Project Management for Construction in Africa

Project Management for Construction

Course Description

Numerous projects realise high additional cost for stakeholders both during and after implementation. A project is necessarily part of a highly complex interrelated system, which poses a risk for success. Projects need to be implemented diligently as their deferred completion/success or failure can have far reaching economic and social consequences. This course on Project Management for Construction equips participants with adequate skills and techniques to develop and manage the project analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation process for effective management of projects.

This course is designed for

  • Construction Project Managers
  • Engineers
  • Project leaders,
  • Researchers,
  • Cost Estimators,
  • Procurement Managers/Officers,
  • Project Administrators.
  • Other Managers and decision-makers responsible for projects at organization-level

The course helps participants:

  • Deepen understanding of the project life-cycle
  • Integrate Project Management with Strategic Management
  • Gain knowledge of the principles and practices of Project Management
  • Understand and know how to deal with risks and challenges while managing both small and large and complex construction projects.
  • Appreciate gender issues in Project Management

Introduction

  • Overview of project management
  • Types of Projects
  • Project life cycle
  • Characteristics of construction projects
  • Project management processes
  • Project roles and organization structure
  • Project stakeholders
  • Project Environment
  • Project analysis and evaluation overview
  • Project analysis and evaluation in strategic management and project management
  • Project analysis and evaluation principles and concepts
  • Challenges facing project personnel in project implementation
  • Project analysis and evaluation
  • The need for systematic risk analysis and management
  • Understanding the project context to assist in decision-making
  • Determine stakeholders and their level of influence
  • Institutional analysis and assessment of capacity
  • Capture requirements
  • Determine scope of work
  • Gender integration during project design
  • Gender indicators in projects
  • Cross-cutting gender issues
  • Role of various projects in addressing gender issues
  • Measure of gender outcomes and outputs
  • Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
  • Activity definition
  • Estimating activity duration
  • Activity dependencies and precedence relationships
  • Critical Path Method (CPM) computations
  • Resource-constrained scheduling
  • Duration compression using crashing
  • Purpose and types of estimates
  • Techniques for early estimates
  • Preliminary and detailed cost estimating
  • Economic feasibility analysis
  • Cost components
  • Estimating total project cost.
  • Cash-flow modelling for project decision analysis
  • Financial modelling and project evaluation
  • Rate of return computations (IRR)
  • Determining the internal rate of return (IRR)
  • The risk of not understanding IRR
  • Project procurement methods
  • Bidding
  • Standard-form contracts
  • Contract terms
  • Contract administration issues
  • Defining schedule and budget baseline progress curves
  • Measuring, analysing, and reporting project progress
  • Earned-value analysis
  • Assessment of cost and schedule deviations/performance
  • Forecast project progress/cost at completion
  • Evaluation of projects and programs
  • The use of M&E in projects
  • Integrating M&E with the project management system
  • Clarity about what to monitor and evaluate
  • Research designs
  • Data collection techniques and tools
  • Data management
  • Data analysis
    • Descriptive analysis techniques
    • Inferential analysis techniques
  • Uncertainty affecting projects
  • Internal and external uncertainty
    • The project’s main stakeholders
    • The operator’s perspective
    • The user’s perspective
    • The financing party’s perspective
    • The project in a time perspective
  • The project strategy
    • Project designers tend to be ambitious
    • Motivation for those involved to improve performance
    • Ambitious objectives help justify proposed projects at an early stage
    • Probability of success: performance vs ambition
  • Risk identification and assessment processes
  • Tools and techniques for managing risk and uncertainty
  • Risk response plan development
  • Risk response control
  • Forecasting risk: possibility that incorrect decisions will be made due to errors
  • Successful projects
    • Definition and interpretation of success

The training approach is highly interactive. It uses a mixture of presentations by the facilitator and by participant(s), group or individual exercises, use of case studies and role plays. These proven learning techniques enhance understanding and retention of covered issues.