International Journal of Project Management 22 (2004) 7585

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

Proactive schedule management of industrial

turnkey projects in developing countries
Wafa Alsakinia,*, Kim Wikstroma, Juhani Kiirasb
a

PBI-Research Institute for Project Based Industry, Slottsgatan 10, 20100 Turku, Finland
b
Construction Economics and Management, PO Box 2100, FIN-02015 HUT, Finland

Received 23 April 2002; received in revised form 23 July 2002; accepted 14 January 2003

Abstract
This paper presents the results of a study on the deviations that are encountered in power plant projects in developing countries,
their eects and the key solutions for planning and steering of these projects. The study recommends a planning and scheduling
system that is based on performing continuous detailed planning throughout project execution to incorporate the forthcoming
events and proact to their eects. When recommending such system the authors equally emphasis the need for the project management function itself to adapt to the changing industry environment in order to maintain its relevance for project delivery well
into the future.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The studys aim is to manage schedule deviations in
international plant projects by anticipating their causes
and consequences, and by nding new solutions for
their prevention. The case analysis deals with three
schedule-driven engineeringprocurementconstruction
(EPC) turnkey power plant projects. The results
revealed that the causes for schedule deviations are
embedded primarily in the local client (owner) and the
local ocials with their cultural background, also in the
plant contractor itself and its local foreign subcontractors and suppliers.
In previous studies performed by PBIResearch
Institute for Project-Based Industry (independent
research organization focusing on international projectbased business and project management.) on power plant
projects, it has been detected that various deviations
from the original plans always take place in plant projects abroad. The plant contractor has managed to nish
most projects on time though work did not progress as it
was planned. Similar conclusion has been reached by
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +358-2-272-1289; fax +358-2-2330494.
E-mail addresses: wafa.alsakini@abo. (W. Alsakini), kim.wikstrom
@abo. (K. Wikstrom), juhani.kiiras@rakserver.hut. (J. Kiiras).
0263-7863/03/$30.00 # 2003 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0263-7863(03)00006-1

Helsinki University of Technology/Construction Economics and Management (HUT/CEM has done extensive research and development work in the eld of
construction project planning, control and steering) in
its various research work on international construction
projects in general. Deviations have caused major problems in many projects. This study is concerned with
managing deviations from planned project schedules,
i.e. anticipating the likely causes for deviations and
nding new solutions for deviation prevention. This is
achieved by (a) identifying in literature a set of solutions
(methods) for managing project schedule, (b) analyzing
typical deviations (problems) from the planned schedules as well as their consequences and reactive or
proactive management among the selected international
power plant projects, and (c) choosing, recommending,
and applying an integrated set of the most viable solutions (methods) for managing the detected major causes
of schedule deviations and their consequences.
The targeted project types are turnkey projects where,
in terms of technical scope, the case contractor is
responsible for the design, construction and installation
of the power plant, and in some cases for the maintenance of the plant, too. It includes also projects with
tight schedules, xed end dates and under great contractual pressures, so any deviation beyond the end date
can cause the contractor hefty penalties. As well as,

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projects that are carried out in developing countries

which makes them susceptible to problems related to
culture, insucient infrastructure and less skilled local
labor and local construction partners. The targeted
projects can be characterized also as projects with much
scope and design changes which rises either due to
changes in the clients preferences or necessary changes
initiated by the contractor to overcome certain design or
execution errors.
A proactive schedule management system is recommended to be used instead of the traditional detailed
plan and schedule prepared at the project outset. The
system is based on performing continuous detailed
planning during project execution to allow incorporating the forthcoming events and proact to their eects
well in advance. With continuous detailed planning
during project execution there would be better representation of the work ahead. This will change the focus
of the project management from past accomplishments.
Management will have enough information they could
act on to prevent future delays rather than waiting until
a milestone was missed to react to.
A set of generic solutions are recommended too to
deal with the most encountered causes of deviations,
these causes of deviations are mostly related to the projects situation as being executed outside the contractors country in general and in developing countries
in specic. Generic solutions include preparing a regulation management plan to manage permit problems,
scanning the project environment beforehand to nd the
factors and actors aecting the project. A client relationship plan focuses on analyzing the clients organization, and deepening the relationships with the clients
sta, as well as a subcontracting plan to mitigate procurement problems.

