Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry

Table 3.11 Overall project progress measuring guideline.
Activity
Percentage
Detailed engineering
10%
Procurement services
5%
Delivery of equipment materials
25%
Construction
25%
Installation
25%
Professional services
10%

---

108 
Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
• Estimate work packages. Each of these detailed tasks is 
assigned an estimated for the amount of labor and equip-
ment needed and for the duration of the task, which will be 
explained in Chapter 5.
• Calculate the initial schedule. After estimating the duration 
of each work package and figuring in the sequence of tasks, 
the team calculates the total duration of the project. This ini-
tial schedule, while useful for planning, will probably need 
to be revised further down the line.
• Assign and level resources. The team adjusts the schedule to 
account for resource constraints. Tasks are rescheduled in 
order to optimize the use of people and equipment used on 
the project, which will be discussed in Chapter 5.
These steps provide all the required information to understand how a 
project will be executed. The steps are systematic, but they don’t neces-
sarily come up with the “right answer.” It may take several iterations of 
these steps to find this answer, which is the optimal balance between cost, 
schedule, and quality.
The planner plays a key role in controlling the project outcome and 
flagging potential bottlenecks and problems for the project manager. It is 
expected that the planner set up a weekly review meeting for each of his or 
her projects with the following deliverables:
• Attendees should consist of the appropriate cost engineer, 
project manager and senior project engineer, and construc-
tion supervisor.
• Review plans, identify issues, and agree on action steps to 
overcome them.
• Receive hand marked updates from the construction 
supervisor.
• Review the actual percentage complete versus the planned 
percentage complete, percentage milestones met, and 
approximate costs (from the plan) to be passed to the cost 
engineer.
The planner should be seen as proactive not reactive, predicting the 
future issues and proposing solutions.
The planner’s main skill is in the art of communicating with the project 
management team, cost engineer, construction supervisor, and contractor. 
A good planner is a good communicator. The questionnaire that covers the 

---

Pitfalls in Time Schedule Planning 109
planning subject is as follow. For the answers, contact me and the website 
www.elreedyma.comli.com.
Quiz
1. After you have been assigned to a project, according to the schedule, 
50 percent of the project should be completed. You discover that 
the project is running far behind schedule. The project will probably 
take double the time originally estimated by the previous project 
manager. On the other hand, you discover that upper management 
has been informed that the project is on schedule. What will be the 
BEST action?
• Try to restructure the schedule to meet the project deadline.
• Turn the project back to the previous project manager.
• Report your assessment to upper management.
• Move forward with the schedule as planned by the previous 
project manager and report at the first missed milestone.
2. You are working on a large construction project that is progressing 
within the schedule. Resource usage has remained steady and your 
boss has just awarded you a prize for your performance. One of your 
team members returns from a meeting with the customer and tells you 
the customer said he is not happy with the project progress. What is the 
FIRST action you should take?
• Tell your manager.
• Complete a team building exercise and invite the customer’s 
representatives.
• Change the schedule baseline.
• Meet with the customer to uncover details.
3. You have just been assigned to take over a project that your management 
has told you is “out of control.” When you asked your management 
what the problems were they had no specifics, but said that the proj-
ect was behind schedule, over budget, and the client was dissatisfied. 
Which of the following should be of the MOST concern to you?
• The project is over budget and behind schedule.
• There is very little documentation related to the project.
• The client is very dissatisfied with the project’s progress.
• Your management is looking for rapid and visible action on 
this project to rectify the problems.

---

110 
Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
4. During a meeting with some of the project stakeholders, you as a proj-
ect manager were asked to add work to the project scope of work. You 
had access to correspondence about the project before the charter was 
signed and remember that the project sponsor specifically denied fund-
ing for the scope of work mentioned by these stakeholders. 
What is the best action to take?
• Let the sponsor know of the stakeholders’ request.
• Evaluate the impact of adding the scope of work.
• Tell the stakeholders the scope cannot be added.
• Add the work if there is time available in the project schedule.
5. You have been working for eight months on a twelve month project 
time. The project is ahead of schedule when one of the functional man-
agers tells you the resources committed to the project are no longer 
available. After investigating, you discover the company has just started 
another project and is using the resources committed to your project. 
You believe the new project is not critical, but the project manager is 
the son of a board member. 
What is the best action in this situation?
• Determine when resources will become available.
• Ask upper management to formally prioritize the projects.
• Use the reserve to hire contractors to complete the work.
• Negotiate a new schedule with the other project manager.
6. Maintenance and on-going operations are very important to projects 
and should:
• be included as activities to be performed during the project 
closure phase.
• have a separate phase in the project life cycle because a large 
portion of life cycle costs is devoted to maintenance and 
operations.
• not be viewed as part of a project--a project is temporary 
with a definite beginning and end.
• be viewed as a separate project.
7. A project manager must publish a project schedule. Activities, start/end 
times, and resources are identified. What should the project manager 
do next?
• Distribute the project schedule according to the communi-
cations plan.
• Confirm the availability of the resources.

---

Pitfalls in Time Schedule Planning 111
• Refine the project plan to reflect more accurate costing 
information.
• Publish a Gantt chart illustrating the timeline.
8. You are a project manager and your project schedule is tight and in 
danger of falling behind when structure and piping leads to disrupting 
status meetings by arguing with each other. 
What action should you take?
• Separate the two until the project is back on track.
• Speak with each team member and give each a verbal 
warning.
• Discuss the problem with the manager of the two team 
members.
• Meet with both team members and their function manager 
to determine the source of conflict.
9. A project manager needs to determine the resources needed for the 
project. Select the primary tool from the following:
• Work breakdown structure
• Schedule
• Expert advice from functional managers
• Expert advice from management
10. Your role is a project manager for a large project. One of your key 
resources has started to do his task behind schedule and work quality 
is beginning to suffer as well. You are confident that this person is well 
aware of the work schedule and required quality specifications. What 
action should you take?
• Report the problem to HR for corrective action.
• Reassign some work to other team members until perfor-
mance starts to improve.
• Meet with the employee in private and try to determine the 
factors impacting performance.
• Escalate the situation to the employee’s functional manager 
and ask for assistance.
11. What leadership style should you employ during the first two weeks of 
project planning?
• Coaching
• Directing
• Supporting
• Facilitating

---

112 
Project Management in the Oil and Gas Industry
12. Which of the following are represented by a bar chart rather than net-
work diagrams?
• Logical 
relationships
• Critical 
paths
• Resource 
trade-off
• Progress or status
13. You are finalizing the monthly projects status report due now to your 
manager when you discover that several project lead disciplines are 
not reporting actual hours spent on project tasks. Consequently, this 
results is skewed in project plan statistics. 
What is the MOST appropriate action to be taken?
• Discuss the impacts of these actions with team member(s).
• Report team member actions to the functional manager.
• Continue reporting information as presented to you.
• Provide accurate and truthful representations in all project 
reports.
14. An engineering office is giving you so much trouble that your time 
available allocated to the project has gone from 20 percent to over 
80 percent for this small piece of the overall project. Most of the 
available engineering office’s deliverables are late and inaccurate and 
you have little confidence in this company’s ability to complete the 
project. What should you do?
• Terminate the engineering office for convenience and hire 
another seller.
• Assign a group within your team to meet with the engineer-
ing office and reassign project work so that the engineering 
office work is easier to accomplish.
• Meet with the engineering office to discover the cause of the 
problem.
• Provide some of your own staff to augment the engineering 
office’s staff.

---

113