Effective project controls are at the core of any successful project, to be able to establish and manage the people, process, and technological requirements to provide clean data, which can be translated into relevant information in a timely and accurate manner, for project stakeholders to make informed decisions. Megaproject clients are in an unprecedented position to be able to positively influence improved practices and outcomes from the relevant market, through the project development, procurement, delivery, and operating phases. This presentation will provide an overview of the implementation of project controls and how it is being applied to support the major phases on the North East Link Program, consisting of multiple megaprojects within the context of the $110 billion Major Transport Infrastructure Authority. This includes an enhanced focus on practitioner capabilities to be able to adequately undertake the stipulated processes, further supported by fit for purpose technology.

Digital Planning in action – see how digital workflows could fundamentally change the way that we plan projects, voice your opinion and participate in an honest debate to decide whether it is hype or game-changing In this workshop, the facilitator will create a 5000 + line-item schedule for an infrastructure project from scratch that is quantity-driven, resource-loaded and resources levelled in under 45 min. The outputs will also be produced in P6, Excel, PowerBI, 4D and time chainage format

Post COVID-19, the construction industry is transforming into a technology-centric environment. Owners, Stakeholders, Project Managers & other Project professionals are increasingly looking to digital solutions to monitor Project Schedule & Cost, analyse variations and determine next steps to mitigate risk or improve actions through forecasting. The talk discusses the elements of project controls from a Cost Management perspective i.e. Scope, Schedule, Cost & Contract.

Project owners have become conditioned to consider unexpected or latent geological conditions as known unknowns in a project. Contracts, risk, design, site engineering, construction strategies and time and cost estimates are all inflated for geology unknowns. However, unknown geological conditions are not black swans, they are the unavoidable consequence of manual and analogue ground modelling technology and process that is outdated. New generation digital ground modelling technology and process is specifically designed to provide project stakeholders digital, verified and auditable ground models that are simple to use and incorporate into all phases of the digital project lifecycle. Digital geophysical imaging technology allows the structural geology to be visualised in great detail to precisely target geotechnical, geochemical and environmental sampling, creating the equivalent of the MRI of the ground. In 2021, project owners, investors, and regulators must walk away from any development not founded on Geology Digital Twin technology.

A digital revolution is underway in construction which is improving productivity, shortening project durations, improving safety, and reducing waste. Digital workflows and digital twin best practices improve efficiency, reliability, and cooperation to deliver meaningful and sustainable improvements in the industry. Hear about current trends and learn how technology is enabling better projects.

The Presentation will include a background on scheduling approaches from Gantt through Kanban, CPM, Pert 6 sigma, Prince2 and Agile. It will; - Show the linkages to software that support these approaches. - Include up to date statistics showing how despite all these developments successful project delivery has been declining. - Focus on the importance of getting subject matter experts (SME’s) to bench test project schedules and how OVERGantt facilitates this. - Use an industry standard and well known project template and demonstrate how to bench test them with the assistance of SMEs - Demonstrate how a risk or opportunity can arise after project commencement and how to develop a recovery schedule. - Explain why OVERGantt software was created a showcase this software that uses advanced project flow charts to develop a schedules rather than using the more common Gantt Chart or Kanban board approach

The scale and complexity of megaprojects continues to increase, resulting in a rise in adverse outcomes and a higher number of projects failing to realise their objectives. Despite the availability of statistics supporting this occurrence, the global construction and engineering sector hasn’t yet fully embraced digital transformation — even though modern technologies can improve the ability to reduce costs, mitigate risk, drive transparency, and improve collaboration across the entire project life cycle. This is starting to change, however, but not without some anxiety. While integrated project controls software can satisfy stakeholder demands for real-time access to consistent and trusted data to make faster, better decisions, the anticipated disruption of a technology implementation gives many project controls leaders pause. Now, despite the ebbs and flows of the COVID-19 pandemic, infrastructure investment is a global theme for governments seeking to stimulate their economies with an eye on return over the long term. More than ever owners and contractors require visibility of project performance, agile practices and the ability to deliver more predictable project outcomes. All of this means time is of the essence. At the start of 2022, and on the crest of a large and long wave of infrastructure projects worldwide, what is the right direction to take for digital transformation? The starting point is building the business case for a solution that aligns both strategic and

Projects choose to implement a new system because they believe the future state will be more beneficial than the current state. Often project complexity, data quantities, and data integrity requirements exceed the capabilities of excel and lead to the need for a system and integrated system requirement. Systems implementation involves people, processes, and tools, all of which need to be considered before system requirements and implementation under gat underway. This starts with picking the right implementation team, understanding the business processes, and data, and choosing a system or systems that will allow the business to achieve their business requirements.

