White Constructions Pty Ltd v PBS Holdings Pty Ltd [2019] NSWSC 1166, involved a claim for delay and costs arising out of a contract to design a sewerage system for a subdivision and submit it for approval. The alleged breach was the failure to create and submit a sewer design acceptable to the approval authority which had the effect of delaying completion of the subdivision, giving rise to a claim for damages by White.

White and PBS both appointed experts to undertake a schedule analysis, and they did agree an ‘as-built’ program of the works but disagreed on almost everything else including the delay analysis method to use, the correct application of the methods, and the extent of the overall project delay caused by the delays in approving the sewer design.

The Judge found:

[Clause 18]      Plainly, both experts are adept at their art. But both cannot be right. It is not inevitable that one of them is right.
[Note: This approach is consistent with the UK court decision of Akenhead J in Walter Lilly & Company Ltd v Mckay [2012] EWHC 1773 (TCC) at [377], “the court is not compelled to choose only between the rival approaches and analyses of the experts. Ultimately it must be for the court to decide as a matter of fact what delayed the works and for how long”. This precedent has been followed on a number of occasions[1].]

[Clause 22]      The expert reports are complex. To the unschooled, they are impenetrable. It was apparent to me that I would need significant assistance to be put in a position to critically evaluate their opinions and conclusions.

[Clause 25]      Under UCPR r 31.54, the Court obtained the assistance of Mr Ian McIntyre (on whose appointment the parties agreed).

[Clause 137]   The major components of the works were:
       • earthworks,
       • roadworks and kerbing,
       • sewerage,
       • electrical and National Broadband Network (NBN) installation,
       • footpaths, and
       • landscaping.,

[Clause 138]   The electrical and NBN installation was contracted to and carried out by an organisation called Transelect. Landscaping was contracted to RK Evans Landscaping Pty Ltd. The as-built program is not in dispute.
[Note: the rest of the work was undertaken by other contractors]

[Clause 184]   White bears the onus of establishing that it suffered loss and the quantum of it.

[Clause 185]   White’s damages are based on delay to the whole project, said to be attributable to the late (underbore) sewer design. This is not the type of subject upon which precise evidence cannot be adduced. [Therefore] It is not a subject which involves the Court having to make an estimation or engage in some degree of guesswork.

[Clause 188]   The descriptions of the methods adopted by Shahady and Senogles respectively are evidently derived from the publication of the United Kingdom Society of Construction Law, the Delay and Disruption Protocol….

[Clause 191]   Mr McIntyre’s opinion, upon which I propose to act, is that for the purpose of any particular case, the fact that a method appears in the Protocol does not give it any standing, and the fact that a method, which is otherwise logical or rational, but does not appear in the Protocol, does not deny it standing.
[Note: this is the same wording as an express statement contained in the Delay and Disruption Protocol]

[Clause 195]   Mr McIntyre’s opinion, upon which I propose to act, is that neither method [used by the parties experts] is appropriate to be adopted in this case.

[Clause 196]   Mr McIntyre’s opinion, upon which I propose to act, is that close consideration and examination of the actual evidence of what was happening on the ground will reveal if the delay in approving the sewerage design actually played a role in delaying the project and, if so, how and by how much. In effect, he advised that the Court should apply the common law common sense approach to causation In effect, he advised that the Court should apply the common law common sense approach to causation referred to by the High Court in March v E & MH Stramare Pty Ltd (1991) 171 CLR 506.

[Clause 197]   The Court is concerned with common law notions of causation. The only appropriate method is to determine the matter by paying close attention to the facts, and assessing whether White has proved, on the probabilities, that delay in the underboring solution delayed the project as a whole and, if so, by how much.

[Clause 198]   This requires it to establish that:
• the whole project would have been completed by 15 July 2016,
• the final sewer approval delay delayed sewer works,
• the sewer works delay prevented non-sewer works from otherwise proceeding, that is, that the programme could not reasonably have been varied to accommodate the consequences of late approval, and
• other works could not have been done to fill downtimes so as to save time later.