2. Literature review
Oberlender [12] and Neal and Neal [10] both argue
that planning should be considered as a process and not
as a discrete activity, and it should be applied to the
whole project from the beginning to end. It includes the
planning of the design as well as the site construction
work. Ballard [2] advocates the same, to Ballard decisions to what work should be done over what duration
using what resources and methods should be made
throughout the life of the project. This necessitates
viewing the project program as a dynamic device as
emphasized by Claugh and Sears [4]. According to
Claugh and Sears any project plan represents the best
thinking at the time it is prepared and implemented,
however, no such plan is ever perfect, the need for change
is always inevitable as the work goes along. The plan
needs to be continuously modied to reect the progressive precise thinking of the eld management team.

Claugh and Sears [4], Neal and Neal [10] and Antill
and Woodhead [1] argue that plans, in practice, must be
prepared on a hierarchical basis, a plan at a particular
level of detail must be expanded to greater details as the
execution of the work becomes closer and with input
from the users of the plan. Westney [15] also argues that
the detail used with the preparation of a given job
schedule can be variable with the level of management
for which it is intended. Consequently dierent schedules
are designed to meet the particular needs of the user, (a) a
master schedule of time goals that will be monitored by
top management during the execution process. (b)
detailed schedules for the subcontractors, these schedules
will be the projected time progress of the work for which
that particular subcontractor is responsible.
Oberlender [12], Woodward [18] and Barrie and
Paulson [3] state that in engineering and construction
projects, especially EPC projects, where the main contractor designs, procures and constructs the project, a
CPM diagram must interface the design work with procurement and construction activities as separate work
schedules that are linked into a summary schedule, an
outline network (Fig. 1), which is then extended by
dividing the diagram into sub-networks that can be
planned and controlled by the people directly concerned, and can stand on their own for additional work.
The prime Contractor sets the general timing reference
for the overall project, with individual subcontractors
review portions of the plan relevant to their work and
help to develop additional details relevant to their
operations. This procedure will bring the prime contractor and his subcontractors to discuss the project,
problems are detected in an early stage, and steps
toward their solutions are started well in advance.
The participation of key subcontractors and suppliers
to the development of a workable plan (detailed activity
plans) is emphasized by Claugh and Sears [4] and
Walker [19] who argues that construction planning and
scheduling must be done by participation of people who
are experienced in and familiar with the type of eld
work involved. A similar idea is advocated by Ballard
[2] who emphasizes the idea of enabling what he calls
the Last Planner participation in producing directives

Fig. 1. Linking together sub-networks into a master network [18].

W. Alsakini et al. / International Journal of Project Management 22 (2004) 7585

to drive direct work processes assignments. Ballard

thinks that failing to prepare good assignments by
planning at crew level, will prevent plans from being
realized even if the upstream planning was good.
The last planner principle requires selecting assignments from activities that are known to can be done.
This way we can prevent the uncertainty and variation
of work ow, which results in less percentage of nonproductive time. This includes sequencing decisions
which can be made by last planners based on their
knowledge of working conditions and constructability
issues, as well as, selecting the right amount of work
which will use the labor and equipment capacity as
directed by the schedule.
In classical project control, as many project management books detail the process, Spinner [14] PMBOK
[13] and Fleming and Koppelman [5] the rst step
would be capturing data which will represent what is
really going on, then subjecting the data to analysis by
comparing it with the original plan to identify variations. The analysis of data gives indication to how a
project is progressing, this assessment is summarized
in a report. The management after reading reports
will make a decision to how to proceed by recommending corrective action(s) which will be followed
up to assure that the direct impact on the real-life
situation is achieved. The traditional approach of
project management puts the project manager in a
rmly reactive position with the causes of project
deviations developing throughout project life, they are
forced to the mode of trying to minimize the negative
potential of projects. Traditional project management
requires that in controlling performance we measure
the degree of t between work completed and the
plans to identify root causes of failure to complete
planned work and eliminate those causes to prevent
repetition.
The important point here is to determine the eect of
schedule deviations and plan changes on the portion of
the project yet to be constructed, included here are both
unexpected departure from the program and those corrective actions initiated to remedy specic problems.
The issue is not how often the network is recalculated
(updated) instead, it is how well the plan and schedule
continue to t the actual conduct of the work. As many
of the key problems of implementation lie in the general environment of the project and not under the
direct control of the project, project managers must
look outside the project and ahead to anticipate problems and develop contingency plans. This can only
be achieved by means of continuous planning and
steering during project life instead of the traditional
detailed project planning before the start and reporting during execution. It is worth while stressing that
steering is the main measure not planning itself,
Kiiras [9].