Schedule Risk Analysis (SRA) outputs often end with the calculation of the all important "P Dates”, such as P50 or P80. However, SRA can be a much more powerful tool than just that. Safran Risk empowers the project and risk professional to go beyond the SRA "P Dates” by allowing more complex project disruptors to be considered. Safran Risk allows SRAs to be modelled in conjunction with project disruptors such as crew capacity (applying resource levelling constraints during the SRA) and production rates (checking if production is able to keep pace with demand e.g. precast liner production keeping up with tunnel progress). The "Beyond the P Dates" session will demonstrate the above scenarios, using Safran Risk's unique advantage of having a full capacity scheduling engine.

In this presentation, we will discuss how ARTC Inland Rail has innovatively integrated project data with business process automation and dashboard reporting. Learn about the involvement of the project controls and contract management solution in fostering collaboration across both the project services team and the supply chain through-out the project lifecycle. By implementing standardised electronic workflow processes across the Inland Rail program, the solution embedded robust governance, automated integrations and substantially reduced turn-around times. Get a behind the scenes look into the innovative and collaborative efforts between teams that led to the broadening of the overall ARES PRISM offering. We will take you on a deep dive so that you can see first-hand what new capabilities are available out-of-the-box in PRISM Go, PRISM Workflow, and PRISM Dashboard.

A lot of project based systems are just that, project based and therefore lack the capability to look across a portfolio for similarities that machine learning needs if it is going to support management of new investments. Multi-dimensional matrices and distributed data capture into a portfolio system can provide an alternative to traditional closed and top-down planning structures. See how UniPhi uses meta data to create complex data structures that result in AI driven planning decisions on large scale infrastructure projects.

Abstract: The Australian Department of Defence adopted EVM as a project and contract management tool in the 1980s. This presentation will explore Defence’s use of EVM over the subsequent decades in the management of major capital equipment acquisition projects, including:

• the development of its own EVM standards;
• transition to the Australian EVM Standard;
• experimentation with the tying of contractor payments to earned value progress;
• trailing of EVM on Commonwealth effort in its own project offices; and
• integration of EVM data into management reporting systems.

Using Earned Value Management (EVM) to improve project governance and controls is not as hard as you think! This session will look at establishing and operating and running an EVMS, based on Australian Standard AS4817:2019 (the Australian adoption of ISO 21508), using simple tools. The session will briefly cover: - Understanding EVM, what it is, and what it is not. - Define the key elements and objectives of EVM - Demonstrate the creation, and use of EVM on a small bridge project. At the conclusion of this 40 minute overview, delegates will be given the opportunity to download free of charge the Easy EVM reference, and EVM spreadsheet used in the demonstration

Many construction contracts specify that a delay must be calculated on the critical path of the contract program. Often project programs are completed in Oracle Primavera P6 and therefore to demonstrate a delay the scheduler needs to add delays to the program to demonstrate and calculate the delay. This paper outlines the various techniques for demonstrating delays using Oracle Primavera P6 PPM.

The challenges of scheduling, managing, and claiming delays in, ‘horizontally distributed projects’ (HDPs) are not well supported by traditional project paradigms. HDPs have two dominant characteristics, the majority of the work is comprised of a series of physically separated units that are similar or identical in design, and the logical dependencies between the different units are either non-existent or minimal (think of an off-shore wind farm). This type of project is not well supported by either traditional CPM, or ‘line of balance’ scheduling. This presentation will define the concept of a ‘horizontally distributed project’, and then based on some practical examples, highlight the challenges of assessing delay and disruption based on traditional paradigms of CPM scheduling. It will conclude by offering suggested ways to adapt project controls and contractual requirements to provide a sensible assessment of project delays.