[Clause 199]   ……… White has failed to discharge this burden.

Summary

The factors required to prove a delay outlined by the Judge at Clause 198 can be generalised as follows:

1. The completion date for the project before the delay event occurred has to be known with some certainty.
2. The delay event has to be shown to cause a delay which flowed through to extend the overall project completion date.
3. There were not reasonable alternative ways of working that could mitigate the effect of the delay on project completion.

More significant, none of these steps needs a CPM schedule.  The project status and the effect of the disruption on project completion can be assessed based on its effect on the productivity of key resources. This is discussed in Assessing Delays in Agile & Distributed Projects: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PDF_Papers/P215_Assessing_Delays_In_Agile_+_Distributed_Projects.pdf   

[1]     This approach by the courts is discussed in Delivering Expert Evidence is Becoming Harder: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/Mag_Articles/AA028_Delivering_Expert_Evidence.pdf

The Port of Melbourne is the largest port for containerized and general cargo in Australia. Anyone visiting the port, or Melbourne generally, would think the Yarra River must have been a useful harbor at the time of settlement, and the various docks were built to enhance this natural asset. Modern maps, and the view out to Port Philip Bay reinforce this concept.

The truth is very different, almost everything shown in the pictures above is man made.

 Settlement

The settlement of Melbourne started in 1835. To put this date in context, it is 20 years after the Battle of Waterloo and 2 years before the coronation of Queen Victoria[1].  The original settlement was located in the area of the current day CBD. This site was chosen for its access to fresh water from the stream running through the site, rather than its potential as a port.  

Early problems

An underwater sand bar at the entrance of the Yarra River ruled out the entry of vessels drawing more than about nine feet of water and access up river was blocked at ‘The Falls’, a rock bar running across the river which was used as a crossing point by the local Aboriginal peoples.

This limited access meant ships arriving from overseas had to drop anchor in Hobson’s Bay, or moor at the Sandridge (Port Melbourne) Pier. Passengers and goods then had to walk, use carts, or be transshipped up the river in smaller vessels or ‘lighters’ as they were called. Costs were excessive! It has been recorded that it cost 30 shillings per ton (half the entire freight costs for the voyage from England) to have goods taken the eight miles from sea to city.

The discovery of gold in 1850 exacerbated the problems of the port. In just one week in 1853 nearly 4000 passengers from 138 ships arrived in Hobson’s Bay and in 1858 the average delay moving goods from the port into the city was three weeks.

The initial solution to this problem was the construction in 1854 of the first steam railway in Australia from piers built at Sandridge (now the suburb of Port Melbourne) to the city this railway is discussed in The First Steam Powered Railway in Australia, but a better solution was needed for cargo.

Developing the Port of Melbourne – 1839 to 1877

The Yarra River was progressively improved to facilitate trade. Jetties were built along the banks of the river from 1839 onwards funded by wharfage charges. This 1857 photograph shows the wharfs downstream from ‘The Falls’.

The 1864 map of Melbourne shows the limitations outlined above were still limiting the development of Melbourne despite the massive influx of money from the Victorian gold rush. The Falls effectively dammed the river causing major flooding and the restrictions caused by the swamps bends and shoals in the Yarra restricted trade.

Developing the Port of Melbourne – 1877 to 1902

To overcome the problems, the Melbourne Harbor Trust was formed in 1877 and engaged English engineer, Sir John Coode to recommend solutions.

Starting in 1879 Sir John Coode made three key recommendations:
– the development of a canal to improve access for ships,
– the demolition of The Falls to reduce flooding, and
– the deepening of the narrow entrance to Port Phillip Bay from the ocean.

