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Category Archives: General Project Management

The evolution of AI

Posted on December 17, 2023 by | Leave a comment

In our previous blog, AI is coming to a project near you!, we identified a large number of project management software applications using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the rapid spread of the capability. But what exactly is AI? This post offers a brief overview of the concept.   

AI is not as new as some people imagine. Some of the mathematics underpinning AI can be traced back to the 18th century and many of the fundamental concepts were developed in the 20th, but there was very limited use of AI. The ability to make widespread practical use of AI required the development of computers with sufficient processing capabilities to process large amounts of data quickly.  Each of the developments outlined below were enabled by better processors and increased data storage capabilities.

Types of AI

The modern concept of intelligent processing is more than 50 years old, but the way a computer application works depends on the design of the application.  Very broadly:

Decision tables have been in software since the 1960s, the decision table applies a cascading set of decisions to a limited set of data to arrive at a result.  The ‘table’ is hard-wired into the code and does not change. Many resource levelling algorithms are based on decision tables to decide what resources get allocated to which activities on each day.

Expert systems, known as rule-based systems in the 1960s, use explicitly crafted rules to generate responses or data sets based on an initial question. These systems were the basis of many automated Chatbots and help systems. The system’s rules are ‘hard-wired’ and do not change without external intervention.

Data mining was developed in the 1990s. The application uses generalized instructions to look at large volumes of data to discover previously unknown properties. Generalized processes means the data being examined does not need to be labelled or predefined. The application works out a suitable structure, and then draws classes information from within the data set. These system can be interactive, but are not self-learning. Extracting knowledge from ‘big data’ supports Business Intelligence and other business and marketing improvement initiatives.

Machine learning (ML). Basic ML is similar to data mining. It concerned with the development and study of statistical algorithms that can effectively generalize to perform tasks without explicit instructions. ML focuses on prediction and recognition, based on properties the application has learned from training data. The basic functions of ML were defined in the early 2000s and the concept continues to evolve and develop. The basic ML approach can be seen in a range of project management tools where the application recommends durations, lists likely risks, or performs other predictive assessments on your current project, based on data from previous projects.

Algorithmic Decision Making, a subset of ‘expert systems’ focused on using conventional machine learning and statistical techniques such as ordinary least squares, logistic regression, and decision trees to automate traditional human-based decision-making processes. Research suggests, well designed algorithms are less biased and more accurate than the humans they are replacing, improving predictions and decisions, but care is needed; they can also perpetuate blind spots, biases and be built to be fundamentally unfair.

Generative AI (Gen AI) extends the capability of ML. Gen AI uses generative artificial neural networks and ‘deep learning’ to deliver enhanced performance. Gen AI has been applied to large language models (LLM), computer vision, robotics, speech recognition, email filtering, agriculture, medicine, and many other fields. Each branch of development takes the basic principles of Gen AI and adapts them to the specific needs of the researchers. Latest trends are linking different strands of Gen AI to create new things such as generating pictures from verbal descriptions, and linking Gen AI to the IoT (Internet of Things) and additive manufacturing functions to produce computer designed ‘stuff’.

Large language models (LLM) are the branch of generative AI with most direct relevance to project management. LLM uses deep learning algorithms that can perform a variety of natural language processing (NLP) tasks. They are trained using massive datasets which enables them to recognize, translate, predict, or generate text or other content. LLM applications must be pre-trained and then fine-tuned so that they can solve text classifications, answer questions, summarize documents, and generate text, sound, or images. The challenge with LLM is in the training materials, the system only knows what it has been taught. This branch of Gen AI burst into prominence with the development of ChatGPT. Its developer, OpenAI (a research company), launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022 – a year later and ChatGPT has world-wide attention.

LLM underpins most of todays advanced AI applications and can generate content across multiple types of media, including text, graphics, and video. While early implementations have had issues with accuracy and bias the tools are improving rapidly.

