Modern projects of all kinds face innumerable challenges due to increasing scale, complexity, and stakeholder numbers. Failure rates, particularly for industrial and construction projects, have been on the order of 50-70% due to missed milestones, cost overruns, poor quality and dissatisfied customers or high-influencing stakeholders.

If we are a little more proactive, with early engagement with stakeholders, application of Lean processes, and the integration of Sustainability aspects, we can avoid many of these issues.

Karen ChovanJuly 10, 2018Enviro Integration Strategiesmining, lean, project management, sustainability, valueComment

Reflections on PMI Global 2017

Highlighting the benefits of the PMI Global conference. This was a great event to attend for learning about many different strategies for projects, soft skills development, networking, and getting a little individual support.

#PMIcon17

Are Your Expectations Clear?

Have you ever had a situation where your expectations were not met? Where, clearly, the person you were engaged with was on a different wavelength regarding the expected outcomes?

Well, this is a story where it seems that lines got crossed in conveying information from one party to the next, a story where too many assumptions were made. The end result?

Wasted time. Money for nothing.

In Defence of a Silo

About a month ago, you may have read a couple articles I posted that reviewed opinions on why projects fail - these were the result of some online research and a number of interviews I held late last year. At the end of my post, I asked your opinion - did you agree, disagree, and if so, what did you think were primary reasons?

There were some great responses, where some were in agreement to the findings, and others offered more in-depth and technically specific reasons, from their perspective. Many of these factors revolved around poor geological or mineralogical understanding and interpretation. Many suggested poor process design, and yet others named social pressures and objections. There were more than a few references to interdependent and complex issues. It was great engagement, and I appreciate your input!

To kick this article off, I'm digging into the accused geologic aspect a little more, because it is our primary starting point of a mine anyways, but more particularly because I've recently read a number of articles that have pointed the finger solely at resource and reserve estimations as the cause of failure of many mine development projects.

However, what you will find in my arguments, suggests that there may be more going on to consider, when it comes to failure.

The Urgency for Industrial Project Delivery to Evolve

How often have you been approached by social or environment-minded folks about integrating sustainability into your projects, designs and systems?

Never? Only on particular projects? More and more? Or all the time?

If you were asked to do this, would you know where to start?

Would you understand how to educate and gain the most traction with your teams?

This article highlights the necessity of making positive changes to our PMO guidance, and to integrating sustainability into our design and project management practices.

Karen ChovanFebruary 23, 2016Enviro Integration StrategiesPMO, project management, sustainability, change, improvementsComment

Mine Project Failures - Insider Perspectives

So you have your opinions on why projects fail.

Maybe you think you have the answers. At times, we may all think that way.

But have you taken some time to consider what anybody else thinks?

Have you had a dialogue to compare notes and reflect?

This has been my underlying driver for researching why projects fail in the natural resources sector. Why we are continuing to face such high cost overruns, and extended schedules within our projects? And why do our stakeholders never seem to be satisfied with the outcomes?

Working in the mining sector, and oversight of projects within that realm, I always felt it was easy to see where blaring issues arose. I could always spot the gaps, from my perspective, and within my realm of experience. As likely all people can do - within their range of experience. The problem is, the things you can spot are never the only things going on.

We are blind to what we don’t know.

Karen ChovanFebruary 1, 2016Enviro Integration Strategiesproject management, requirements, mining, risk managementComment

Broader Requirements for Resource and Energy Projects?

Over the past year, there has been a concentrated focus within the project management world on the topic of requirements management - because studies have shown that inappropriate requirements is the leading cause of project failure.

New guidance has been developed and can be found on the PMI website, however there are a few categories of requirements not discussed that should be considered when it comes to projects within the natural resources and energy sectors. Some may also apply to large-scale linear and municipal infrastructure where numerous community stakeholders could have an impact on the outcomes of environmental assessment approvals.

This article discusses the consideration of said requirements, the associated risks and opportunities, and a compelling case for the reasoning provided.

Karen ChovanDecember 7, 2015Enviro Integration Strategiesrequirements, project management, approvals, risk managementComment

Integration for your project's success

Have you ever worked on a project where it seems the project design team just can't understand the requirements set out by the environmental assessment (EA) team? And on the flip side, the EA team doesn't understand (or maybe care) that their requests will impact the project schedule and cost, or that it's too late in the process to change something they are suggesting?

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