Based on Sir John’s recommendation, the course of the lower Yarra’s was significantly altered. This visionary feat of engineering involved 2,000 workers for 20 years. The proposal not only significantly shortened travel time up the river for ships, but also created Victoria Harbour and Victoria Dock.

The original wide loop in the river was eliminated through the construction of the 1.5 km Coode Canal which opened in 1886, and West Melbourne Dock (now Victoria Dock) opened to shipping in 1893. The canal created Coode Island and caused the shallow, narrow and winding Fishermans Bend to be cut off along with other sections of the river including Humbug Reach and the original junction with the Maribyrnong River. The Coode Canal was deepened to 25 feet and widened from 100 to 145 feet in 1902.

The plan to remove ‘The Falls’ involved clearing the reef to a uniform depth of 15 feet 6 inches, at an estimate cost of £20,000.  The demolition was complete by 1883, having been funded by a combination of the Victorian Government and the Harbour Trust. The reduction in flooding caused by the improved river flows converted flood plains and swamps into dry land, encouraging the development of South Melbourne discussed in The evolution of South Melbourne. The lake in Albert Park is all that remains of the freshwater lagoons and seasonal swamps South of the Yarra.

The Rip at Port Phillip Heads was also deepened in 1883 using explosives.

Developing the Port of Melbourne – 1902 onward.

The piers at Sandridge (Port Melbourne) continued to be important, but mainly for passengers. A new pier, built to the west of Railway Pier, opened in 1916, called the New Railway Pier. This was renamed Prince’s Pier in 1921. These piers were important locations for the departure and return of troops to the Boer War in South Africa and WW1 &2, as well as the arrival of many thousands of migrants after WW2.

The current Station Pier, which replaced the original Railway Pier, was built between 1922 and 1930 and remains the primary passenger arrival point in Melbourne with cruise ships visiting throughout summer.  Princes Pier has been demolished.   

Meanwhile, most cargo shipments were handled by the Victoria Dock, and by 1908 it was handling ninety per cent of Victoria’s imports. In 1914 its capacity was enlarged by the addition of a central pier and in 1925 the entrance was widened. But with rapidly increasing imports and exports further renovation and development was needed. Also, as ships increased in size there was a need for larger wharves and deeper berths to accommodate them.

The growth of the city also encroached on the Eastern end of the docks. The construction of the Spencer Street Bridge in 1927-28 meant that all port traffic had to be handled further downstream, foreshadowing the need for even more docks, and the expansion of the port towards the West and the bay.

To overcome these challenges, the docks spread to the West, and no cover all of the land between the land from Moonee Ponds Creek to the Maribyrnong River, totally absorbing Coode Island.

The original Victoria Dock and the adjacent North Wharf on the river continued to play a vital role, handling up to half of the Port of Melbourne’s trade until the shift to containerisation and then the construction of the Bolte Bridge in 1999, made the old port facilities redundant.  From 2000 the Victoria Docks became Docklands, and were revitalised as commercial and residential areas, while the Port of Melbourne continues to expand downstream.  

The last major expansion of the port was the construction of Webb Dock at the mouth of the Yarra River in 1960.

Improvements in both wharf-side and land-side facilities continue, but despite all of these improvements, the Port of Melbourne is approaching capacity, the next developments are not far off but need political decisions on the location, either in Port Phillip Bay or Westernport Bay to allow the next transformation to start.

Footnote on the names

The rock bar called ‘The Falls’ in this post was called Yarro- Yarro meaning “waterfall or ever flowing” by the local peoples. The river was known as the Birrarung by the Wurundjeri people. The first settlers confused the names and called the river Yarra.

The , Yarro Yarro Falls were important to the local Aboriginal tribes, the Woiwurrung and the Boonerwrung, who used it as a crossing point between their lands, in order to negotiate trade and marriages. This was the only means of crossing the Yarra River until ferries and punts began operating c 1838. The first bridge was constructed c 1845, a little further upstream, at the location very near what is now known as the ‘Princes Bridge’.