Progress to date indicates that the inherent capabilities of Gen AI will fundamentally change enterprise technology, and how businesses operate. Rather than simply requiring technical skills, employees will also need critical thinking, people skills, and a good understanding of ethics and governance processes.

In the four months from January to April 2023 the percentage of employees in Australia using Gen AI grew from 10% to 35%[1].  This rapid growth in use raises concerns around safety, privacy and security but businesses that do not explore the use of Gen AI in their organisations or industry risk being left behind.

The technological world is becoming very closely integrated:

Source: ACS Australia’s Digital Pulse | A new approach to building Australia’s technology skills – click to expand.

For more on the application of AI to project management software see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-033.php#AI

Our next post will look at the use of LLM in project management.

[1] Australian Computer Society research 2023. Australia’s Digital Pulse | A new approach to building Australia’s technology skills

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AI is coming to a project near you!

Posted on December 9, 2023 by | 2 comments

Like it or not, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming to a project near to you. As well as adaptations of the generic tools such as ChatGPT many new tools are being released and established tools upgraded to embed AI in various ways. But care is needed – “Garbage in, Garbage out” can still diminish the value of AI.

Generative AI tool that create content based on their ‘large language model’ need to be trained on quality resources rather than the mass of misinformation floating around the internet. This is not hard to do and can generate impressive results (but be careful of copyright).  Most project management tools with embedded AI are built around machine learning (ML) and learn from the data you generate; the more advanced tools then apply AI to create insights.

These enhanced tools bring almost limitless processing capabilities to give meaning to data and help make crucial decisions to achieve project strategies. They can take over various technical tasks allowing project managers to deal with more crucial tasks as well as improving various estimating and risk assessment processes by provide insights from previous projects to enable managers to do a better job. These systems can also assist by keeping track of the project and checking key metrics like budgets, milestones, and other resources.

AI is still improving, and so are AI project management tools. All of this creates numerous benefits for the project management process. However, here are some core benefits you can expect right away. 

  • Better Project Estimations 
  • Improved Scheduling and Planning
  • More reliable Roadmaps and Budgets
  • More Predictability

There are a surprisingly large number of tools embedding ML and/or AI, too many to list here!  What we have done is augment the Mosaic PM Software and Tools listing to highlight tools with some ML or AI capability – look for the blue – AI – in the categorized listings at:
https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-030.php 

If you know of any additional tools missing from the list (or tools in the list that should be flagged ‘AI’) let me know and I will update the list.

For more on the application of AI to project management software see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-033.php#AI

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How WPM Works

Posted on December 5, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Work Performance Management (WPM) is a methodology developed by Mosaic Project Services Pty Ltd to offer a simple, robust solution to the challenges of providing rigorous project controls information on projects that cannot (or are not) using CPM and/or EVM. It works by setting an expected rate of working using an appropriate metric, then measuring the actual work achieved to date. Based on this data, WPM can assess how far ahead or behind plan the work currently is, and using this information calculate the likely project completion date and VAC.

The basis of the calculations used in WPM are the same as is used in Earned Schedule (ES), however, WPM is much simpler to set up and use. The only two requirements to implement WPM are:

  • A consistent metric to measure the work planned and accomplished, and
  • A simple but robust assessment of when the work was planned to be done.

Our latest article, How WPM Works, explains in detail the processes and calculations used in WPM, and the outputs produced.

Understanding the current status and projected completion is invaluable management information for Agile and other projects where CPM schedules are not used, and even where a project has a good CPM schedule in place this additional information is useful. Then by plotting the trends for both the current variance (WV) and VAC management also knows how the project is tracking overall.

