MPESII Virtual Assignment 3
Directions:
In completing Virtual Assignment 3, please note the following:
1. Select and answer one question from each of the three topical sections below (for a total of three
responses).
2. In your submittal, for each topical section, please include the number of the selected question and
a restatement of the selected problem statement.
3. The targeted length for each question response is approximately 1-2 pages per question.
4. For assessment purposes, each numbered question is weighted equally. If you have not reviewed
the Sample Assessment Feedback provided in the Event Information, please do so before you
proceed with the assignment in order to better understand general expectations. Remember:
timely submittal is important.
5. Submit Virtual Assignment 3 via Moodle. In order to submit your assignment, please click on the
‘Browse’ button at bottom of assignment page and select the relevant document on your
computer. Then click the ‘Upload’ button to submit.
Please note: Your responses from Virtual Assignment 3 will (at a later date) be shared with fellow
event participants for further review and reflection.
Name
Date
Virtual Assignment 3
MPESII © Shell International B.V. 2011
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A. Contractor Management
In the space below, please answer 1 of the following 3 questions.
1. Please describe experience you’ve had and related lessons-learned with achieving (or trying to
achieve) greater project value through effective contractor relationships. What role did PM
leadership play – or how could it have been more effective?
2. Please describe experience you’ve had and related lessons-learned with containing dispute
escalation, dispute mitigation, and/or timely resolution of conflict/disputes with your
contractor. How was PM leadership effectively demonstrated – or how could it have been more
effective?
3. Which specific principles presented in the Contractor Management virtual module represent the
most significant PM leadership challenge and/or opportunity? Why? Please elaborate on your
response with specifics reinforced with your own project experience. Remember to explicitly
identify and discuss the specific, relevant principles from the virtual module.
Number and question you
are answering
A.2
Modules Quest.
The Capture unit of the Quest Project was designed on the premise of maximizing the modularization,
therefore the importance and attention to the contract that would represent 30% of the total man-hours. If
benchmarked against a stick built project would reduce 70% of the man-hours in the field.This whole
sentence was weird it’s unclear… I was the Modules Construction Lead for the Quest CCS. I have very
positive lessons learned through the significant team effort made during early Execution for the alignment
of the contracting procedures of Fluor as our EPCM and of the Shell contract templates. There was also a
significant team effort made for the preparation of Scope documents and unit price structure. These
efforts represented a good foundation to the avoidance of conflicts and disputes of the contract. By itself
this is an important leadership lesson learned, as leaders we must recognize the activities that have the
potential to impact the most the cost and schedule for the rest of the project. Those activities must receive
the necessary resources to ensure a good outcome.
Recognizing the value of the contract formation activities, I want to emphasize the actions and mitigations
taken by the leadership team for the contract execution phase. There were several characteristics of the
contract signed with KBR that gave to the project team alert signals of potential for future claims. See
below a non-all-encompassing list of those signs:
-
-
Mode 2 Contractual Relationship in the contractor facilities.
KBR’s offer was 30% lower than the closest competitor.
In the early onset of the downturn of the oil business of Alberta, KBR was getting more than 50%
of the available business in the area.
Significant electrical scope as part of the 3rd Generation modules design were non typical to
Alberta module fabricators.
Schedule delays due to late equipment information changes resulting on later Engineering
deliverables.
Mode 2 Contract.
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Most of the Module fabrication contractors in Edmonton have solid HSSE management systems.
However, it is easy for those self-contained facilities with minimal contact with others to fall into
complacency and loss of touch with their own system. The normal client-contractor relationship of the
area for module fabrication is mode 3.
The project leadership team recognized the novelty of this type of relationship by allocating resources and
planning a number of actions to ensure a successful performance in contractual and safety record terms.
Among those actions, I can mention:
- Green Banding Plus Assessments to the bidders. These assessments provided firsthand
information to the project team of the strengths and weakness of each company. Also, the visits
and the audit process provided to the contractors clarity of Shell’s intentions before their
preparation of the offers.
