Beyond The Brink?

The independent documentary made by a young filmmaker in the UK, Ross Harrison, is available today to watch online or to download.

Harrison spent a year conducting interviews and studying the information, so:

"At a time when people feel overloaded by hype and put off by scandals, Beyond the Brink seeks to lay out how things really stand now. Beyond the Brink is a not-for-profit production available for free for anyone to watch and use."

I am currently downloading the file from beyondthebrink.org  to watch offline, but from the trailer it seems a very well made effort and should be thought provoking at the very least.

Green Project Management?

 I was reviewing some old files and found this series of articles on "Green Project Management". Now with all the media focus on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, I thought it may be timely to take a look at this topic.

Basically, the proponents of "GreenPM" suggest it is the support of an organization's environmental policy through its project management process. It is an interesting idea, but I view it a little differently, making the environment a stakeholder, as is often the case on a construction project, achieves much the same results during the execution phase. Environmental protection is often strongly enforced during these phases in any case...

Where "GreenPM" perhaps offers more change to the process is in the softer skill areas and supply chains, where people may not be so frontline in thinking of the environment, or in execution of IT or office based projects for example. The point is not to make every decision in favour of the most environmentally friendly in a blanket approach, but that the environment is added as one of the key evaluation criteria throughout all the decisions.

I also recently found this article which asks if the scenario of the Gulf oil spill could happen in mining. It is worth a read as it basically contends, yes, the same scenario with such pressured decision making could certainly occur in the mining industry. I would also liken this to the many reports about poor organizational communications (internal and external) and "groupthink" that are oft cited as prime factors in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster, see here and here for more background, plus a short video. If this report is to be believed, there was much organizational chaos onboard the rig and during the aftermath, with legislators playing a significant part with exceptions granted and slow decisions.

And whilst the environmental impacts and economic damage may be tremendous and felt for years to come in the affected regions, let us not forget that eleven workers died in the initial blaze. If the current rhetoric can be believed and this disaster could be the clarion call for mainstream support of renewables and alternative energy sources, the environment will ultimately benefit from this situation, the workers are, however, lost forever.

A typical project experience?

I recently was involved in a construction project that whilst ultimately judged a success, there goes any suspense I may be able to build up, struggled through a few issues along the way. See if these sound familiar...

The project was initiated due to a legal / insurance requirement, it HAD to go ahead and it HAD to be finished by a certain date for compliance, no schedule extensions would be allowed.

It was a struggle to get the project kicked off properly as the resources were difficult to co-ordinate. Then, two days before the project was due to start the execution phase, a conflicting project called priority on a key resource and the project execution start was delayed two days, which used up all the available slack. In fact risk mitigation measures were used to extend the availability of the key resource to ensure the completion date could be met.

A just in time approach was used for the engineering design. Unfortunately this meant that initial budgets were not very accurate, although luckily they were higher than actuals, based mainly upon the lower unit cost than estimated of materials. The materials quantity takeoff proved to be very accurate with little wastage. 

Stakeholder management was an important part of this project and the stakeholder who was identified as being primary was included in design reviews. This worked very well for the approvals process during design. With regular inspections of the work by the primary stakeholder, the only problem encountered was that certain parts of the design had not been fully explained to the stakeholder, who insisted upon a mid-execution design amendment. This was not a major change to the design and was more related to finishing works, but did result in some additional material costs, the effect on the schedule was negligible.

The project also had a secondary benefit in that equipment purchased for the project was able to be written off on the project, so remains a cheap asset for future projects.

Lessons learned? If you are familiar with the type of work, then just in time design can be an effective approach, but make sure you fully brief the stakeholders and address their concerns in balance with other stakeholders.

What was the project? Just some steps I had to re-build at home...

Before:

During and design:

Note the clear primary stakeholder (my wife) decision for how the steps are to be configured marked by "X" and "✓"...

Project completion:

Are mining people creative? Part Deux.