Download How WPM Works: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/Mag_Articles/AA038_-_How_WPM_Works.pdf

For more on WPM see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-041.php#Overview

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Work Performance Management (WPM)

Posted on November 28, 2023 by | Leave a comment

Work Performance Management (WPM) is a new project controls tool that is being developed by Mosaic Project Services. WPM is designed to calculate the current status, and predicted completion date for any project in a consistent, repeatable, and defensible way. It is primarily intended for use in projects, applying Agile or Lean Construction management approaches, where traditional CPM scheduling cannot be used effectively, but will add value on most projects. The types of projects where WPM can provide an effective controls tool include:

  • Relatively small projects requiring a straightforward controls system
  • Large projects with a single primary deliverable that is easy to measure
  • Large projects using CPM where there is a need to overcome the CPM optimism bias[1]
  • All project applying Agile[2] and Lean Construction approaches where the project team determine the sequence of working
  • Distributed projects[3] where CPM is inappropriate, and management has chosen not to use the ES extension to EVM.

WPM is an easy to use, robust, performance measurement system. The two requirements to implement WPM are:

  • A consistent metric to measure the work planned and accomplished, and
  • A simple but robust assessment of when the work was planned to be done

Based on this data, WPM can calculate how far ahead or behind plan the work currently is, and based on this information, the likely project completion date (assuming work will continue at the current rate). Recording the status and expected completion at each update provides reliable trend information. This means there is no longer any excuse for, a project team, senior management, and/or the organization’s governing body, ‘not to know’ how the work of each project is progressing.

For a more detailed overview of WPM, see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-041.php#Overview

Or download Overview of WPM: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/Mag_Articles/AA037_-_Overview_of_WPM.pdf

[1]     For more on WPM and the CPM optimism bias see:
https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-041.php#WPM-CPM

[2]     For more on applying WPM to Agile and Lean projects see:
https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-041.php#WPM-Agile

[3]     For more on applying WPM to distributed projects (and a definition of distributed projects) see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-041.php#WPM-Dist

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Posted in Agile Ideas, General Project Management, IT Project Management, Project Controls

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Controlling agile and distributed projects – A new Paradigm for Success

Posted on November 19, 2023 by | 1 comment

Project controls are facing a dilemma, on one hand there is a strong push to make projects agile and adaptive, on the other the need for on time delivery, organisational reporting requirements, and the law of contracts require precision and certainty from project control systems. For a wide range of projects, traditional critical path scheduling (CPM) is no longer fit for purpose, a new controls paradigm is needed.

CPM is based on scientific management concepts. It assumes there is one best way to undertake the work of a project, management know what this is, and their intentions can be modelled in a CPM schedule. While the CPM paradigm remains true for many projects, experience shows there are also many where this assumption is simply not correct including both soft and distributed projects. In this type of project, there is an ongoing level of flexibility in the sequencing of work that can be exploited to the benefit of the project and the client. However, most of the available management tools such as burndown charts, Kanban boards, sprint planning, last planner, etc., are specific to a methodology, focus on optimising work in the short term, and lack a rigorous predictive capability. 

This presentation define the characteristics of projects that are not suited to CPM, including agile, adaptive, and distributed projects, and describe an approach for managing this type of project based on agile and lean, while recognising there are likely to be some mandatory sequences that must be followed. WPM offers a rigorous framework for identifying progress and predicting the project completion date based on the quantity of work achieved compared to the quantity planned to be accomplished.

This presentation is part of an ongoing project focused on identifying the challenges, and opportunities created by adapting an improved management approach to control agile, adaptive, and distributed projects focused on optimising resource productivity.

Download the presentation: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PDF_Papers/P214_Controlling_agile_and_distributed_projects.pdf

See more on WPM: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-SCH-041.php#WPM

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ICCPM Launches a new Competency Standard for Complex Project Leadership

Posted on November 11, 2023 by | Leave a comment

The International Centre for Complex Project Management (ICCPM) has announced the new Complex Project Leadership Competency Standard which defines a performance-based competency framework, identifying the skills and competencies project leaders need to succeed in complex environments.

The primary goal of performance-based competency frameworks is to align individual and occupational goals by clearly defining the expectations for job performance and competence. They serve as a roadmap for individuals to understand what is expected of them and provide a framework for assessing their performance against established criteria. There are five sections in the standard:

With the Standards in place, ICCPM is working to establish a Certification Scheme based on the Standards. This program will support the validation of skills and competencies and help align people with project and program needs.