77

2.1. Deviations and their implications

Deviations are a central part of the value creation in
projects, as in many cases they will work as triggers to
start improvisation, which will hopefully lead to
improvements. Therefore, the potential impact of
deviations should carefully be considered. The extensive
studies by PBI of project processes, Wikstrom [17] and
Gustafsson [6], clearly show that deviations should be
regarded as possibilities in the rst place when detected
as they may cause cost and time savings to the process
and improvements to nal solutions.
PMBOK [13] also broadens the perspective of how
events in the context of risk management should be seen
Project risk management includes maximizing the
results of positive events and minimizing the consequences of adverse events, meaning not all risks
associated with a project should be considered as problems or negative deviations but as positive deviations,
depending on their nature.
The change from a serial to parallel method of project
execution Wikstrom [17] is expected to have a major
impact on how projects are planned and controlled in
the future. The new ways of creating value in projects
are more or less happening in open systems where projects are considered to be impacted by internal as well as
external factors, these factors are seen as opportunities
that may have positive or negative eects. Project processes in parallel value creation are strongly aected by
external factors that are dicult to plan and control, the
impact of these external factors increases in short leadtime projects due to the limited time available to react to
every impacting factor. This increases the demand for
new ways of managing projects, that is to proact to
eecting factors rather than reacting to them in order to
save time.
Gustafsson and Lindahl [7] advocate that improvization has to be dened in relation to a basic plan or
planning process and that it is performed in the belief
that one can do something better or in an improved
fashion in comparison with a plan and ultimately causing improvement to that plan. The benets of improvization has been emphasized by Wikstrom and Rehn [16]
where it is pointed out that it is even more important
than earlier to do planning, which will be performed
continuously to allow/encourage improvisation based
on new situations due to the continuously forthcoming
deviations.

3. Case project analysis

The case contractor is a company that provides power
solutions including construction, it delivers gas and oilred power plant solutions from 1 to 400 MW. The power
plant types range from oating barge power stations to

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decentralized units suitable for urban areas. All the

plants use modular technology, which means a short
delivery time and an ease of a later expansion, they are
also tailored to meet a clients specic operation
requirements. The power plant projects are fast-track
projects in a sense that they must be completed in the
earliest time, i.e. a construction phase overlaps a design
phase. They are turnkey projects where the contractor
itself delivers a fully operable plant meeting the specied
scope of capital investment by a certain date for a certain amount of money, or semi-turnkey projects where
the contractor shares the delivery responsibility with the
client. The case projects were all performed under EPC
contracts. For a typical complete turnkey power plant
project, the contractors scope of work includes site
preparation, a new plant substation, a transmission line,
and large fuel storage tanks.
In planning power plant projects, the complexity and
technical requirements, the time span, the contractors
resource requirements, and the number of subcontractors are taken into account. When preparing the
WBS, the project is divided into distinct levels. The
main level, the building of power plant, is divided into
sublevels, which relates to the type of activity performed
and product to be produced (owners responsibilities,
design, shipping, civil construction, building construction, mechanical installation, tanks installation, electrical installation, and start-up). A master schedule of the
main milestones and their execution time is prepared at
the beginning of the project, a detailed schedule is prepared too with all of the activities to be performed. Project updates are prepared to show the change in project
completion time due to deviations without incorporating
the logic change that resulted from the deviations.

