PROCEDURES No 16 – Quality Standards

Fed up with adverts from software companies and consultancies that are going to change the world of Planning and solve all your project problems? This series of occasional articles promises nothing but thought provoking questions on how well we understand the basics of our profession from the perspective of a retired planner with 50 years’ experience in the industry whose worked in a variety of UK EPC roles for Clients and Contractors with no axe to grind. We are going to look at PEOPLE, PROCESSES, and PROCEDURES (the old 3P’s – not 4P’s, 5P’s, 6P’s or 7 P’s)that we all have been educated and trained to use in our everyday work (5W’s + 1H) and POKE THEM IN THE EYE / LOOK UNDER THE STONE  (the Inverse Universe) and get into trouble with the planning profession because for loads of reasons were not doing so well. If you want to contribute to this soul searching drop me a line with either POSITIVE or NEGATIVE comments (yes, we are PLANNERS that can hold both views at the same time!)

PROCEDURES  No 16 –  Quality Documents

We all must work within a structured documented system to ensure that we are doing what the business requires. Hopefully, this still allows us to exercise our skills and experience to add value to any project we are working on, but we first must ensure that we are doing what is expected of us. This usually falls under the QUALITY umbrella with both mandatory and informal instructions. These documents should ensure that the project control function contributes to supporting the project and business objectives. They should be the first thing you turn too when you start your assignment or have a problem. If they stay on the shelf or in the filing cabinet, they probably are not fit for purpose.

Policy – The board should set the Project Controls departmental objectives signed by the Director of Projects.

Manuals – In order to meet Business Expectations, the department should maintain a Project Controls manual which sets out the key strategies and work areas. For smaller projects (<75%) which do not have pc staff permanently assigned a minimum expectation version can be used. This manual forms the basis of the Project Control Manual required to be submitted on most contracts.

DEP / CoP / SoP / O& M WI– Whether you use Design and Engineering Procedures, Codes of Practice, Standard Operating Procedures or O&M Work Instructions terminology these are the key documents that set out in detail how each phase of the project controls scope is delivered. These are usually split into a formal ISO 9001 procedure which is part of the company externally audited QA System and internal procedures, Instructions, Guidance Notes, best-in-class examples etc which are internally audited and reviewed by QA and fellow PC project staff.

All QA PC documents are RACIE Controlled - Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed , Endorsed, and in addition are revision tracked, and subject to the audit, review, and non-conformance process.

Subject area  - Industry and Region variations – Various versions can exist of these documents to cover specific industry needs and regional variations in industrial practices.

People – the procedures are set out the Onboarding process (with HR), Job Descriptions for the various levels which produce a career structure, the skills and training required wrapped into a Continuing Professional Development process.

Tools and Techniques – the department maintains a vast library of standard schedules, fragnets and best-in-class examples for a large variety of project types and reports. Each schedule is already filled with the company coding structures, logically linked, typical vendor and sub-contract delivery durations, appropriate P&E lists,  and hierarchical breakdown structures. The department maintains a variety of databases (documentation formats, cost, vendor, productivity, estimating) so that nobody should start with a blank page – it has been done before – use it.

Governance, Compliance and Assurance – The whole department is guided by a Project Control  Steering Group under the chair of the Director of Projects. It is charged with making continuous improvements, contributing to group initiatives, overseeing communications, departmental interfaces, data quality improvements, company intranet, BIS, Community of Practice website, inter project audit programme etc. Use of any of PC QA procedures on projects is signed off by the PM within the Quality Plan approval process. Quality Documentation Workstations can be maintained on some projects in remote sites.

Resilience Analysis -  of proposals are necessary for tender board approval. Sensitivity of the project to methods, contracts, costs, resources, durations, productivity, risks etc is important to give senior management a complete picture of any proposed contract. Increasingly this is extended to contractual submissions at specific times.

Training and Briefing Out – Its no good just writing procedures, they must be briefed out (including changes) to the staff, included in their in-house onboarding and training modules and records of understanding and attendance kept.

Lessons Learnt / Project Reviews and Audits – It’s vital that we are striving for continual improvement by auditing and reviewing inter projects and incorporating lessons and project reviews (of all kinds) into our learning processes. We welcome all comments on our Community of Practice intranet site to which the Steering Group will give feedback. We welcome this scrutiny and do not see it as a criticism of our work.

That’s concludes my look at the areas in Project Controls that are rarely looked at. If you have enjoyed these articles, do you want to continue the theme in other project areas? Work winning, estimating, procurement, construction management, contracts, business operations, and failures spring to mind as having subjects in them that rarely get an airing.

I will give my 2001 copy of KEMPE’s Engineering Yearbook to anybody who picks up the cudgel!!!!