This session will lead you through how to distill a wealth of project controls data into a simple, clear and influential brief for Senior Decision Makers. We focus on distilling the bottom line so we can call on our BLUF and get that Bottom Line Up Front. The session will be hands on and interactive, and FUN!

Data analytics and insights are powerful tools in the modern world. For projects and programs Project Controls are one of the best ways to harness the power of our data to minimize variances in cost and schedule. When applied to the majority of our projects we up our chances of success considerably, by showing us what actions we need to take to achieve a different outcome. But what about the programs that are extremely complex, where ambiguity and uncertainty make the line of sight from data to action and outcome impossible to see. What is the role of Project Controls in these uncertain conditions? This presentation will delve into this issue and explore when we should hold and when we should fold on Project Controls.

The sixth IPPC Report on climate change identifies significant consequences unless there is a change in human behaviour and way the resources are used to achieve human objectives. Projects are the vehicles through which change is implemented and have been responsible for significant improvements in living standards throughout history. History also shows that projects are systematically delivered at costs which exceed those anticipated in the business case and yield benefits which are less than those anticipated in the business case. Furthermore, the larger and more complex that projects are, the greater the risk that costs will be exceeded, and benefits will experience a shortfall. Projects are increasing in size and complexity so there is a significant opportunity to reconsider current practices in order to improve the return on investment from projects and achieve development that is sustainable.

Competitively tendered fixed price contracts, often lead to contractors / non-owner participants making heroic assumptions on risks they cannot control and are often asked to accept, even on the most complex mega-projects. This invariably results in parties subsequently trying to mitigate some of these initial losses through scope changes and variation claims, in an effort to remain financially viable. An increasing number of such experiences have encouraged adoption of collaborative contracting models (i.e. Alliances, etc…) with parties sharing pain and gain on ultimate project performance to achieve best for project outcomes. Whilst traditional variation benchmarking efforts try to effectively apportion risk scenarios, these are not exhaustive. Given the complex nature of these projects, it is inevitable, that these mega-projects will run into risks that eventuate into delay .

Sydney Water has taken infrastructure delivery into a new era, through a ground-breaking new infrastructure procurement framework, Partnering for Success (P4S). P4S positions Sydney Water as the first international early adopter of the ICE Project 13 Best Practice Framework and the first major infrastructure company in Australia to use the full NEC4 suite of contracts to deliver new works. P4S includes three fully integrated Regional Delivery Consortia appointed to manage design, construction and maintenance and facilities management in each of its three regions (North, South and West) for the next 10 years. The innovative approach utilises a responsive yet disciplined program delivery model, which improves commercial efficiency and customer focus. Based on P13 principles, P4S draws on a matrix of centralised expertise, enterprise level supply chain shared purchasing and standardised NEC4 contracts.

Organisations and ways of working are changing and adapting faster than ever before. The way we provide oversight and governance to projects is also being forced to change. How do make sure our program and project governance is fit for purpose in this new world? Robust, yet agile enough to support quick decision making. Detailed, but not bureaucratic. This presentation seeks to address some of the key factors in deciding how ‘agile’ project governance should be, and explores some of cultural elements that may be the key to picking the right point on the agile governance spectrum.

Implementation of a controls system that integrates all the essential functions so that they align seamlessly, are easy to use and enable quick analysis and reporting is surely the Shang Ri La of any controls professional. We are all looking for that single source of truth that will give us the answer to that eternal question "Is my project on track?". This presentation will be divided into two parts: Part one looks at some of the key questions you should be asking before embarking on this journey to enlightenment. Part two details the lessons learned from those days when you were cast into the wilderness of the implementation phase.

In December 2020, MRPV awarded its first contract via a new procurement and delivery model. This presentation will discuss the Program Delivery Approach and our journey in the preparation and continuous improvement of the Project Controls function within this collaborative model.

