There are still some executives out there who believe that a good engineer is a good project manager, too. Even worse: some executives believe that the detailed technical knowledge about a project is mandatory. The latter requirement does not do any harm but in general a designing engineer and a project manager have completely different skills and attitudes.
Simply memorize one statement: the project manager is responsible for a timely execution of a project within a given budget. He will turn the fictive margin that your sales staff and designers had added to the price into real profit.
His skills and talents: he is a tough negotiator, he is a straight forward organizer, he is a motivator, he is a team builder, he is a conflict solver. He is your customer's one stop contact to cheer or to complain about the project. He thinks in change orders and not in technical ameliorations.
Out of practical reasons we differentiate between proposal and project managers reflecting the different stages of a project. As the name indicates a proposal manager takes over responsibility before a contract is signed. The preparation of a proposal for a complex infrastructure project is a full time job forming the final team, setting milestones and creating time schedules and budgets. As a rule of thumb the industry estimates that you need a least about 1 to 2 % of the later price for this proposal period -- quite an amount if you think of a $ 1 billion subway project.
We have the person to run your proposal or project or to serve as a program manager of a public private project office. Our managerial skills will yield high profitability.
Volume: n/a; Job: Team Leader for the UoB Irradiation Chamber; Main Challenges: Voicing Interest (communications); Timely Team Formation; High Availability of Experiment (because of the high hourly costs of the accelerator)
Volume: DM 100 million without buildings; Job: Proposal Manager; Main Challenges: Team Building (different personal agendas of the participants), Financing (public budgets) and Time Schedule (long delays because of the novelty of the project)
Volume: DM 5 million; Job: Project Manager; Main Challenges: Extreme Delays (because of missing input from customer) and Conflict Solution/Motivation (running a team with frequently changing people with extremely different attitudes)
Volume (total): several million DM; Job: Event (Project) Manager and MC; Main Challenges: Small Budgets and Conflict Solution (because of necessity to harmonize international programs etc.)
Total Volume: confidential; Job: Team Leader Overall Scheduling and Events, Public, Governmental and Media Relations; Main Challenges: Small Budget and Different Cultures (US-German team)
Volume: about $ 5 million; Job: Project Manager, Main Challenges: Technical Deficiencies, Delays, International Collaboration USA-Switzerland-Canada, Conflict Solution between project team, customer and the customer's consultant
Volume: n/a; Job: Supervision of project managers; Main Challenge: rising awareness of the importance of a project manager
Volume: n/a; Job: Proposal Manager; main Challenges: team formation and international support from headquarters
Volume: n/a; Job: team leader of the project management pool, supervision, control, process definition and implementation, ISO certification; Main Challenges: human conflict solutions
Project volume: short of $ 1 billion; Job: Chairman of the Steering Committee (coordinating the participation of the consortia members, control of the proposal director and his proposal team, spokesperson, governmental affairs); Main Challenges: conflict solution, people management and motivation
Volume: about $ 30 million; Job: Member of the Joint Executive Committee (de facto: team leader of the Siemens side); Main Challenges: getting control over hiking budgets and delayed deliveries; establishing comfort and reliability at the customer's; re-negotiating budgets and time schedules, human conflict solution
Volume: confidential; Job: Project Manager for Siemens and Team Leader of the joint international team: Main Challenges: Conflict Solution
Program Manager, Vehicles;
Projects: Canada Line (formerly RAV), Vancouver, BC, Canada; Kelana Jaya Fleet Extension, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Damansara-Cheras Line, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Trinidad Rapid Transit, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago