Project owners need to change their perceptions of project management and how it is best applied to achieve project management excellence.

Planning and Cost Engineering (PaCE) Services CEO and MD Nic Bennett believes that too few competent project managers are reaching the level of professional project management. This may result in companies losing money, owing to projects being commissioned behind schedule and over the allocated budget.

One of the main contributing factors to the lack of competent project managers, Bennett believes, is the fact that training and educational circular have not been formerly aligned with existing national standards. Such a standard, has been established by Association for Project Managers South Africa, and perhaps with the authority provided by the South African Bureau of Standards, could be established as a national standard. There are many institutions offering project management courses, but the candidates coming from the institutions have little competence, because they are not trained to use the specific methods, tools and techniques to manage projects with.

It appears as if training curricula in South Africa are home-grown and do not comply with any international standards. The content of the courses is also not up to standard, since it rarely empowers the students with the relevant methods, tools and techniques, he says.

Instead, a set of project management standards established by the American Project Management Institute is being followed, with little regard to the actual project management process. This results in a basic, functional understanding of the concepts of project management, but no management experience.

Bennett believes that there is a gap in the South African project management training market. “The desired model on which project management in South Africa should be based, is to have, on one side, the industry standards set out and approved by industry representatives, theoretical knowledge in the middle, and methods, tools and techniques in the workplace at the other end of the model,” he says.

He suggests that all the project management training institutions in the country should come together, to discuss a standard of training. An international project management standard, as well as an international competency baseline should be adopted to suit the South African environment, and made into a national association standard, to be used to develop local curricula.

Bennett says that it is currently not possible to get international recognition for project management qualifications obtained in South Africa.

Meanwhile, Bennett says that, traditionally, project owners that invest capital expenditure in large projects, such as in mining houses, are under the impression that project management is not such a specialised professional field.

This is one of the largest misconceptions in the industry, in general. Project management is one of the fundamental processes involved in any major project, from the engineering and procurement phase, right through to the commissioning of the project. And management governs these elements throughout every stage, Bennett says.

Mining is a knowledge domain that does not necessarily include project management. Bennett believes that the mining industry and the project management industry are two completely different industries that need to interact in synergy to achieve mutual goals.

However, project management on mines is no different to any other manifestation of project management. The process remains exactly the same. “It is unfortunate that top management, usually the decision makers, do not entirely understand this process,” he says.

More project managers are needed in boardrooms when important planning decisions are made, because one of project management ’s core strengths lies embedded in the planning phase of projects. The style in which the project management environment is portrayed is functional, instead of being viewed as a strategic resource.

Bennett says that the correct project performance criteria is not always demanded by project owners, owing to a lack of knowledge of the tools are available to accurately monitor a particular project’s progress.

Judging the progress of any project from a financial performance point of view, is an outdated and unreliable method of project control. It offers only a snapshot glimpse of the project.

“This method is very accurate from a financial point of view, but does not give a reliable scope of the project status. If the project is funded to the agreed budget, in fiscal terms, it is compliant while under budget, everything is in order until 99% is spent. But a major crisis arises when one only then discovers that the remaining budget is insufficient to cover the balance of the work to go,” Bennett says.

Project engineers rather need to use a dynamic control model, also called variance management. This enables the project manager to create a more accurate picture of how a project progresses day by day, both financially and physically.

He says that if the dynamic control model is used, there will be less need for contingency plans, and money savings may be forthcoming by tightening up the cost estimation process. The ideal is to have minimal variance to the original planning. That is why project management in strategic decision making is so important.

PaCE is involved in training project managers for employment in every sector of the economy. Bennett says that communication, for the purposes of planning and coordination between all the different role-players involved in a project, is of paramount importance. To assist project managers, PaCE is developing a communication tool, similar to popular social networks found on the Internet, to enable all the parties to effectively communicate in real time with each other.