3.1. Deviations in power plant schedules

A power plant schedule is tight, activities are performed
in parallel so any actual interruption may aect the project completion, an example of the deviations that were
encountered in one of the projects can be seen in (Fig. 2).
The analysis to nd the deviations that were encountered
during projects execution and the reasons behind them
shows that the deviations can mainly be categorized as
related to the project stakeholders and environment.
A brief description of the deviations listed in (Fig. 2)
includes:
 Deviation 1, Permit issuing, delay in issuing the
environmental permit by the Owner which is
required for concrete work (permanent structures) by 58 days. Instead a preliminary permit
was issued to start site work which did not allow
for any concrete work.
 Deviation 2, Permit granting, delay in granting
permit by a local authority for a by-pass installation

and elevation of hanging overhead cables along

the engines transportation route from the harbor to the site by 24 days.
Deviation 3, Permit granting, delay in granting
permit by a dierent local authority for pulling
transmission line cables by 48 days although the
towers of the transmission line were ready before
the planned date.
Deviation 4, Change order, delay of 16 days due
to a change order initiated by the Owner who
required moving revenue meters from their original location in the newly built plant substation
to the existing Chorrera substation. The delay
time included ordering new current transformers
(CTs) for the plant substation and additional
foundation work.
Deviation 5, Change order, the contractor had to
perform work included in Owners responsibilities
according to the EPC contract in order to avoid
delay.
Deviation 6, Change order, the contractor could
not get a conformation from the owner on the
order of additional Bay 4 construction at the
existing Chorrera substation to allow for the
transmission of the total produced electricity of
the project. The preliminary interconnection permit allowed for the transmission of part of the
electricity through the new built Bay 5 and the
order of Bay 4 came with 2 months delay.
Deviation 7, Labor, the subcontractor responsible for the erection of the powerhouse (where
the generators are situated) had skill problems
with the local labor he had to employ according
to the countrys labor law. The slow labor performance delayed the erection by 2 weeks, the
subcontractor had to proceed work with two
shifts to catch up with the schedule and complete
the walls and roof installation to protect the
engines from the rain.
Deviation 8, Errors in tests, many design and
mechanical errors threatened the start-up test,
these errors had to be corrected on site by the
contractor.
Deviation 9, Client, the start of the performance
test for the commissioning was postponed for 35
days because the client could not arrange the
total load required to perform the test.

The causes for these deviations can be seen as common for this type of international plant contracting
business. As the projects are schedule-driven and executed abroad in remote locations, they become sensitive
to certain country-related factors that develop due to
their unique situations. For example, local authorities in
developing countries exercise their power so that they
do not usually grant the permits for projects on time.

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79

Fig. 2. List of deviations in a power plant project.

The situation becomes more complicated when dierent

permits are required from dierent authorities in order
to accomplish one activity. On one of the projects three
permits were required during generators land transportation from the harbor to the site, one permit from the
Ministry of Public works to reinforce three bridges on

the transportation route, another permit from the

Environmental agency for building a by-pass next to one
of the bridges, and a third permit from the National
Energy Company to raise low hanging overhead cables in
part of the transportation route. Although the prime contractor had prepared a detailed shipping/transportation

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schedule, the need for the three permits and the extra
work on the transportation route were a surprise, and
the regulatory work of permits took its toll on transportation time to the site. As these projects are built in
remote areas, land transportation is considered a sensitive issue, as it becomes necessary to deliver materials
and plant components on time in order to avoid any
project delays.
Also, miscommunications between various parties
involved on site take place due to cultural dierences.
These may result in tension and mutual complaints,
i.e. that each party is delaying the work of the other.
For example, in one of the projects, English was specied as the main communication and reporting language between project stakeholders in the contract.
Yet, the client and its personnel ignored this provision
and used their own language for communication and
reporting creating much tension and misunderstandings
on site. Similar ndings have been reported by Nynas
[11].
Although change orders are inevitable in every project, they become a serious cause of deviations in these
schedule driven type projects. As the prime contractor
cannot do anything but perform the change order initiated by the client, the situation usually causes tension
between the parties. In semi-turnkey projects, the clients poor performance seems to become a major risk
too. For example, beside delaying the prime contractors and subcontractors work on site due to late
completion of its part of the work (client), the prime
contractor had to perform work originally meant to be
performed by the client in order to avoid any further
delays.
In addition, a plant contractor itself and its subcontractors have their shares in causing deviations.
Many design errors were repeated from previous projects
and had to be corrected during project execution.
Although, some of the subcontractors have work history
with the main contractor on many of its power plant
projects around the world, this does not prevent problems
from arising concerning the skill of supervisors and labor.
This becomes obvious when the subcontractors have to
use local unskilled labor of the destination country or
replace their supervisors who had worked on such projects before with new inexperienced ones.
In general, plant contractors handling projects in
developing countries face three major problems:
1. Problems imposed by the industrys infrastructure such as training, plant availability,
materials supply, and communications.
2. Problems of inaccurate information and frequent
changes in instructions and failures to meet
obligations on a clients side.
3. Problems imposed by a contractors own
shortcomings.