Ok, so it seems that my post about creativity in mining generated quite a few comments when linked to a discussion in one of the mining groups on linkedin.com, here, if you're a member.

The discussion seemed to swing around three types of comments: 1, yes they are creative and here is some background; 2, of course they are creative and taking a bit of umbrage at raising any question that they possibly could not be; 3, mining people are creative, but they are constantly waging a battle to stop their creativity being stifled by more risk averse upper management - aren't managers people too? I will leave that for you to decide, it could be subjective!

If there is any doubt, I too weigh heavily on the side that mining people are creative and speaking from my own background with engineer types, it is almost a default setting for problem solving. I also agree upper management needs convincing, that is one of the reasons they are there, to be gatekeepers for decisions. In fact, sometimes the way you try to get support for your idea can involve some creative strategies too. As I mentioned in the initial blog post, over the years I have also noticed that engineers very often have an interest in photography, but maybe that just appeals to a suppressed geeky stereotype of engineers tinkering with gadgets wearing pocket protectors?

My favorite comments though were those that loosely said: "Geologists are the most creative as they work with intangibles to believe in an orebody they cannot see. They have to believe."  Creative? Belief? Delusion? Not to knock geologists, but there is a fine line between belief with persistence and being wrong.

The discussion then went on to discuss the green challenges mining faces, which is a very good example of where we need creative solutions AND creative ways to propose new schemes and technologies.

What do you think?

Network, to "net" work

Networking, greasy palm pushing? Geeky social media by some loner type?  Self-serving and full of cliques like the old boys club?

Not necessarilly. One of the Project Management Institute's blogs has an interesting article written by Jim De Piante titled Unselfish Networking.  It also aligns pretty well with Mitch Joel of Twist Image, whose book I am currently enjoying reading.

Basically with the ongoing online revolution, networking is more important than ever before and we all have our own personal brand to promote (and protect). One of the core tenets of social media, or any other kind really, of networking has become that it definitely must not be self-serving, at least explicitly.

Consider blogs or websites that you routinely visit (feel free to subscribe to this blog if you like - rats, that sounded too self-serving...) and think about why you visit them. More often than not it comes down to the old rule that "content is king". Graphics and media are nice, but they are not the whole message, the content, the information being shared is what keeps people coming back - if it is constantly kept fresh. 

The quality of the content is also important. Unless it was an entertainment driven site, I'd take it as a given that you expect the content to be either factual or clearly stated if subjective (disclosure - this is just my opinion). Equally important when enaging in social media or other networking agree Mitch Joel and Jim De Piante are to not try and sell. 

By offering expertise or valued opinions and dialogue to your community, you are automatically raising the profile of your brand. A perfect example here is the Hard Rock Miner's Handbook. This was a not for profit publication provided by engineering consultant McIntosh Engineering (now Stantec) and was available as a hardcopy, followed by a CD and online versions. It has been a great success and certainly drives the firm's search rankings high. Indeed the original collator / editor / contributor even has a derived dictionary of mining terms on the mining industry online portal site Infomine here. Now the info within is quite generic, but it is certainly helpful at times and perhaps more importantly, it is a standard download for industry students, establishing the resource, the brand and the altruistic sentiment from their early exposure to the industry.


A similar models applies to volunteering or running local branches or chapters of associations or running an online group or forum. The exposure and boost to your reputation can be significant and you are actually just giving back to your peers, but you are positioning yourself as a pro-active leader.

It's like herding cats... ...if you're a mouse!

Estimators. The bane of your life or your superstars?

Here is an interesting viewpoint on The Life of an Estimator. Now I have worked through all phases of projects and done my share of estimating and I have to say, I'd be inclined to agree with the article. Especially the lose-lose situation post submission, where if you win the job, everyone scrutinizes your work and you become the scapegoat for every flaw down the line in the project. This is the "how come we won this? what did you miss?" attitude.

