Discover Civil may | Page 18

Career If you are holding a bachelor’s degree to triumph the industry, it would be a sluggish and tough road ahead. If you want to measure the depth of the river you don’t need to submerge yourself. Just send your resume to any foreign company or any reputed domestic company for job interview and see how many of them respond. In our industry, the value of an engineer is governed by two factors: experience and skill. You can’t gain experience of five years in one year but you can excel anybody when it comes to skills. While you were pursuing your graduation what specific skill you mastered or even learned to the depth? With almost 40 subjects to learn in 4 years it’s quite unrealistic to say that you could have achieved any expertise. We studied Strength of Material, Structural Analysis and steel structure, yet people qualify GATE and peruse masters in Structural Engineering. Any guess why? Similarly having thin books on Project management and industrial psychology wouldn’t ensure that you have learned the basics of what it takes to manage a larger than life projects. Project management is the art of directing and coordinating human and material resources throughout the life of a project by using modern management techniques to achieve predetermined objectives of scope, cost, time, quality, and participation satisfaction. Specifically, project management in construction encompasses a set of objectives which may be accomplished by implementing a series of operations subject to resource constraints. There are potential conflicts between the stated objectives with regard to scope, cost, time and quality, and the constraints imposed on human material and financial resources. These conflicts should be resolved at the onset of a project by making the necessary tradeoffs or creating new alternatives. Subsequently, the functions of project management for construction generally include the following: 1. Specification of project objectives and plans including delineation of scope, budgeting, scheduling, setting performance requirements, and selecting project participants. 2. Maximization of efficient resource utilization through procurement of labor, materials and equipment according to the prescribed schedule and plan. 3. Implementation of various operations through proper coordination and control of planning, design, estimating, contracting and construction in the entire process. 4. Development of effective communications and mechanisms for resolving conflicts among the various participants. The Project Management Institute focuses on nine distinct areas requiring project manager knowledge and attention: 1. Project integration management to ensure that the various project elements are effectively coordinated. 2. Project scope management to ensure that all the work required (and only the required work) is included. 3. Project time management to provide an effective project schedule. 4. Project cost management to identify needed resources and maintain budget control.