The standard is available from: https://iccpm.com/resource-centre/complex-project-leadership-competency-standards-2023/  

For more on the management of complex projects see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ORG-040.php#Overview

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Every decision you make, every action you take has a carbon footprint

Posted on October 28, 2023 by | Leave a comment

I’ve been involved in three events recently, each having a focus on reducing the carbon footprint created by the construction industry:

  1. The RMIT University PCPM Industry and Research Awards Night 2023, where I presented the CIOB Certificate of Excellence to a student CIOB member in their final year with the highest GPA in Construction Management.  A significant proportion of the student projects on show at this event had a focus on sustainability and carbon reduction.
     
  2. ZERO is an industry group focused on embodied emissions from construction. Our latest discussion was on tools to measure embedded carbon in buildings.  For more on Zero see: https://zeroconstruct.com/  
     
  3. Representing the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB)[1] at the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) awards night for young engineers where the focus was again on reducing carbon from construction activities, with at least some of the award winners looking at the full lifecycle of a building.

Given construction activity accounts for 12% of all human carbon emissions, reducing the industries emissions makes sense. But to be effective, this needs a wholistic view of the carbon lifecycle in the built environment.

At the moment, the trend seems to be focused on measuring the carbon embedded in a structure during the building process. The tools discussed in the recent ZERO Zoom meeting need improving, but they are designed to plug into a BIM model[2] and calculate the embedded carbon.

While this is useful, and the technology is exciting, I have a feeling this focus is missing 90% of the problem. Just focusing on ‘the building’ creates the impression low carbon buildings are relatively expensive and designing for minimum carbon in the structure can cause overall emissions to rise significantly.  This is a lose-lose outcome.

From my perspective, some of the easiest ways to reduce carbon overall and reduce building costs lay in other areas. The cost of a building through its life is expressed by the ratio 1:5:200 where:
  –  1 is the cost of construction
  –  5 is the cost of facilities maintenance and refurbishment through
         the life of the structure
  –  200 is the cost of the operations undertaken within the structure.

While this is a financial ratio, spending money involves doing work which generally creates carbon, probably in similar proportions. Therefore, a small saving in construction that causes an increase in the ownership/operating costs is going to be highly counterproductive.

A few random ideas on ways to reduce carbon within a whole of life perspective include:

Passive Design to reduce operating/ownership costs. One example is eaves on domestic houses.  

Traditional houses had relatively wide eaves (particularly in warmer climates such as most of Australia). These provided shading to the walls and windows. Modern design eschews eaves, which means the walls and windows are hit with the full blast of summer sun.  The cost of the extra air-conditioning over the next 50+ years will far outweigh the cost of the eaves.  Add in the colour – dark colour absorb heat, the house pictured may be a good design for the northern half of Sweeden, but it is not very carbon friendly in Sydney. Other design considerations include natural lighting, passive ventilation, etc.

Design for a long life a well-constructed house or other building should have a life of 100+ years. The way the structure is used will change but if the basic frame is designed for a long life, it can be reused and redefined for far less cost than demolishing it and building something else.  One really daft trend has been to clad buildings with timber (driven by various ‘star-rating’ schemes). Timber rates very well if you focus just on the carbon embedded during building.  It is a disaster if you allow for repainting many times, then ripping off the rotting façade in 20 to 30 years’ time, sending the decomposing timbers to a tip and replacing the cladding with something else.  A brick wall may be more carbon-intensive than a wood wall, but a well-built brick wall will still be standing and doing its job in 200 years’ time.

Design to reduce construction waste every skip load of rubbish shipped off site is wasted carbon (and money).  There are many ways to reduce construction waste including: modularisation, off-site manufacture, intelligent packaging, etc. This is probably the easiest of the ‘low hanging fruit’ – saving costs and reducing carbon at the same time. Unfortunately at the moment, the tools used to measure embedded carbon don’t really have any way to measure the carbon in waste.