For more papers on the history of the construction industry see:
https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ZSY-005.php#Bld

[1] A historical timeline can be viewed at: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PDF_Papers/P212_Historical_Timeline.pdf

The creation of an institution, designed to gather all of the information in the world and make it available to everyone who needs it pre-dates Google by 2200 years!

The city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander The Great in April 331 BCE after his army had captured the Egyptian Satrapy from the Persians. He wanted to build a large Greek city on Egypt’s coast with good fresh water and a harbour. Under his direction, Alexandria became the world’s first planned city with streets laid out in a grid and many other features still used in urban design.

Following the death of Alexander in 323 BCE, there was a power grab for his empire among his top-ranking officers and the Ptolemies gained control of Egypt, and made Alexandria their capital. They reigned as Pharaohs until Cleopatra’s death during the Roman era.  Within the city, the Great Library of Alexandria, was to become one of the largest and most significant libraries of the ancient world. Situated in the Royal Quarter near the harbour, it formed part of a larger research institution called the Mouseion, which was dedicated to the Muses, the nine goddesses of the arts. This was not the first library of its kind. A long tradition of libraries existed in both Greece and the ancient Near East. The earliest recorded archive of written materials comes from the Sumerian city-state of Uruk in around 3400 BCE, and there were other famous libraries in existence in Babylon and Greece. However, the Great Library would grow to outshine all of these.

The Great Library was most likely founded by Ptolemy I sometime before 283 BCE, but does not appear to have been completed until the reign of Ptolemy II (283–246 BCE). The Ptolemaic rulers intended the Great Library to be a collection of all knowledge, and worked for more than a century to expand the Library’s collections through an aggressive and well-funded policy of book purchasing, and plunder. Any books found on ships that came into port were taken to the library, where they were copied by official scribes. The original texts were kept in the library, and the copies delivered to the owners.

The Mouseion which housed the Great Library also served as home to a host of international scholars, poets, philosophers, and researchers, who the Ptolemies provided with a large salary, free food and lodging, and exemption from taxes. There were numerous classrooms, where the scholars were expected to at least occasionally teach students. The Roman period, particularly after the Christianization of the Empire in the 1^st century CE, saw the decline and eventual destruction of this institution.   

While the concept of a library is debated, it is certainly more than just a collection of books – ‘any number of books brought together in one place, no more, of itself, constitutes a library than a pile of bricks can be called a house’. Academics generally agree a library needs purpose, organization, and maintenance of its collection (all of which apply to the Great Library), but the sheer size of the Great Library collection posed some unique problems.

First, within half a century of its foundation circa 295 BCE, the collections of the Royal Library had exceeded the space allotted to contain the accumulated books. To that end, Ptolemy III (246–221 BCE) established an offshoot that could house the surplus volumes in the newly built Serapeum, a temple dedicated to the worship of the Greco-Egyptian god Serapis, situated in the Egyptian district south of the city. Unlike the layout of the Mouseion, of which no records remain, a surprising amount of this temple has survived allowing us an insight as to how it looked and functioned.

This outer library was open to everyone and the medieval text of John Tzetzes suggests there were “42,000 books in this outer library”, mainly duplicates, and lower quality scrolls. There was free access to this collection, people of the city and visitors could take scrolls to read, or attend public readings if they were illiterate.   

Second, making information freely available is one thing, being able to find that information is altogether a more complex undertaking. In addition to the outer library, the inner (Royal) Library is said to have held another 400,000 mixed books, plus 90,000 unmixed books. But, how could scholars navigate this vast collection in order to use it in any sort of efficient way? Finding the information you needed requires a system.

The starting point was assigning texts to different rooms based on their subject matter. The first Librarian, Zenodotus made an inventory of the Library’s holdings, which he then organized into three major categories:

• The first category included history books, edited and standardized literary works, and new works of Ptolemaic literature.
• The second included holdings used for comparison and in the creation of the standardized works mentioned above. Included in this category were also letters and maps.
• The third group comprised original writings in foreign languages, many of which had been translated into Greek, and which, in translation were included in the first group.