The opposing situation is when you are expected to cover every cost eventuallity, yet still manage to submit a competitive bid. This is when you will be blamed for the bid not being successful.

Personally, I have found that the biggest problem with the role (and many others until you reach a more senior position in the organizational hierarchy - and sometimes even after unfortunately!) is being given lots (all?) of the responsibility, but none of the authority. Estimators are typically not viewed with too high a regard, although they are ultimately responsible for getting a successful bid out on time, yet they must manage and influence senior management figures in the company without having any authority to impose deadlines other than indicating a tardy response will make the bid late.

They are constantly operating in a mode of conflict with their superiors, hence the analogy in the title. "It's like herding cats!", is generally trotted out to represent something difficult, but it is from the viewpoint of an empowered individual trying to co-ordinate playfully wayward resources, consider the difficulty when the prey is trying the shepherd the hunter.

Now, admittedly, prey and hunter may be going slightly over the top, but the dynamic is certainly akin to that. Another big problem for estimators is burnout and lack of motivation.

Burnout. An estimator is constantly cramming for an exam, the bid submission and review. They are expected to know every detail of their project, but then post submission, that memory gets purged and they move on to the next assignment and the process repeats. With the high intensity work stress is a big factor too.

Typically it is easy to get attendance at initial kick-off and final bid review meetings, but it is the meetings and co-ordination in-between that is difficult to pin people down for (because they have many different competing time demands, fine, but they should be confident enough in their subordinates to delegate, not do). It is disheartening for estimators to have sent out files for review that they have laboured over to build up costs or productivity from first principles, only to have people breeze into a review, attempt to study the calculation, fail and then insist instead on their rule of thumb being used.

So estimators are often perceived as being cranky. I'd have to say I agree, but also that the role either attracts a certain "special" individual, or the demands of the job makes them that way!

"I'll be back..."






P.S. By the way, it has just come to my attention that this site is called Herding Cats and is a project management blog. I don't recall seeing it before I wrote this post, but it is possible I did and it subliminally affected me...  Regardless, the analogy is certainly a good one.

iKnow, you know, now we can all be in the know!

Found an interesting site from the Open University in the UK.

Now I don't like to give away my searching secrets, but since this site has I'd may as well promote them! We all know the person who cannot find anything on the interweb. It really is easy in fact and the site is all about information; finding, reviewing, storing, disseminating - on the web and in person.

They are inspired to try and help by the following statistic:

"An estimated 6.4 hours per employee are spent looking for information in the workplace each week in the UK. 37% of the searches prove unsuccessful.

In financial terms, an estimated £3.7 billion is spent on time wasted looking for information that cannot be found."

I found that to be quite staggering.

So, the site, iKnow, that aims to rectify this is broken down into bitesized chunks of information, aka tips, that seem pretty useful actually.

The six subject headings are:

1. Finding information
2. Know you sources
3. Evaluating information
4. Information handling
   
5. Organising information
6. Keeping up to date
   

Again, it isn't all web-based searching though. I'd definitely recommend taking a look at it...

Tunneling in Iran...

Well, global economic meltdown, or not, I think this "Tunneling Director In Iran" job may be a tough one to sell, what do you think?


"Hello? Is that Super A1 recruitment agency?"
"Hello, yes it is."
"Ok, I hear you specialize in tunneling experts?"
"Certainly sir, we are known for it." - thinking, oh this sounds like a good commission.
"And placements in the Middle East are no issue?"
"Certainly not... the tax benefits can be very lucrative to candidates." - hmmm, could this be for Dubai Metro?
"Well, it is a senior level job, a tunneling director for a huge scheme"
"Really..?" - kerching!
"Yes, actually it is for a tunnel scheme in Iran"
"click! [phone is hung up]"
"Hello? Hello? No really, it is. It is for a proper scheme like Qumrud or Esefan...."
[dial tone]
"Hello? Helloooo..?"