Design for maintenance and repurposing rather than demolition. Making building maintenance and repurposing easy, should increase the value of the structure while reducing its overall carbon footprint.  But achieving this also needs a change in mindset from building owners.  The Victorian government has announced the replacement of 100s of social housing units. There is no argument they are old and do need replacing.  However, their default approach is to demolish everything and re-build from scratch.  But the buildings have solid concrete frames with another 100+ years of life – a carbon sensible approach would be to strip the frames and design new cladding, interiors, and services. Done well this would be a lower cost and lower carbon option.   

Conclusion

The need to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment is a given, and new materials and improved measuring tools are both important. But, just focusing on one aspect, the carbon embedded in the construction process is a recipe for failure. The important missing elements are:

  1. Changing thinking and attitudes of asset owners. Governments are responsible for a very large percentage of the overall built environment and their innate conservatism is creating thousands of tones of carbon: Local Authorities are largely ignoring recycled and low carbon alternatives for road surfacing. The Victorina Government immediately defaults to ‘knock everything down and rebuild’ in its social housing renewal. Etc.

  2. As with other aspects of construction, remember the 1:5:200 ratio. Building cheap / low carbon is only good if you have no interest in the operation and maintenance of the facility. Nirvana is building cheap / low carbon structures that are easy to maintain, efficient to operate, and have a long life.

  3. Requiring a whole-of-life approach to carbon in the built environment. This should be through amendments to building regulations and to measurement systems. Think of the impact if developers had to provide certified information on the 10-year and 20-year cost of ownership to prospective buyers…….

The emerging tools and technologies are important tools in the process of reducing the carbon footprint of the construction industry, but real change needs a wider focus. And as per the title of this post, in the construction industry, the wider built environment, and every other aspect of commercial, professional, and personal life, every decision you make, every action you take leaves a carbon footprint – it needs to be included in your thinking.

See also:
‘Built to Last‘ for a discussion on sustainability: /2023/07/22/built-to-last/ and
‘Shining the light towards low-carbon construction‘: /2023/02/27/shining-the-light-towards-low-carbon-construction/

For more on carbon in the construction industry see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-TPI-005.php#GB

[1] The CIOB were early proponents for the reduction of carbon in the construction industry and a lot of the thought above are founded on my involvement with the CIOB Carbon Action 2050 campaign unfortunately this initiative seems to have faded in the last decade: https://www.ciob.org/industry/politics-government/campaigns/carbon-action

[2] For more on BIM Modelling see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ITC-011.php#BIM

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The major news story everyone missed: KPMG hit with record fine for their role in the Carillion Collapse.

Posted on October 24, 2023 by | 2 comments

In 2018 the Carillion group of companies were bankrupt owing £1.5 Billion ($2.9 billion Australian), at the time, the largest bankruptcy ever in the UK.  The latest news is in October 2023, KPMG was fined a record £21 million (AU$40 million) for a ‘textbook failure’ in its audits of Carillion. This long running saga raises questions of ethics both within KPMG and the Carillion Board, and controls. Did the Board and Auditors not know (a management failure), or was it a case of not wanting to know the true situation (a governance failure)?  

A wider question for another time is the way the ‘big four’ accounting firms operate. String together Arthur Andersen and Enron in the USA (2001), KPMG and Carillion in the UK (2018), and PWC and the Australian Tax office (2022) suggests there are major structural issues with the ‘big four’ partnership model.

The Carillion Story

Carillion was created in July 1999, following a demerger from Tarmac Ltd., which had been founded in 1903. Following the demerger, Tarmac focused on its core heavy building materials business, while Carillion included the former Tarmac Construction contracting business and the Tarmac Professional Services group of businesses (I worked for Tarmac Construction in 1971/72 – it was a great company in those days).