4. Planning and control system

4.1. Double way break down system
As mentioned earlier, power plant projects are fasttrack ones, which implies that activities start all over the
site at the same time. In order to identify interdependencies between activities for better resource
planning and for avoiding any interference between
activities and idle times in crew performance, a new
breakdown structure is recommended for power plant
projects. The new structure can be seen of two views;
the rst is a location (facility) breakdown structure by
dividing the whole project area into identiable locations or facilities and the work in each location is
divided based on an activity breakdown structure
(Fig. 3). The second view (Fig. 4), the project work is
divided into the main tasks to be performed (civil,
electrical, and mechanical) and the main tasks further
into sub-activities for the works to produce each part
or each location of the nal product (power plant). The
two views of a breakdown structure are recommended
to be used concurrently.
4.2. Integrated planning and scheduling system, Rolling
window procedure
As the core parts of power plant projects are designed
and manufactured in a contractors home country and
constructed abroad, the suggested proactive schedule
management system is built to take this feature into
account by allocating less detailed planning and scheduling work to the main oce and, instead, by incorporating site organizations into detailed planning and
control processes. The suggested system is capable of
producing the vital information to the right people at
the required time. The idea is that detailed planning
processes produce so comprehensive schedules that the
plans reect the work as it should be implemented. In
project controlling and reporting, changes are accomplished so that the results enable proactive and reactive
schedule steering when deviations occur.
The suggested system enables a proactive and reactive
dialogue between project stakeholders. Subcontractors
are able to express their ideas and incorporate in good
time their views concerning the implementation of their
works to meet the requirements of the site manager
who, in turn, reects the plant contractors main views
on the project objectives and how to realize them. This
relieves the project manager from following every small
detail so that he/she can concentrate on the more
demanding tasks of project management.
Two basic limitations must be taken into account
when recommending key solutions for schedule management of power plant projects. A short lead-time
implies tasks with overlapping schedules and activities

W. Alsakini et al. / International Journal of Project Management 22 (2004) 7585

81

Fig. 3. Location-activity WBS.

Fig. 4. Activity breakdown structure.

starting in all locations at the same time. Design dependency means that the execution of any task is fully
dependent on the completion of its design rst.
The suggested proactive schedule management system
(Fig. 5), for power plant projects abroad consists of the
following elements:
 A master schedule for the whole project, which
contains the main tasks to be performed and the
trades performing these tasks without too many
details. The durations for performing these tasks
are planned based on the required man-hours.
For control purposes, the critical path and

milestones are made clear together with their

dependencies. All disciplines in the head oce
are contributing to the preparation of a master
schedule and it is meant for the use of upper
management level.
 An earned value (EV) diagram is prepared for
tracking and controlling the project status as a
whole. The rst diagram is done at the same time
when preparing a master schedule by plotting the
work to be performed based on man-hours
against time.
 Work schedules are prepared by extending and
deepening a master schedule into more repre-

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Fig. 5. Suggested planning and scheduling system for power plant projects abroad.

sentative work programs by using a rolling

window method. As these projects are characterized with short execution times ranging
between 10 and 14 months, the schedules are
prepared for a span of 2 months at 1-month
intervals. The project and site manager(s) are
responsible for preparing and distributing the
schedules to the site and head oce.
 An activity plan/schedule is prepared where each
activity in the rolling window is presented in
detail just before it starts to show what work will
be executed on site and how. A planned work
volume chart is also prepared based on work
volume in units. The site manager and the subcontractors work together to prepare the plans/
schedules by input from the subcontractors
under the consent of the site manager.

When using this system, at the end of each period, the

management will be able to plan in detail for the next
period by taking into account the results of the previous
period including any corrective action(s) due to deviations, and the requirements of the work yet to be done,
as well as, producing detailed plans and information
they can use to proact for any potential deviations and
delays. The work schedules and detailed plans prepared
during work progress will reect the actual conduct of
work as it is and incorporates any corrective action(s)
that have been made to bring the work back to track.
The point is that the master schedule will continue to be
the reference point for milestones while the detailed
planning during execution will provide the chance to
manage work and bring it back to track without a need
to update the master schedule. The issue is not how
often the network is updated instead, it is how well the

W. Alsakini et al. / International Journal of Project Management 22 (2004) 7585

plan and schedule continue to t the actual conduct of

the work.
We need to question our understanding of project
planning and scheduling based on the traditional
approach of project management by replacing the classical approach of detailed planning at the project outset
and reporting during execution. As there is too much
uncertainty in the plans because there are usually
stronger factors coming into play which have to be
managed as we progress in project execution, this
requires exibility in the plans rather than pre-determined actions. The uncertainty generated by the fact
that CPM net does not reect the ow diculties would
be compensated by using the rolling window method
to prepare look-ahead work schedules and activity
plans/schedules. The concern is to make the operational
environment stable and decrease the number of surprises during the activities by monitoring the rhythm of
each job on site, decreasing services to be redone and
better organizing of site because the team is aware of
what to do and when to do (activity plans) as well as
better allocation of resources so as to reduce interference among working teams.
The suggested elements form a basis for controlling
and steering a power plant project during the execution. The actual times and quantities of performing
activities collected in activity status reports are compared with the activity plan/schedule of that specic
period, in order to identify any deviations from the
work plan, and to determine the status of the critical
activities. The project status is determined based on an
EV analysis.
The cost and schedule performance indices, CPI and
SPI, are plotted on a chart and compared with the
results of the previous periods. If a deviation is serious
enough, then its reason(s) are detected and the decision
is made on corrective actions. The overall project status
can be measured as a percentage complete matrix based
upon the budget for each work package Oberlender [12]
by using only two input variables for each work package: the estimated cost and the percent complete, then a
spreadsheet can be developed to calculate the rest of the
data (cost to date, percent unit, percent project,%complete project). The schedule update and EV analysis
results are compared with the previous periods results
to see how the project is progressing.
Project reports are prepared as a tool of communicating project information with other project stakeholders
during execution in order to facilitate decision-making
when needed and to give a reliable picture of the project
progress. The Monthly progress reports contain the following items:
 Milestones achievement.
 Planned and actual schedule overlays.
 Change orders.

83

 Problems encountered, their causes and proposed

remedies.
 EV analysis results (variances, indices, estimates
at completion); presented with the aid of computer-generated graphs. The status is measured
based on the% complete matrix method.
 Explanations of the changes and deviations in the
variances or indices values compared with the
previous periods to give an insight about the
progress for the report user.
4.3. Recommendations
In this section the generic causes of deviations are
discussed and applicable methods are introduced to
overcome their occurrence in power plant projects as
follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Regulatory permits and approvals.

Change orders.
International project environment.
Contractors procurement network.

4.3.1. Regulatory permits and approvals

Project progress may become severely hampered due
to a late permit processing by governmental authorities
and similar agencies. Identifying and dening the permitting tasks and breaking them down into basic activities allows developing a regulation management plan,
which becomes a basis for a contractor to predict,
proact, and react to regulatory processes eectively.
This plan is a part of a contractors advanced project
planning.
To determine realistic milestones for permits and
actions required for meeting them, the contractor can
manage both internal and external communications
across a projects functional areas and stakeholders
concerned. In addition, arranging permits into packages
can minimize the eorts required while ling, following,
and obtaining the permits.
4.3.2. Change orders
Changes to work are inevitable in every project and
may arise due to a client (an owner) who decides to
make changes to achieve a better outcome of his
investment, or the turnkey contractor may decide to
make some changes in design. Change orders may
increase or decrease the plant contractors cost and/or
prolong or shorten the projects schedule when they are
performed.
A plant contractor should evaluate various aspects of
targeted clients as follows:
 Structure of a clients organization.
 Clients knowledge and experience of investment
processes.

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 Authorities given to dierent levels within a clients organization.

 Personal characteristics of a clients key persons
who are responsible for a project.
In order to reduce the impact of a client-initiated
change order, a plant contractors project team needs to
understand the structure and behavior of a clients organization, Gustafsson et al. [8]. When dealing with large
clients, who have bureaucratic forms of organizations,
the project team must understand a clients needs more
thoroughly and deal directly with decision-makers in
order to proact to future changes that may delay the
project progress. This applies to Public clients too
whose bureaucratic rules surround most of their decisions. The contractors project team will benet when it
understands how such public organizations behave.
In overseas projects, uncertainty and complexity arising from the nature of clients is compounded because a
contractors project team may not be familiar enough
with the cultural and historical background of a client.
Maintaining the maximum amount of up-to-date information on a clients requirements during a design phase
can reduce a likelihood for change orders during an
execution phase. Also, using time allowances while
planning the execution will provide a exibility in a
contractors performance to avoid delays when change
orders inevitably take place.
4.3.3. International project environment
Many implementation problems lie in general environment of projects and are beyond the control of project managers. However, a project manager can try to
manage this environment, i.e. to deal with, inuence,
and adjust to primary actors (individuals, groups, institutes) and factors (trends, laws, attitudes) Youker [20] A
project team can identify potential problems and assess
probabilities of their occurrences in order to pre-solve
them. Thus, a project team needs to:
 Scan the project environment.
 Identify the actors and factors inuencing the
project.
 Dene the degrees of dependency between the
project and the uncontrolled elements in its
environment.
 Estimate the nature of uncertainty and the
probability of something going wrong.
 Analyze the degrees of power a project team has
to exercise over actors and factors.
 Develop contingency plans to deal with potential
problems and to create linkages to increase a
teams power and inuence.
The scanning of the project environment can be
focused on its physical elements (climate, power supply,

local government), hierarchical elements (governmental

bodies), and human factors (individuals and groups).
It is suggested that the elements of environment
should be identied separately for each project and be
rated for the degree of importance to the project success. Once the potential problems are identied, the
contingency plans can be developed to solve these
problems.
4.3.4. Contractors procurement network
A plant contractor usually engages a number of subcontractors, special suppliers, and manufacturers with
performing the construction works and procurement.
This multiple-contract arrangement implies that a plant
contractor possesses the integration capability.
International contractors are motivated to rely on
skilled supervisors in order to mitigate the impact of the
poor performance of local labor. The same applies to a
network of subcontractors and suppliers, which should
recruit and use skilled supervisors.

5. Conclusion
Planning is principally concerned with setting objectives and deciding on means of achieving them, it forms
a basis for control and steering as neither parameters
can be set, nor performance be measured without a
plan. Thorough planning is a tool to overcome uncertainty imposed by a new foreign project environment.
The traditional method of performing detailed project
planning before project start and reporting during
execution provides information required to react to
deviations or missed milestones but does not help much
in preventing problems and deviations from occurring
in the rst place. The project environment is a dynamic,
ever changing one and cannot be controlled unless the
planning process becomes dynamic too. This implies the
need to perform continuous detailed planning throughout project life, only then there will be a chance to produce enough information to act on, well in advance, for
new situations that have potentiality to occur.
The suggested planning and scheduling system is
based on performing continuous detailed planning during project execution in order to incorporate the forthcoming events and proact to their eects rather than
reacting to their results. The system takes into account
the fact that the plant projects are designed and manufactured in one country and executed in another one by
allocating less detailed planning and scheduling to the
main oce and incorporating the site organizations into
detailed planning and control processes. With this the
system is capable of producing the vital information to
the right people at the required time. It also enhances
dialogue between project stakeholders as it gives the
chance to the subcontractors to express their views on

W. Alsakini et al. / International Journal of Project Management 22 (2004) 7585

the implementation of their work to reduce rework, also

detect problems and their causes.
The suggested system provides the chance to perform
detailed planning on periodic basis using the rolling
window technique. At each period, the information
output of a previous period including corrective actions
that are taken to deal with the encountered deviations
will be incorporated to plan the next period. With this it
will be possible to plan and proact for the coming events
in advance. Also, the elements of the suggested system
form the basis for controlling and steering of a power
plant project during execution. This is achieved by
comparing the actual times and quantities of performing activities during one period, collected in status
reports, with the activity plan/schedule of that specic
period in order to identify deviations from the work
plan and decide on any corrective action(s) as needed
and determine the status of the critical activities and
project as a whole.

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