Within each of these divisions he then organized the works alphabetically by the first letter of the name of their author. This was one of the first uses of the principle of alphabetic organization. To maintain the collection, library staff then attached a small dangling tag to the end of each scroll, which contained information on each work’s author, title, and its subject, so that materials could be easily returned to the area in which they had been classified, but this also meant that library users did not have to unroll each scroll in order to see what it contained. This was the first recorded use of metadata, another landmark in library history.

Zenodotus’ methods overlaid an ordering principle on the entire collection of the Great Library which continues to be applied in libraries through to the current times. But, as the collection grew a more detailed structure was needed. This was implemented by Callimachus of Cyrene; he divided the collection into the main realms of literature as generally agreed at the time. Then within each of these divisions, he shelved all the authors in alphabetical order by the first letter of their name. This scheme is a classic taxonomy, Aristotle (384-322 BCE) is often credited as the first great taxonomist and his ideas may have been influential in the design of the system.

This approach took care of the shelving principle, but Callimachus went a step further. As a finding aid, he produced the pinakes, or “Tables of Persons Eminent in Every Branch of Learning Together with a List of Their Writings”. While the entire one hundred twenty scrolls of the pinakes have not survived to this day, the pieces of it that have survived show this was one of the first known documents that lists, identifies, and categorizes a library’s holdings. Within the pinakes, Callimachus listed works alphabetically by author and genre then added metadata in the form of a short biographical note on each author, which prefaced that author’s entry within his catalogue and sometimes a summary of the scroll’s contents.

How great was the influence of the Great Library of Alexandria on the development of knowledge is hard to define, it was probably significant. What we do know is the systems used to lay out the library, and classify the documents carry through to modern times and the next level of detail, indexing the contents of books did not occur until the 13^th century CE.

The advantages and disadvantages of the free-form Google search over the structure of a well designed taxonomy, and an annotated catalogue are the search will look at ‘everything’, but the list of documents produced has had no vetting for quality, accuracy or relevance.  When managing knowledge, more is not necessarily better.  

For more on indexing and library classification system download Finding Information – The art of Indexing from: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ZSY-010.php#Process1

At a more practical level, Mosaic’s Project Management Knowledge Index (PMKI) is a taxonomy of project management papers and articles. The Taxonomy is available to download, use and adapt as well as the articles, papers and reference materials: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI.php

If you are planning to attend don’t forget the 10% discount – see the code in the image below:

The fourth paper on our series for the PM World Journal on Project Management in the time of COVID, Rethinking Communication has been uploaded to the Mosaic website.

Organizations everywhere are struggling with the requirements of returning project planning and delivery to pre-COVID levels, which in turn creates a range of communication challenges. They need to prevail over the global threats of staff and material shortages, the demographic changes to the project workforce and the general reluctance of project teams members to resume full-time face-to-face modes of working. These are complex issues for organizations and may need courage to introduce innovative flexible work modes and to introduce new people strategies to acquire and retain project workers. It is a great opportunity for innovation and flexibility, and will require a measure of audacity from often conservative organizations. To achieve these ambitious goals, they must ensure that communication and people management strategies match any changes they plan to introduce, and even more important, to ensure adequate consultation with their people.

Download all three papers from: Project Management in the time of COVID

Easy CPM is a self-paced course-in-a-book, supported by Mosaic Project Services Pty Ltd, focused on developing and using an effective schedule in almost any software tool. For projects using EVM, Easy CPM acts as a companion to our Easy EVM focusing on developing the realistic and achievable schedule that underpins EVM and is needed for the successful delivery of all projects.