As an independent company, Carillion undertook a series of acquisitions and expansions including:

  • 2001, expansion into the facilities management services sector
  • 2001, acquired the 51% of GT Rail Maintenance it did not already own
  • 2002, bought Citex Management Services
  • 2005, acquired Planned Maintenance Group
  • 2006, Mowlem support services business
  • 2008, Alfred McAlpine
  • 2008, Vanbots Construction in Canada
  • 2011, Eaga, an energy efficiency business rationalised later in the same year
  • 2012, 49% interest in The Bouchier Group, providing services in the Athabasca oil sands area
  • 2013, the facilities management business of John Laing
  • 2014, 60% stake in Rokstad Power Corporation, Canada
  • 2015, Outland Group, a specialist supplier of camps and catering at remote locations in Canada
  • 2022, Ask Real Estate, a Manchester-based developer

All of these acquisitions came at a cost, in March 2015 concerns about Carillion’s debt situation were raised and by October 2015, Carillion had become hedge funds’ most popular share to ‘sell short’ as analysts questioned the lack of growth and rising debt; the company’s share price fell 19% over the same period.

On 10 July 2017, a Carillion trading update highlighted a £845 million impairment charge in its construction services division, mainly relating to three loss-making UK PFI[1] projects and costs arising from Middle East projects. These and other write downs together exceeding £1 billion occurred only a few months after KPMG had given an unqualified audit opinion on the correctness of Carillion’s accounts.

However, despite these problems, in the five-and-half-year period from January 2012 to June 2017, Carillion had paid out £333 million more in dividends than it had generated in cash from its operations. But, net cash from operations was also needed to pay for investments, and interests on debt (Carillion’s interest charge was £30 million in 2016).

The Carillion Collapse

At the time of its implosion in January 2018, Carillion employed 43,000 people in defence, education, healthcare, transportation and construction and service activities. It had around 420 contracts with the British public sector and many other commercial contracts in the UK and overseas.

Reporting at the time highlighted the aggressive growth strategy, a complex internal management structure, a fuzzy governance structure, poor supervision of daily activities, and the loss of control on some of its flagship projects.  

Carillion had liabilities of £7 billion and just £29 million in cash when it went into liquidation. The primary cause of the Carillion collapse is undoubtedly the actions of its directors and managers and there are ongoing court actions against these people. However, the role of an auditor, is to provide an independent assessment of the organisation’s accounts, to identify the types of issue that lead to the collapse of Carillion and provide either assurance, or warnings to both shareholders and creditors.

The KPMG Involvement

KPMG were the auditors for Carillion, their involvement in this saga was finalised a couple of weeks ago when Britain’s accounting regulator, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC), fined KPMG a record £21 million (AU$40 million) for a ‘textbook failure’ in its auditing of the Carillion accounts. The FRC said the number, range, and seriousness of the deficiencies in the audits of Carillion including not challenging Carillion management, and a loss of objectivity were exceptional, which meant that Carillion was not subject to rigorous, comprehensive, and reliable audits in the three years leading up to its demise. The FRC fine would have been £30 million, but was discounted due to admissions and co-operation by the auditor.

In addition to this fine KPMG and its partners have received the following penalties:

  • KPMG was ordered to pay £5.3 million in costs
  • The lead auditor for 2014 to 2017 was fined £250,000 and banned for 10 years after a discount to reflect his cooperation and admission of failures.
  • The lead auditor for 2013 was handed a £70,000 penalty
  • Three other auditors were respectively; banned for eight years and fined £45,000, banned for seven years and fined £30,000 and banned for eight years and fined £40,000
  • KPMG was also fined £14.4 million in 2022 after providing false and misleading information to the FRC during spot checks on its audits of Carillion and another UK company
  • In February, KPMG paid an undisclosed sum to settle a separate £1.3 billion legal claim by the company’s liquidators, who claimed the auditor had missed ‘red flags’ resulting in the group’s accounts being misstated.

The FRC found that KPMG had failed to respond to numerous indicators that Carillion’s core operations were lossmaking and that it was reliant on short term and unsustainable measures to support its cash flows. The Carillion case is the 16th since 2018 in which the FRC or an industry tribunal has imposed sanctions against KPMG. It takes the total penalties and costs levied against the firm in that time to more than £95 million — far more than its rivals. 