- Owner’s Team workshops. The Shell-Fluor team met in a couple of opportunities around the
HSSE aspects of the contract. One of the meetings was about discussing the similarities and
gaps of KBR’s safety management system vs Shell’s. I asked to our PM Anita Spence for her
attendance because I had seen a shift of the mood of the group towards a hard line position of
pushing for a Shell dictated Bridge Document. The PM supported my position of preparing a
bridge document through consensus with KBR and with the minimum quantity of changes to
KBR’s systems. This approach resulted beneficial; our job consisted in knowing their rules, and
helping them to ensure compliance.
- Kick Off Meeting. The project dedicated a full working morning to a Safety kick off meeting with
Senior Management engagement that helped to clearly convey the message of the importance of
this aspect in the contract. This event showed significant PM commitment with participation of the
most senior levels of Shell Canada Projects.
- Team Building Workshop. Three weeks after the start of the activities and after discrepancies on
how to report and react to near misses and minor incidents, I organized a workshop to calibrate
and resolve those discrepancies, reflect on previous expectations and look forward to the end of
the contract. This team building was a real turning point in the relationship; KBR front line
leadership understood our concerns and apprehensions. My team also perceived the contractor
from a different perspective, understanding their good intentions and natural resistance to being
criticized inside their own space.
- Being visible on the field. My team and I, joined the daily “stretching exercises” and toolbox
meetings. We also had an attendance roster to the weekly Safety walk-down of KBR. This effort
was also a catalyzer for their understanding of our commitment to their safety.
KBR’s offer was 30% lower than the closest competitor.
Even after F2F clarifications meetings, where the contractor was given the opportunity to present price
additions, the analysis of the offers brought us to the conclusion that KBR had misunderstood or
downplayed the electrical scope of the contract. This scope was going to be subcontracted to a third party
very familiar with the typical modules scope but half of the Quest modules had electrical scope beyond
the typical Alberta Modules into a design concept branded by Fluor as 3 rd Gen. where the electrical
installations go to a detail level not usual for the Alberta Module fabricators. The leadership challenge
here was to allocate the appropriate amount of allowances to manage eventual shortcomings of the KBR
offer but, at the same time to avoid the natural pushing of KBR’s front line supervisors always trying to
add additional mark-ups to the approved unit prices.
KBR with more than 50% of the available business in the area.
The key action in ensuring that Shell would get the right attention to achieve the project targets was the
establishment of monthly sponsor meetings. Those sponsor meetings had as an agenda item the
compliance of the real estate occupancy of the Shell modules as per the plan. The PM attention to this
topic ensured the commitment of KBR was maintained in-check.
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Electrical scope for on-inside module CCM housings and Stand-alone Electrical Substation
As it was identified during the bid analysis, the scope for the electrical buildings had been subestimated
by KBR. Two actions were carried out to avoid schedule and cost impact, as well as a potential claim.
The first was the creation of a task force to ensure clear understanding of the scope, minimizing the
response time for questions. This task force was integrated by the Shell Construction Engineer, Fluor
Filed Engineer, design leads from Fluor, Construction lead from KBR, Building supplier, KBR US office
designers . The second action was identified 5 months after the kick-off date. This consisted in proposing
to KBR to perform the scope using an external specialized shop in a reimbursable plus a mark up basis. I
had two particular personal leadership learnings from this last action. Quest PM setting the tone of the
internal discussion to prepare the mitigation planning by recognizing without any sugar coating that the
scope had been wrongly allocated but after that allowing the team come up with the solution. The second
lesson was from my supervisor the Construction Manager Stephen Marsh offered KBR the reimbursable
cost proposal without waiting more details from KBR. The learnings were related to Authenticity and
commercial mindset. You mention what led you to the learnings but not really what the lesson was….
Mabe you could summarize that.
Schedule Delays.
In my experience the only mitigation that the module fabricators tend to bring to the table is overtime to
recover schedule. Although we accepted the need for overtime, the best results for recovering schedule
happened by engaging the mid-level management about priorities and being candid of which modules
were really helping the common effort.
