Hydrocarbon Processing - December 2020 - GP-27

SPECIAL FOCUS: PLANT DESIGN AND PROCESS CONTROL

High
inﬂuence

Impact on project cost

Expenditure

Magnitude

important to keep track of all changes and
their impacts on the project schedule and
budget. As per the EY survey, the average
completion costs of megaprojects are 59%
higher than the initial estimate. One of the
internal reasons for these cost increases
is failure to follow change management
procedures. It is particularly important
not to start work until the change order is
approved by the client. Although a change
management procedure is in place in almost every company, some project managers still move forward with incorporating
changes before the client approves them.
This step creates further problems in the
project. A project manager should be held
accountable for adhering to change management guidelines.
Area 8: Micromanaging the team.
Some project managers act like police,
checking and enforcing the team for projects and updates. They micromanage the
project because they lack confidence in
their team's abilities. This is connected to
the art of delegation. When a project manager delegates a task to their subordinates,
the team should be given enough time
and confidence to do the job. Instead of
micromanaging the team, a project manager should lay out the responsibilities
and expectations during regularly scheduled meetings so that the team can update
and show the progress of its work. An
effective project manager should always
share the positives and negatives from the
progress report with the team members
so that they know the exact numbers and
feel that they are driving those numbers.
Conversely, in the micromanaging atmosphere, leads will come up with problems but no solutions because they lack
a sense of ownership of the project. In an
atmosphere where the team has a sense of
ownership, leads come up with problems
and devise multiple solutions. Self-accountability of the team improves drastically with a sense of ownership.
Area 9: Being proactive. By the time
a project manager realizes that a megaproject is in trouble, many labor hours have
already been spent. It is almost impossible
to recover from this stage to make the
megaproject successful. As an example,
on one LNG megaproject, an engineering
company directed its employees to work
70 hours per week to catch up with the
schedule, which was a difficult task. After
five months of 70 hours per week of work,
the project manager realized that the team

Planning phase

Design phase

Execution phase

Low
inﬂuence
Project start

Project timeline

Project ﬁnish

FIG. 3. Risk management and decision-making influence on project cost.

would overrun the budget even before the
engineering was finished. If the project
manager had taken a proactive approach
in the beginning stage of the project
and followed the schedule correctly, the
schedule delay and the excessive working
hours could have been avoided.
To avoid schedule delays, a work schedule must be created that shows who is responsible for what, and when these tasks
should be finished. At every team meeting,
the team should be encouraged to achieve
these milestones so that it understands
how far it is to the finish line. A project
manager should hold the leads accountable
for their tasks from the start of the project.
Area 10: Constructability influence
on final project cost. The maximum impacts on the final project cost and schedule occur in the planning stage (FIG. 2).
After procurement and construction have
begun, it is usually too late to make major
impacts to reduce the cost and time expended. A project manager must involve
construction and commissioning personnel during the early engineering phase so
that lessons learned from construction
can be implemented. This will result in
fewer requests for information, and the
construction and commissioning teams
can better plan their work.
Area 11: Early planning risk assessment and decision-making. To control
cost and schedule, early planning risk assessment and mitigation are necessary and
should be well established (FIG. 3). A dedicated risk manager or a project manager
should perform these risk-related tasks in
the early phase of the megaproject. Earlystage risk assessment aids learning and

enables decisions to be made under conditions of less uncertainty. As the project
progresses, the impacts of risk mitigation
and decision-making decrease.
Takeaway. The difference between an

effective project manager and an average
project manager is that the effective project manager believes in learning continuously on every project. A project manager
implements lessons learned from previous
projects and treats each team as a fresh
group. The opportunity to learn is present
in every project and from different individuals on the team. An effective project
manager must be a leader, rather than just
a manager. A leader is proactive, a good listener and celebrates project victories with
the team to boost employee morale and to
reach the common goal of executing the
project under budget and on time. GP
1

LITERATURE CITED
EY, " Spotlight on oil and gas megaprojects, "
2014, online: https://www.ey.com/Publication/
v wLUA ssets/EY- spotlight-on-oi l-and- gas megaprojects/%24FILE/EY-spotlight-on-oil-andgas-megaprojects.pdf

DEEPAK BAWA is a Project
Management Professional (PMP)
with experience in LNG, hydrogen,
ammonia, methanol and refinery
projects, among others. He is
Director of Project Development
for New Fortress Energy.
Mr. Bawa is a Six Sigma Green Belt Certified PMP
with significant experience spanning more than 17 yr.
He has experience leading teams of 40-100 people
for EPC projects ranging from $2 MM-$4 B. In the
past, he has worked with companies including Kiewit,
KBR, IHI, UOP, TechnipFMC and ISGEC. Mr. Bawa
holds a BS degree in mechanical engineering from
the Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and
Technology in Longowal, Punjab, India.

Gas Processing & LNG | NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020

Hydrocarbon Processing - December 2020

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