Conclusions

The lack of press coverage of this saga in Australia at least can be attributed to the coverage of first the referendum, then the war in the Israil, plus the years of investigation and multiple trials since the Carillion collapse in 2018.  The still largely unanswered questions include:

  1. Can large organisations really be that bad at controlling major projects?  My answer is yes – look at London’s Crossrail project[2], HS2, and a long list of other projects.
  2. A more focused controls question is are the controls failure on this type of project a question of not knowing, or not wanting to know?  My answer is in Carillion’s case, the Directors did not want to know! Other situations are likely to vary[3].
  3. Who is responsible for the controls and reporting failures? My answer is the governing body. It is the Board of Directors who set the standards required from management and you do not get good controls without a significant investment[4].
  4. What about the Auditors?  My answer is both governments and corporations need to seriously rethink the way they engage with the ‘big four’, and the ‘big four’ need to be completely restructured – the ‘partner model’ has clearly failed.

For more on the failure of organisations to govern projects see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ORG-005.php#Process4

[1] PFI = Private Finance Initiative, a form of PPP (Public-Private Partnership) contract.

[2] For more on the Crossrail saga see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ITC-012.php#Crossrail

[3] For more on the link between governance and project controls see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-ORG-005.php#Process3

[4] See Predicting Completion – A Governance Requirement: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PDF_Papers/P214-Predicting_Completion-a_Governance_Requirement.pdf  

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Baked In Optimism – Why so many projects fail

Posted on October 21, 2023 by | 4 comments

This webinar presented as part of the free PGCS 2023 Webinar Series looked at two processes that are ‘baked into’ standard project management estimating and control to show how recommended good practices are still optimistically biased.

  • When preparing an estimate good practice recommends using Monte Carlo to determine an appropriate contingency and the level of risk to accept. However, the typical range distributions used are biased – they ignore the ‘long tail’.
  • When reporting progress, the estimating bias should be identified and rectified to offer a realistic projection of a project outcome. Standard cost and schedule processes typically fail to adequately deal with this challenge meaning the final time and cost overruns are not predicted until late in the project.

This webinar highlighted at least some of the causes for these problems. Solving the cultural and management issues is for another time. Download the PDF of the slides, or view the webinar at: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-PBK-046.php#Process2

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The Diolkos: Innovation, Evolution, or a Parallel Development?

Posted on October 17, 2023 by | Leave a comment

As part of the research underpinning our series of articles on the history of railways (and the people and projects that created them), we identified the Diolkos (built in the 6th century BCE) as probably the first purpose built railway used to move commercial ships overland across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece; see: /2023/04/17/the-diolkos-the-first-truly-commercial-project/

While the Diolkos’ place in the history of railways (or more accurately guided trolley ways) is not challenged, it seems the innovative approach used by the Corinthians was based on synthesis and elaboration rather than a ‘Eureka’ moment. As this post demonstrates, the use of a man-made structure designed to facilitate the movement of ships across land predates the Diolkos by more than 1000 years. Were the Greeks aware of these earlier developments?  Was the Diolkos the result of an inspirational insight, or, as it appears the result of synthesizing a number of ideas from diverse sources to solve a novel problem?

Egypt during the Middle Kingdom

The complex history of the relationship between Ancient Egypt and Nubia (modern day Sudan) goes back millennia and is dominated by wars, conquests (in both directions), and trade; with the Nile being central to all these activities. However, in the ‘border’ region between Egypt and Nubia and extending upstream (South) the flow of the Nile is disrupted by a series of cataracts, the Second (or Great) Cataract being the most challenging for navigation.

The period this post focuses on is during the Middle Kingdom, when Egypt conquered the Nile Vally well to the South of the Second Cataract and built a series of massive forts to control both the land and the trade on the Nile. Goods from Upper Nubia and beyond were moved by boat on the Nile, including ebony, ivory, spices, exotic fruit, live animals, and skins, as well as gold, diorite, and other minerals from various mines.

