Faisal AlMansour, Saudi Aramco, wins Engineer of the Year at Construction Innovation Awards 2019
Faisal led the Project Knowledge Management Unit (PKMU) at Saudi Aramco. The main objective for the unit is to maximize Project Risk Management (PRM) and Lessons Learned (LL) utilization across the organization and assure the implementation of these practices’ recommendations.
To meet this objective, the yearly target for practices was set by Faisal, communicated with different stakeholders, and reflected in projects on the KPIs dashboard. He linked this target with the team performance measures and, by expounding the link of the goal with the organization’s vision, the team achieved the previous years’ targets. To ensure the team was following a professional approach in supporting stakeholder projects and to maintain similar service quality every time, two main initiatives were led by Faisal to come up with a guideline for each practice. These guidelines will govern the planning, organizing, and executing of PRM and LL practices in capital projects. Faisal and his team have developed a tracking tool for these practice outcomes and tracked the implementation of all Saudi Aramco capital projects practices outcomes.
PKMU tracks PRM and LL performance through the utilization of carefully studied and formulated key performance indicators (KPIs). One of the key leading indicators is the implementation rate of recommended practices on projects. By tracking the practices implementation rate, the unit can develop a more precise picture of the impact of the practices. For the lessons learned practice, the overall lessons collected during 2018 is 757 comparing to 181 in 2015. In 2018, the implementation rate was 92% (improved by 9% from 2017), encompassing 196 facilitation sessions (PRM and LL sessions). As a result of these efforts, Saudi Aramco projects have realized a 22% reduction in overall project cycle time and an 18% improvement in Schedule Performance Index. The increased implementation of VIPs (including PRM and LL) is also seen as a significant contributor to the 17% improvement to the capital program’s Cost Performance Index. Finally, more effective utilization in the front-end loading stages has resulted in the significant reduction of major late design changes.
Of particular note, PMO has realized significant success with Project Risk Management; it is one of the most impactful practices in the department’s portfolio of important projects. The successful utilization of the practice in 2018’s risk registers has resulted in a significant cost avoidance in capital expenditures and lifecycle costs for the capital program. Additionally, the application of the LL practice to our future projects and engineering standards and procedures has resulted in a further cost avoidance in the same categories.
The main challenge Faisal anticipated during implementing these practices is that stakeholders are not aware about the importance of these practices and don’t see the real value of the practices’ recommendations. To overcome this challenges, he included the realized benefits out of conducted sessions in the corporate Knowledge Management Annual Report. He directed his team’s SME to share these statistics with projects at the beginning of each session to encourage participants to fully contribute. Finally, Faisal and his team started reporting the practices recommendations implementation status with all projects on a monthly basis to let them know where they stand and how they could achieve the required outcomes.
To conclude, Faisal’s efforts during his tenure have made a significant impact to the Project Management Office Department. His skills and abilities have allowed us to promote him to a leadership position where he has continued to demonstrate his capabilities. His efforts in expanding knowledge management as an organizational development tool are leading to significant improvements in project execution efficiency.