Section F
The Owner and Client
There is no doubt that the client or owner as initiator of the project bears a major burden in making the project a success. The key initiatives that are essential and that the client project manager must be deeply involved with are:
- To identify very clearly the scope of work for the project and what, exactly, is to be delivered (see Part IV, Section F Scope).
- To determine the most appropriate contracting strategy to be used to effectively deliver the scope of work for the project (see Part III Section B Contracting Strategy Considerations).
- To pick the team, design the organizational structure, and identify the skills required to manage the contracts selected (see Part V, Section Q, subsection1, Selecting the Team).
- The project manager then has to provide the leadership and guidance, which will allow the selected team to deliver the project safely, on schedule, and at the lowest possible cost (see Part VI, Section B Leadership and the earlier Section D on The Project Management Role).
1 Some Fundamentals
1.1
Ensure that the contractor's (and your own) safety culture is aligned to your expectations and actively maintained at all times.
1.2
Agree on the level of contractor resources to be provided. Put penalties in place to ensure key personnel are maintained.
1.3
Clearly identify all deliverables and exactly what form they will take.
1.4
Document control and project reporting are boring subjects to most people but critical to project success. Agree exactly how these will be managed, produce a master document register and determine distribution early in the game.
1.5
Be clear about any special client‐imposed studies and when they should be carried out. These might include hazard and operability studies, hazard identification studies (HAZIDS), and project safety and environmental reviews (PHSERS).
1.6
Ensure that operation's (the user's) input is available from the beginning. Get operations personnel in the project team on a full‐time basis.
1.7
Where design contractors are concerned, do constructability reviews. Have the construction contractor review the design for ‘constructability’. This is very important when you consider that 10 to 15 per cent of a project's budget is in the design cost and 40 per cent to 50 per cent is in construction costs. Thus, it is essential that construction efficiency is at the forefront of the project manager's thoughts. This also reduces construction changes and variation requests.
1.8
A very clear statement of requirements (comprising the scope and the deliverables) must be developed at the beginning of the project.
1.9
A detailed basis of design must also be developed. At this point it is essential to make clear the requirements for standards, codes of practice, and any special owner company requirements in addition to the normal codes. For example, most experienced clients will have their own design practices that have to be used on all their projects. This is in order to facilitate consistent spares and maintenance procedures.
1.10
There must also be a clear understanding of any regulator's requirements, for example: the health and safety executive, Lloyds insurance, and so on. In other countries, say Norway, there is the Petroleum Safety Authority, Petroleum Directorate, and so on. There will be something similar in other countries.
1.11
Make sure you understand exactly what is in the contractor's overheads and what is in the preliminaries. Also, what the ratio is for productive work to nonproductive work.
1.12
Client team members must actively think about the impact of everything they do and evaluate every action in terms of its effect on the money on the bottom line.
1.13
Authority levels, together with roles and responsibilities, must be clearly understood and approved. Individual team members must recognize and comprehend what it means to be professional in whatever role they fulfil, be it an electrical engineer or an accountant.
1.14
Lines of reporting and communication must also be agreed and understood by all concerned. The client team members must listen and learn to hear what is not being said.
2 Cost and Planning
2.1
The cost estimate must be of a high standard prior to project sanction. Most clients normally aim for a + or –15 per cent accuracy pre‐sanction.
2.2
A detailed plan is also needed with a clear understanding of the critical path.
2.3
The planners are the people who should really drive the job. They need to be aware of exactly what time and resources are required for every activity to complete the job and should be on everyone's back to make sure the contractor is performing the right actions at any particular moment to keep the project on track.
2.3.1
Many of the planners are not much more than reporters who tell the client what has been done, rather than what needs to be done. The planner should be like the man who sits on the platform at the end of the Roman galley, beating the rhythm for the rowers to get to where they need to be.
3 Things to Watch
3.1
The quality discipline comprises both quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC). Client personnel can produce new processes like no one else on earth, and they are good at it (even though there is far too much of it). This is the QA piece.
3.2
The QC part is about the application of the QA procedures, and this is the part that clients tend to fail on. There are numerous examples both in manufacture of materials, equipment, and in the fabrication or construction yards of poor quality. The client must tackle this problem. Project managers must have QC very high on their radar.
3.3
Do not place orders for major equipment packages too early. Design development must be sufficiently progressed to allow orders to be placed without the fear of many changes. These late changes have a serious impact on the construction programme because of late delivery, late vendor data, and so on.
3.4
Do not start construction too early (before the contractor is ready), which again results in changes and variation orders.
3.5
There always seems to be pressure to place orders and start cutting steel (particularly in the offshore industry) as soon as possible. Project managers must have the courage to hold their fire until they can really ‘see the whites of the eyes’, so to speak.
3.6
It is worth repeating: do not place long lead equipment orders too soon and do not start constructing too soon because both these things lead to delay and extra cost.
3.7
A client project manager, when under pressure, may want to take over the project execution manager's role!
4 Most Important of All – Safety
4.1
This really has to be at the forefront of the project manager's thoughts at all times.
4.2
Good safety is good business.
4.3
A safe team becomes happy team, a happy team becomes a confident team, a confident team becomes an efficient team, and an efficient team is good for business.
4.4
Poor safety (as some client's know well) wrecks lives, is bad for reputation and brand, damages the revenue stream, and costs extra capital.
4.5
Bad safety is bad for business.