The book is intended to provide practical guidance to people involved in developing, or using, schedules based on the Critical Path Method (CPM). It is designed to act as a reference and practice guide to enhance the effectiveness of their scheduling practice after they have learned to use the CPM scheduling software of their choice.

The basic premise underpinning the development of this book is that a schedule is only useful if it is used. Creating a usable schedule requires two parallel processes:

1. It requires a pragmatic approach to planning and scheduling the future work of a project to create a realistic and achievable schedule.
2. It also requires management to make effective use of the schedule, which is a management challenge that typically involves a significant shift in culture and expectations.

Both of these aspects are considered in Easy CPM.

The book is divided into six sections, each section includes guidance on an aspect of CPM scheduling, references, and a set of 20 questions; with the answers in Section 7. Section 8 incorporates the appendix.

$35.00 AUD (Plus GST, Australian customers only). Size: 295 pages, 120 questions, file size 22 Mb.

Preview Easy CPM on Book2Look, or click through for more information and to buy.

See more on Easy EVM.

But how many people know about the photographer? Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Hine

I’m starting to think too many project controls experts let their ‘images’ created in Primavera, or other tools, do the talking and as a consequence fade into the background. Our industry needs the next generation of leaders to be far more visible and help drive innovation and improvement in the practice of project controls and the delivery of projects and programs.

There are many opportunities to step up to the challenge, my immediate interest is the Project Governance and Controls Symposium in Canberra: https://www.pgcsymposium.org.au/ And there are many other events world-wide where you can help guide the future of project controls and management.

If you want to see more on our history, see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ZSY.php

Feedback from the publication of Easy EVM has highlighted how little most managers and project controls people understand about the methodology. In one respect, this is surprising given its some 55 years since Earned Value Management (EVM) was introduced in its current form. Although, given the almost impenetrable sequence of acronyms used by EVM expert’s to explain things, maybe this lack of general appreciation of the power of EVM is understandable.

Six of the biggest gaps in understanding are:

• EVM is a performance management system based on measuring the value of work performed, its sole purpose is to facilitate better management decision making
• EVM is NOT a financial accounting system, project cost control tool, or an incentive payment system, but does need information from the project’s accounts
• EVM is NOT a scheduling system, but does need information from the scheduling tool
• The Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and WBS Dictionary is the heart of the EVMS
• EVM is a lot more than simple ‘S-Curves’
• EVM requires traceability and auditability

Implementing an EVM system requires appropriate tools, one of the biggest mistakes being to try running an EVMS in a scheduling tool – this is a recipe for disaster! The schedule is focused on time, the EVMS on value, these are very different measures of performance and need different systems to operate effectively.

These six points are expanded in our latest published article: Earned Value Management – Six things’ people don’t get! (click to download)

One of my objectives in writing Easy EVM was to cut through much of the unnecessary complexity and provide a straightforward guide to the value of using EVM on larger projects, see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/shop-easy-evm.php

One of the books I’ve read this year was ‘Great Feuds in Mathematics’ (see: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Feuds-Mathematics-Liveliest-Disputes/dp/1681620103) and one of the top ten ‘feuds’ was between Newton (of ‘apple’ fame) and Leibniz over who invented calculus.

I’ve just been watching a YouTube video showing the original letters involved in the dispute from around 1670 – some 550 years ago. It seems no matter where you document something, there’s a high probability of it turning up at an inconvenient moment….. The answer to the dispute, Newton was first, but the notation developed by Leibniz is the one students of calculus still use: https://youtu.be/LN–erHStqA

When a decision maker has to choose between a number of viable alternatives with the selection of the best option being influenced by information (usually insufficient) and preferences founded on values and ethics, the decision involves uncertainty and therefor incorporates an element of risk. No process can guarantee a good outcome from every decision, but working through the pragmatic process outlined in this article can help increase the probability of an acceptable outcome.

Download the article from: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/Mag_Articles/AA010_Every_decision_is_a_risk.pdf

For more on decision making see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-TPI-010.php#Decisions