team members know the work they are responsible for and making sure that the work is completed successfully. Similarly, a small project is normally not going to run into many people problems. …

Manage Human Resources – FrameworkRead More »