What makes a competent NEC3 ECC Project Manager (PM)?
Doing what the contract tells them to is about the best answer I can give. I cannot see anywhere in the contract (assume NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contract (ECC)) that tells any PM to be tardy, subjective (but for a few limited circumstances), waive or change any terms (of a contract they are NOT party to), do what they want, when they want, sit back and wait for things to happen etc.
The clue is in the title, the person(s) acting as PM is/are doing exactly that, acting as project manager. ECC is not about sitting back, waiting for things to happen and being reactive. It's about being proactive, using foresight and making timely decisions.
There are a whole host of responsibilities to properly get your head around when acting as PM on an ECC contract. Let's look at one, which is very different to many contracts I have seen, and that is the positive duty to notify certain compensation events to the Contractor. Most other standard contracts have a 'light the touch paper and stand back' approach ie instigate the change, wait for the Contractor to spot the change then, at some point in the future, the Contractor asks for more time and/or money as a result of this change. So properly keeping the Employer informed of the time/cost effect of such change becomes extremely difficult as you have no idea of what the Contractor may or may not ask for until such time that he actually does. Multiply this many times for many different changes and the task becomes practically impossible.
In the ECC the PM has the right to change the Works Information and this basically becomes a compensation event. Clause 61.1 then obliges the PM to postively inform the Contractor of this compensation event and instructs the Contractor to submit a quotation (which is to be all-inclusive of both time and cost). The contract even tells the PM to separate the instruction to change the Works Information from the notification that it is a compensation event - this is to make the change quite obvious, there being no surprises and kick start the ongoing final account process for each and every compensation event as soon as possible.
In turn this has to be a business benefit for both Employer and Contractor and must be a better process than parking change until some time after the end of the job then being surprised at the amount claimed.
Do you agree?
Rob
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Personal project management systems are exactly what they sound like. They are simple to use and are only for one person to balance their daily tasks. This is more for an individual to use at home. Single-user systems can still be used by companies but maybe with just three or four employees. Only one person at a time can access the software but for a lot of organizations, that's more than enough.
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