New Planning Approach Presented to
International Conference on Megaprojects in Brazil
London, UK, Friday April 11, 2008
Dr. Robert E. Smith (University College London and
Chief Consulting Scientist for Plexus Planning)
presented a keynote talk entitled Megaprojects Need
New Tools: Why Current PM Tools don't Deliver the
Goods (prepared in conjunction with Professor Jim
Scanlan, Director of Design, University of
Southampton, and Co-Founder of Plexus Planning and
Professor Philip Lawrence (University of West of
England) at Megaprojects, an international conference
in San Paulo, SP, Brazil (April 3-4, 2008). The talk
was simultaneously translated to Portuguese.
The conference included other speakers on massive
scale projects, like those being undertaken in Dubai,
The Big Dig in Boston, MA, modernization of the
Panama Canal, The 2007 Pan-American games in Rio, and
The ITAIPU Hydroelectric facility.
The well-received talk examined the all-too-frequent
failures of project management, exemplified by grand
cost overruns and drastically slipping schedules. Dr.
Smith cited inadequacies in extracting and
representing knowledge from project stakeholders as
the likely source of these failures.
Dr. Smith demonstrated PlexusTM, the collaborative
planning, optimization, and project management tool, as
a means of addressing these difficulties.
Dr. Smith also participated in a panel discussion on
the complexity of megaprojects, along with Roberto
Pons, PMP, Executive Director of ProjectLab, a
Brazil-based project management consultancy, Dan
McNichol, author of "The Big Dig", Mounir Ajam, PMP
MSc, CEO of Sukad, a Dubai-based project management
consultancy, and Gustavo Miranda Rodrigues, PMP, MSc,
Coordinator of Brazil's bid to host the 2016 Olympic
Games.
The conference had approximately 600 participants,
including representatives from a broad range of
industries and international governments.