You have to feel for the recruiters with this commission, no matter what you stance is on the is it / isn't it, is the Iranian governement using tunnels / aren't they using tunnels row surrounding Iran as the country has a contemporary and ancient history of ambitious tunnel schemes. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran is a civil engineering graduate and is said to have worked in tunneling.

Mind you, they only require 15 years experience and I'm guessing they'll pay a premium. Maybe I'll spruce up my resume a bit...

Meeting etiquette

Now, the "Little Blue Dude" over at Mining Man has come up with an interesting article that got me thinking. I'm not sure I really agree, in fact I'd say a bigger problem is Blackberries / PDAs. I think truly effective meetings should have all phones etc turned off. Or maybe have a limit on the number of participants...



My issue (and I'm not one to take a laptop unless I'm presenting) is the flaw that he assumes all laptop users generally use them to take notes (which can be taken alternatively, but in a working meeting the chair can do rough minutes as you go, but the blue one is taking issue with other attendees) or to read messages.

I have found that some people take a laptop to a meeting in order to have a searchable pdf there when discussing contracts / scope for example or to reference other drawings. In fact, given the intent to save paper these days, this can be a good thing.

Having said all that, I couldn't agree more with the poor running of meetings, lack or courtesy / respect etc. being huge issues. Only recently I have twice been in meetings involving senior stakeholders with a standard format and pre-distributed agenda, when one of the attendees (the same in both instances) has asked if we could disregard the agenda and do their items first as they were busy and had other commitments. Won't be happening again!

Solution; well the person should have queried prior if we could re-jig the agenda or asked for a different meeting time if that was not possible. They could have delegated (and there is another huge topic, because delegate really does mean send a surrogate empowered to make certain decisions within levels of authority you give them, not send a spy to report back what was said, but not be able to contribute to the topic of the meeting if a commitment must be made). Everyone is busy and some things have to be done to enable a process to continue and not stall.

The assumption should be that everyone has important stuff to be done, but that the topic of the meeting is important enough to hold a meeting, so it should be worthwhile doing it properly to make the most of everyone's time...


P.S. in this day and age, I think it is better to accept meetings may include gadgets and have protocols to address this as otherwise how do you ensure full participation for web based meetings which are fast becoming the norm?

Giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon...

(photocredit: The Sudbury Star)

This article underlines some of the creativity that mining people can demonstrate.


NORCAT (Northern Centre for Advanced Technology) is involved in testing rovers for lunar (or Martian?) missions in the crater of a volcano in Hawaii - yes, I imagine that was a tough project to attract people to work away on!

Commendably the team even used a student chef to help prepare meals, which seems quite a fair way to assign plum roles, rather than the usual cronies.

One of the things I found most impressive was the modular multi-tasking of the rovers. I wasn't surprised they can be equipped with a scoop or drill or ground penetrating radar. What surpised me the most as a cute adaptation to the expected environment was the scoop can be used to transport material for transport to a solar concentrator (think magnifiying glasses and ants - yes, I know, it's terrible, but own up, you've done it) where water and oxygen is cooked out of the rock.

In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is where its at apparently. Think of it as extreme sustainability. The article estimates that to "land one litre of water on the moon would cost a space agency $100,000 a bottle".

Now mentioning ants was intentional above as the rovers are programmed to work in groups in a collaborative manner like ants do. They adapt to problems or mission issues as a team and if one rover is immobilized, the others will push it out of the way.

Oh yes and if anyone is in the market for it, NORCAT even makes and sells its own lunar regolith (moon dust) substitute, although like the real thing with dangers if inhaled and retailing for $40,000 per ton it may only be found in the most discerning sand lots...

What did IKB do for you?

IKB, Isambard Kingdom Brunel,

the diminuitive Victorian engineer who was a giant among giants.


I saw a newspaper report about a proposed statue of IKB in Rotherhithe, London, UK, where IKB distinguished himself by completing the first tunnel underneath the River Thames in 1843 - surviving at least one inrush along the way.


What was quite telling was one comment from a resident: "Barry Duckett, chairman of the nearby Canada Estate Tenants’ and Residents’ Association, said: “It’s too big and it’s not in keeping with the area. It’s just a load of wire thrown together. It’s our council flats that are going to look at it – nobody around here will be able to miss it. A lot of local people say it’s a waste of money. He [Brunel] never did much for us."




Oh dear, send in the crack troops from the BTS and ITA to enlighten the fellow!

(photocredit: Forge Architects)

Now personally, I think the statute looks as ok as many others. It actually does a pretty good job of representing the top hatted, frock coated, engineering multi-tasker as he juggles projects as diverse as tunnels, railways, steamships and bridges.



This is really related to my post about creativity in mining. Engineers working in mining or underground construction all provide a great service to society, whether it be material resources or infrastructure and it seems from Duckett's comment (and many experiences of my own) that this point is not really getting across to people.


Poor old IKB, what did he do for us?

Well among his list of achievements we can count:

• the Thames Tunnel
• Clifton Suspension Bridge
• the Great Western Railway (GWR) with all the associated tunnels, bridges and viaducts - it was wider gauge than standard for faster, more comfortable journeys, but was eventually narrowed to standardise rolling stock with the rest of the rail network
• the world's first iron-hulled, screw propellor (previously had been paddle steamers), steam powered passenger liner
• the first trans-atlantic steamship
• at the time the biggest ship ever built
• a prefabricated hospital for the Crimea

and if there is still any doubt, take a look at this, this and this.


"Get a big top hat if you want to get ahead."

History of Mine Safety in USA

Found a video on YouTube about the history of mine safety in the USA.

It is more coal (or evaporite) focused, but has some great images and video clips, as well as being generally informative for any type of mining or underground construction.

With today's focus (and encouraging results) on "Zero Harm" it is good to see how far we have come.

The video discusses the impacts of closer supervision for safety and production, as well as the tradeoffs with mechanization, i.e. the equipment made some aspects safer, but equally required larger openings which gave stability issues.

Get your cameras at the ready!

The Snowden Mining photo competition is on again.

The standard of the photos has always been very good and often by the engineers etc. themselves. Actually, photography seems to be quite a popular hobby amongst engineers, maybe it appeals to their creative flair for problem solving, or maybe they're just geeks?

I saw a presentation yesterday in fact on the Canadian mining industry for CEMI (Centre of Excellence for Mining Innovation) that described the importance of mining to civilisation. It showed an interesting graph produced by an agency in the south of Ontario which demonstrated that "creatives" were found in high numbers around the major southern urban centres, but Sudbury ranked amongst the lowest for creative talent.

Now those of you who have been to Sudbury may be nodding your heads in agreement at this point, but the presenter made a good point that it all depends how you define creativity. If you choose cultural creativity, i.e. arts, then you are aligning yourself with the study, but if instead you take it to include innovative problem solving and the adoption and refinement of new techniques and processes, then the case for Sudbury's ranking to be improved becomes a little more reasonable.

I remember an applied geology professor opening a series of lectures on structural geology with the phrase, roughly recalled as best I can: "We are all artists and rock is the medium through which you have chosen to express your creativity."

Welcome

...and hello

These are my own thoughts and observations and are in no way affiliated with any of my employers, whoever they may be at a given time - you know who you are! They won't even be work or industry related all the time, but the intent for this particular blog is that they generally may be... Industry, that would be contracting and engineering, specifically for underground construction - civils or mining.

So, the title, just an observation that the underground construction industry often involves drifting (aka tunnelling) and (shaft-)sinking, so we can drift and sink without it being an aquatic adventure, but sometimes the process can feel like it is as we drift along or sink under our workloads. But on the projects, or in the companies where things really come together, then that is where it is a pleasure....