Conclusion:
A request for equitable compensation from KBR resulted the corollary of late material delivery, some late
engineering deliveries, and the issues listed above. But our actions, described also above, which contain
many examples of leadership learning provided Shell with a strong case to dismiss most of their requests.
In essence, good outcomes require a dose of leadership from everyone in the team to their respective
level of action and expertise. The successful building of the 74 modules of that project is a good story that
represented a significant portion of the overall Quest success.
I think overall it’s good, very throughrough I changed a little the syntax in a couple of
places but overall not a lot. The first paragraph is weird though it
needs some work 
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MPESII © Shell International B.V. 2011
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B. Logistics/Infrastructure
In the space below, please answer 1 of the following 3 questions.
4. Please describe post-FID project experience you’ve had with Logistics challenges. Did they
result from pre-FID planning issues or post-FID implementation issues? What related lessonslearned can you share that pertain to PM leadership?
5. Please describe post-FID project experience you’ve had with Infrastructure challenges. Did
they result from pre-FID planning issues or post-FID implementation issues? What related
lessons-learned can you share that pertain to PM leadership?
6. Which specific principles presented in the Logistics/Infrastructure virtual module represent the
most significant PM leadership challenge and/or opportunity? Why? Please elaborate on your
response with specifics reinforced with your own project experience. Remember to explicitly
identify and discuss the specific, relevant principles from the virtual module.
Number and question you
are answering
- Multiple points of handover, barge to train, train to truck, Sorting, laydown,
- Multiple lifting, HSSE issues.
- Special cars.
- China implementation lacked clear logistic plans, preservation
- Lading area
- Driver Perception of big commercial opportunity “using the IKEA model” Dismissing
industrial experience, proven design.
- Not use effectively local knowledge.
- High experience on logistic for small, regular, typical loads but short resourced on large
size.
Modules Carmon Creek.
All the projects that I have been involved in Alberta have used modularization as part of their construction
strategies. This construction approach has very challenges due to the onshore location of the facilities in
the province. Those logistic requirements have brought government support to adequate the roads to
what it is called as the “Alberta High Load Corridor”. This corridor allows transportation of modules of 165
tons, 7.4 m. wide, 7.4 m. height, and 36 m. length with only a few permit and escorting requirements.
The LIRA plans for the Alberta projects rely heavily into the existence of this infrastructure with
considerations for additional special loads or the alternatives to use other smaller dimensions skid
equipment’s. In general these studies are almost carbon copy of the recent experience.
When I was still not a member of the Carmon Creek team, I attended to a presentation of their first
analysis of options to expand their possible source of suppliers for their ambitious module program. As
mentioned, the study had many similarities of previous studies about the limitations that had to go beyond
the Alberta Corridor. However, it had an interesting proposal of extending the reach of the corridor to
Montana US by developing suppliers in that area. After that, my logical conclusion was that the Carmon
Creek team had also discarded the option of building modules oversea.
Once I joined the team and had access to the decisions made by the project in regards to its
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modularization program, I discovered that the project had gone towards a goal of “maximizing the
numbers of modules to be built in Mexico or China.
This decision dismissed all previous and successful proven experience of others’ and Shell projects in the
area.
There was the perception of the presence of “an enormous commercial opportunity
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C. Project Controls (Cost/ Schedule/ Risk
Management)
In the space below, please answer 1 of the following 3 questions.
7. Describe an experience you’ve had where the project team detected (or failed to detect) a postFID Cost Performance problem in a timely fashion and was able (or not) to react in an effective
way. What role did the PM play in this effort – and what PM leadership lessons-learned can you
share from the experience?
8. Describe an experience you’ve had where the project team detected (or failed to detect) a postFID Schedule Performance problem in a timely fashion and was able (or not) to react in an
effective way. What role did the PM play in this effort – and what PM leadership lessons-learned
can you share from the experience?
9. Describe an experience you’ve had where the project team used the Risk Management process
post-FID to successfully (or not) recognize, manage and mitigate a major risk(s) (upside or
downside) to the project. What role did the PM play in this effort – and what PM leadership
lessons learned can you share from the experience?
Number and question you
are answering
Type your response here (using as much space as needed).
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