Keep Capital projects moving

Capital projects will be impacted by COVID-19.  The fundamental question is “How can we continue to run a suitably safe, efficient project when our construction bandwidth becomes constrained?”  Whether it is people, resources, materials, designs – or all of them.

Fast-emerging challenges

Project teams are reeling under the impact of the rapidly growing COVID-19 crisis, and it is often hard for people to move beyond the issues around keeping themselves and others safe. There is a big difference on the impact of the virus depending on how project teams respond to the new challenges they are facing across three key categories:

To make the right decisions, you have to ask the right questions

Live projects need to rapidly adapt to the new demands and risks of delivering under the many threats presented by COVID-19. Projects/elements of projects may need to be put ‘on hold’ temporarily to protect cash or comply with local government mandates, but others have to stay on track.

1. Adjust work patterns and practices to keep people safe and productive

Domino effect:

• On our highly integrated projects, which workstreams or key skills are most critical or can significantly impact the most critical ones?
• How badly would they need to be affected to cause major delays across the project?

Scenario analysis:

• Do we understand the impact of various scenarios?
• Have we mitigation plans in place?
• How do we protect and manage key work packages and contracts against the risk of loss of site resources?

Accommodation camp management:

• What are the access restrictions to owner teams and contractors?
• How will that impact execution?

Remote working:

• What can be advanced remotely?
• How do we remotely manage people?

2. Gather facts about the state of the materials supply chain

Equipment and materials:

• How do we increase the assurance of key equipment and material supply to site?
• Do we suitably understand the exposure within our extended supply chains?

Engineering and systems:

• Will (remote and field) engineering and software teams be able to stay on track with the most critical packages?
• How will we monitor this?
• Do our engineering contractors and software teams have the right contingency plans for their key staff?

Remote management support tools:

• What additional hardware and software do we need to manage remotely all possible areas?

3. Create a crisis management team to assist

Management systems:

• How do we set up and manage a crisis PMO with enough capabilities to take fast decisions on prioritisation or acceleration?

Working together on site:

• What changes to working and management practices should we adopt to retain productivity targets?

Proactive management:

• With the fast-moving and rapidly changing impact of COVID-19, do project management teams understand, track, review and react to the above risks daily?
• Are teams set-up for fast, empowered decision making?
• Are they building supply chain transparency and risk prioritisation to think ahead of the key risks every day?

Remote coaching and leading:

• Do we have resources dedicated to ensuring the right frequency, duration and content for interacting remotely?

A few tactical steps you can take now to get ahead of your COVID-19 response planning

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