Many mega projects have a siloed approach to planning, cost, risk, change and governance with a lack of integration between processes. This siloed approach can lead to project failures while not realising planned benefits, catching negative media attention and reduced confidence of stakeholders.Mega projects are increasingly integrating with data driven decision making. Whereas in functional organizations there may be a data analytics and visualization strategy which is driven towards data driven decision making, this becomes a major problem in mega projects, as they are temporary organizations that end with the completion of the project.A review of the literature suggests that there are papers published on data driven organizations which have a data strategy. For mega projects however, where the drivers are different and temporary, there is little published evidence to suggest that data driven strategy plays an important role, starting from when the project is being defined. The traditional project controls approach is shifting towards integrated project controls (IPC) based data analytics to provide actionable insights, allow for performance measurement, predict impact on project outcome and guide knowledge-based decisions. Using a few Mega projects as examples, this presentation will look at three steps to establish effective IPC, including: Importance of establishing a data strategy upfront Investing upfront on a culture of transparency on projects with executive

• Facilitating alignment between cost, time and risk components through integrated coding structures to enable high levels of transparency, reliability and certainty • Simplify and rationalise technology landscapes through the transition to enterprise technology platforms • Facilitate project controls technology integration to support WBS/CBS/RBS coding alignment processes

Over the last 6 years Rail Projects Victoria (RPV) has been planning and delivering the State’s largest ever investment in rail infrastructure. With 40 projects and packages of work worth more than $35 billion in the pipeline we have learned many valuable lessons. In this talk Alex, Edmund and Farzad will share insights which highlight proven planning approaches that lead to the successful delivery of complex infrastructure projects. This will include case studies and experiences from the client's perspective (Alex and Edmund), as well as the Contractor's experience in delivery (Farzad). They will also discuss how RPV is preparing itself and industry for the rising tsunami of infrastructure investment by training and developing the next generation of project controls professionals.

Data, Friend or Foe to Megaprojects. Megaprojects produce a huge amount of data which can make you feel like you are wrestling a crocodile. This presentation will take a walk through the reality of data and reporting performance on Megaprojects. How technology has changed over the years and discusses how these changes can be utilised to take the pain out of every reporting cycle. How this will then enable you to always have your finger on the pulse of the project and become truly collaborative with your supply chain.

Currently, home buyers face significant uncertainty over building quality. A survey of more than 500 NSW apartment buildings constructed in the past six years showed that 39% had experienced serious defects. There have been several disastrous high-rise residential tower projects that have rightly put a spotlight on the trustworthiness of developers, certifiers and building contractors. BAS is a blockchain-based platform that captures who, did, what and when across the design and construction phases to bring trust and transparency into the construction industry. The solution aims to address some of the key quality issues the construction industry is experiencing. It records all the information relating to the construction of a building, from the design to materials and the parties involved in the construction installation process. BAS essentially provides end customers with the DNA of a project so they can be more confident the that asset is trustworthy and the constructed asset conforms with a federated compliant design.

Accurate prediction of final outturn project costs during the project lifecycle is challenging because of the dynamic complexities of project delivery. We show how combining Nobel-prize winning theories from behavioural economics with the latest methods from artificial intelligence (AI) can dramatically improve the empirical performance of in-flight project final cost estimating. We show evidence using real project data on 681 Australian civil construction projects. We offer an empirical calibration curve that compares our AI-driven probabilistic cost estimates to out-turn performance, showing 2.3% average deviation with actual project out-turn. To our knowledge, no such comparable empirical calibration data is available in either the academic, government or industry literature on Australian civil construction project cost predictions.

There is a body of research that claims there is a relationship between emotional intelligence and collaboration in groups, and there is evidence to show that a collaborative approach to project integration yields substantial benefits to project performance, compared to a traditional, process and system driven approach. However, the literature has so far failed to link these relationships and investigate whether emotional intelligence could be a success factor for collaboration and the success of Project Controls (PC) integrating the wider project functions. This presentation will investigate a relationship between emotional intelligence of PC professionals, and collaboration between PC and wider project teams, and identify practical applications for current and future projects.

Skill-based planning is an innovative approach that optimises project delivery based on the best allocation of available resources. Combined with volume-based planning, resource productivities and AI algorithms, it is a powerful way to identify the true project bottlenecks, significantly spead up the project, and reduce the cost of delivery. Skill-based planning is equally applicable for projects with Waterfall and Agile delivery.