During the reign of Senusret III (c1878-1841 BCE) great importance was placed on Lower Nubia. He established a separate administration for the Head of the South, and a canal was rebuilt around the First Cataract at Aswan enabling easier access for troops and trading vessels to reach as far as Buhen and the Second Cataract.

Getting around the Second Cataract was more difficult.

Fort Mirgissa

The Fort at Mirgissa was the largest of eleven Forts built by Pharaoh Senusret III during Egypt’s 12th Dynasty between the second and third cataracts. It was strategically placed above the cataract to control the River Traffic from the North, collecting revenues and taxes from all traders. Placed in the Western Wadi, the fort grew to 40,000 sq. meters. It was made of 10-meter-high mudbrick walls which were doubled to form a 6-meter thick outer and 6-meter-thick inner protective skin to the Fort, it had 12-meter-high square corner towers and numerous bastions for further protection.

After its construction, the fort also protected the harbour at the Northen end of Boat Slipway that run from the Nile below the cataract. Given that neither trade, exploration, nor war wait for the annual high waters needed for relatively safe navigation through the cataract, building the slipway to ensure safe portage was a prudent investment, of potentially great strategic advantage. The labor and resources invested to construct such an elaborate portage certainly indicates the significance of the traffic.

The Mirgissa slipway

The Mirgissa slipway is the only known example of its type. Conceived as a ‘boat road’, and constructed to avoid the least navigable portion of the Second Cataract, this structure allowed shipping movements all year. The slipway may have been built before the fort (the adjacent town is much older), and was used at least as late as the reign of Amenemhat III and possibly into the New Kingdom, a span of some 300 years.

As mentioned, the southern (upstream) end of the slipway was in close proximity to the fort of Mirgissa (but which came first is an open question), while its northern end may have been at Matugaor Abu Sir. This means the slipway ran straight for no less than 1.5 and perhaps as much as 4 km.

The slipway had a support structure of mudbricks, packed mud, and lateral wooden ties ‘rather like a railroad’, but remained low enough to benefit from the wetness of the silt to allow the boats to navigate the Slipway more easily sliding on the wet mud and timbers.

The slipway is approximately 3m wide, more than enough to accommodate the maximum beam (width) of the Twelfth Dynasty Dahshur boats (2.15 – 2.43 m) and would provide ample clearance for the width of a sledge. Both boat hull marks, and sledge tracks are evident on the excavated section of the slipway, these last travels baked into the watered silt road:

Why the portage stopped being used is unclear, the Second Cataract remained a major shipping hazard until submerged under the waters of Lake Nubia, created by the Aswan High Dam some 3,500 years later.

Conclusion

The correct answer to the question posed at the start of this article is unknowable.  While the Diolkos may have been a parallel development with no outside influence, we know the Ancient Greeks and Egyptians traded across the Mediterranean and ideas travel with trade. We also know the Ancient Egyptians used both sledges and wheeled carts to move boats across land as part of their funeral rites and there is evidence of carved ruts being used to guide 4-wheeled carts in Malta well before the Diolkos was built.   

What is not knowable is if Greek merchants or travelers made the journey up the Nile in the time of the Middle Kingdom and/or if the idea of man-made portages had wider currency and were a normal concept at the time.

From our perspective, there seems to be very few truly original ideas. Synthesis and elaboration are two of the key components of most innovation and there are very few completely original ideas.
For more on innovation see: https://mosaicprojects.com.au/PMKI-PBK-005.php#Process3 

Primary Refences:

Overland Boat Transportation During the Pharaonic Period: Archaeology and Iconography.
Pearce Paul Creasman, Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, University of Arizona
Noreen Doyle, Institute of Maritime Research and Discovery
Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections | http://jaei.library.arizona.edu | Vol. 2:3, 2010 | 14–30

Retrospect Journal (Edinburgh University):  
https://retrospectjournal.com/2020/12/13/the-second-cataract-fortresses/

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