It’s that time of the year and the holiday craze is unavoidable – it’s everywhere you turn. Are you feeling the crunch as yet? As we get ready for the holidays socially and professionally, don’t forget to pencil it in when scheduling all of those projects. It’s well known that lack of time, pressure to reach end of year expectations and fear of having work tiptoe its way into holiday time can
Primavera P6 and Project Management - Articles and Tutorials
Articles and tutorials that discuss all aspects of Primavera P6 and project management for planners & schedulers.
Can Mastering Oracle Primavera P6 Enhance Your Career?
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Yes mastering Oracle Primavera P6 can enhance your career... Here’s how and why you should work your way up to a Project Controller or Manager position. In Numbers: The Construction Project Controller/Manager job ranked #1 in the top construction jobs in the United States in 2021. It also ranked #52 in the Best 100 Jobs in the United States - also ranking #2 in the highest salary rankings for
Construction Mental Health… Why Bother Talking About It?
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Why talk Construction Mental Health in the first place? The construction industry has been painted with masculine tones for decades. We often assume that in this predominantly masculine work culture, issues such as mental health are just not that prevalent. Well… that is wrong! “The real mental epidemic today is that we are all struggling to put on a show and pretend that everything's OK all
20 Quotes To Supercharge A Project Controller’s Daily Habits
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Project controls are vital to any construction contracting business. Providing practical estimates of appropriate time, cost, and results of the project is an essential foundation leading up to effective decisions made by management. For project controls planners, finding inspiration for success may be as guide-less as a feather floating in mid-air, or requires as much effort as trying to
The Best Construction Bidding Websites You Should Know About
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If you haven't heard, there are some great construction bidding websites out there that can help contractors find new projects that are the best fit for their area of construction expertise. Searching for construction bid opportunities online can be a real pain for contractors. Where should you look to find the best construction jobs to bid on? Should you visit your local municipal or
Project Controller – What You Need to Know to Succeed
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Are you interested in starting a career as a Project Controller but not sure where to start or what it's all about? Project Controllers are an important part of any project team, they assume a lot of the risk and responsibilities when it comes to making sure a project has a successful outcome. They oversee the project's revenues and expenses to make sure the project meets its budget and
7 Top Construction Management Template Tools To Check Out
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We all like freebies, right? Construction management is all about reporting, managing projects and capturing data that is used to depict the project status. Developing or perhaps finding the right construction management template can take time and therefore you will be less productive. Don’t reinvent the wheel, someone already did it for you and we have facilitated even more as we have put
10 Game Changing Productivity Books You Should Read
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In this digital age we are always on call, always connected and always on the go. Whether it’s in your professional or personal life, staying productive can be difficult. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by your daily work load, doing busy work isn’t going to get important things done, you’ll only be stuck in this never-ending cycle. To help give you a push to get organized and started, I’ve
How To Build A Winning Report Even When You’re Off Track
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Tracking a project effectively is one of the most challenging requirements a project manager will face. Every customer has its own set of requirements and data that they want to consider; but in general, it’s all about costs, schedule and scope. The effectiveness of a project tracker is vital for a project progress as it represents a snapshot of the current conditions and can be useful for
8 Traits Of Successful Project Controls Professionals
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Unlike engineers who typically study engineering or banking professionals who study finance, project control professionals are a group of individuals who come from a diverse background. In my career I have worked with engineering, business, finance, economics and political science college graduates. I have also worked with individuals who had no college degree having worked their way up through
10 Top Project Management Podcasts You Should Listen To
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Podcasts are great way to learn while you're multitasking. You can use your commute time wisely and keep learning. And we’ve put together a list of the top Project Management Podcasts that can help you grow within your industry. Check out the top 10 Project Management Podcasts you should start listening to, and have bookmarked. Projectified™ with PMI Podcast! If you’re a
Construction Projects: What I Saw On My Visit To London
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London is a big and inspiring city. I had the chance to spend a week there for a bit of work and a bit of play. I managed to attend 2 excellent conferences, although they are quite underelated. I attended Chris Ducker's first Youpreneur event, and then later the 7th Project Controls Expo. As I walked around the city during the course of the week, I saw lots of construction activity going on in
My Favourite Quotes About Learning On The Job
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Learning often comes with a curve that can pull you up quickly and leave you wondering if you are cut out for what you are trying to accomplish. It can be comforting, motivating and inspiring to know that people from all walks of life have felt exactly like you do. To do just that for you, I've gathered together some of my favourite quotes that are designed to encourage and support you when
7 Productivity Killers You Should Avoid [INFOGRAPHIC]
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The internet is rife with tips about productivity tools, techniques and hacks. So many of us are searching for ways to improve our productivity, get the most out of our time and find great tools to help us. Implementing techniques and tools is great, but we can't ignore the "silent productivity killers." A study from the University of London found that people who multi-tasked while doing a
My Favourite Quotes on Construction & Building
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Throughout history, builders have always been revered for their ability to mold the natural elements into something new, perhaps something never seen before. Building is therefore a creative act on a momentous scale. For those lucky enough to be involved in Construction & Building, it's an incredible joy to be involved in bringing forth from mere drawings and ideas a structure that will
Ask Plan Academy: How To Fix P6 Partial Durations
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Today we're starting a new series on Plan Academy where will be answering your Primavera P6 and project controls questions in video rather than in text. Video is such a great medium to explore and it's one that I want to continue to hone my skills with. So welcome to Ask Plan Academy. Here's a great question from Raj that we'll be answering in the video below. "In Construction, is it
6 Tips To Manage Decision Fatigue: It’s Not as Difficult as You Think
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Are you overwhelmed with all of the decisions you have to make as soon as you walk into work? You might have decision fatigue. In one day have you ever felt like you’ve made so many decisions that it would suffice for a whole month? Each decision we make adds to decision fatigue. According to Wikipedia, in decision making and psychology, decision fatigue is when the quality of decisions
Primavera P6 64-Bit or 32-Bit: Which Should You Install?
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Update: Since Primavera P6 16, the 64-bit version is default. There was a decision to be made. It was just a simple check box. But looking back now, I'm as surprised as Robert Frost to the difference it made. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the
Construction Project Acceleration Won Them Millions: How They Did It
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341,000 vehicles a day traveled that section of the Santa Monica Freeway, making it amongst the busiest stretches of freeway in the Unites States of 1994. When the Northridge earthquake struck in January, 2 bridges fell from the I-10 causing death and devastation and leaving the Calfornia Department of Transportation (CalTrans) in a major pickle. The closure of the highway was estimated to have
The Biggest Resume Formatting Mistakes To Avoid [INFOGRAPHIC]
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Are you in the middle of a career change, or looking for a position in Project Management and not sure how to craft your resume? It's always said that a one page resume with value is better than a 5 pager. These days, the best way to go is to always give your resume a facelift specific to the industry and position. By targeting the job and formatting your resume appropriately, this will help
10 Ways eLearning Can Maximize Your ROI [INFOGRAPHIC]
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Are you looking to invest in eLearning for your team but don't want to deal with the lost in revenue and added expenses? Can investing in eLearning positively impact your ROI and your team anyways? - That's the question people tend to ask. Back in the day, investing in training for your team was like a field trip. Time had to be taken off of work resulting in loss of revenue, resources to
How To Create A Pivot Chart in Excel
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Are you faced with a mountain of excel data, and need to consolidate it into a usable format so that it can be easily filtered grouped and sorted? Welcome to the world of pivot tables! Pivot Tables are part of most spreadsheet or business intelligence software packages. They can be used with any kind of data that is stored in columns, but are extremely useful when the data is so large that it
When should I use Free Float? [in under 100 words]
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In layman's terms, Free Float tells you if an activity is "bumped up" to its successor activity (FF=0) or if there is a delay between the activity and its successor (FF>0). Use Free Float to help you understand if you have flexibility to delay / extend an activity without delaying its successor. You can bump right up to it. This is valuable in manual resource leveling where you may have to
The Origins Of Hammocks In Project Scheduling
When I think of a hammock, the first thing that comes to mind is a hammock hanging in the nice cool breeze between two tall palm trees in the Caribbean. In an article written by Patrick Weaver “The Origins of Hammocks and Ladders”, published in the PM World Journal, we get a glimpse of the origins of hammocks and why they were created in the first place. A hammock is an activity that hangs
How To Recognize Chaotic Project Management Practices [INFOGRAPHIC]
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15.7 MILLION New Project Management Roles will be created between 2010 and 2020. Project management is making a big impact in several industries like Construction, business services and Oil & Gas among many others. 68% of projects fail due to poor project management according to IBM. With the increasing demands of project management, try avoiding the negative statistics and become a
Primavera P6 Professional 8.4 is Out: Should You Upgrade?
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A few days ago, Oracle released the latest updates to the Primavera P6 suite under version 8.4. At first, this seemed just like another version update with a few enhancements and bug fixes. But after I took a closer look, Primavera P6 Professional 8.4 ushers in some major architecture and feature changes for P6 Professional standalone users. Let's see what's new to understand what I
[Quiz] World’s Biggest Construction Projects – Did They Come In On-Time or On-Budget?
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Project nightmare or dream development? The CN Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Big Dig....did these construction projects hit their targets? Take a break and complete the quiz to see if you know how these iconic construction projects performed - did they come in on-time or on-budget? Enjoy & Have fun! Sources: The Channel Tunnel Top 10 Billion Dollar Cost Overruns on
Setting Up LOEs and Resource Loading Them
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Introduction I would like to introduce the use of Level of Effort (LOE) activities to resource load a schedule. This technique is particularly applicable to an engineering design environment. I often have to create schedules with input from five or more engineering disciplines. The cost estimates vary in accuracy and the scope can change depending on the engineering design developments and the
