Thursday, 2 January 2014

Project Organizational Structure roles and Responsibility

The economic crisis started with the collapse of the banking and property sector in the United States in 2008. With various governmental stimulus package in the past months, the economy has slowly picked up its pace. Published data showed a stronger Quarter II in several countries (including China, Turkey, Brazil and Japan) but worries about future growth have increased. Most of these relate to the public debt in Euro Zone crisis and the possibility of a double-dip recession. All the macro-economic factors have indeed a strong correlation to the Vietnam economy as Vietnam mainly exports its goods to the major economy like the United States and Europe.  Therefore, crises happen elsewhere will have negative impact on the Vietnam domestic economy and real estate industry in Vietnam is no exception.

Even though the real estate industry in Vietnam has shown some sign of recovering, it has not been that strong across the various types of real estate products such as office, retail, apartment, service apartment, villas and townhouse.

Latest research from Savills Research and Consultancy also showed that in Vietnam, there is over supply and competition is intense right now. The highly competitive property market is creating two important effects that real estate developer must pay attention to, namely high tenant mobility and a flight to quality. As for apartment for sale in Vietnam, though there is rising demand with estimated approximately 50,000 –80,000 dwellings required per year, the buyers in this market is mainly young population with limited saving. As people tend to be more cautious in personal spending, they will be more selective in choosing an appropriate real estate property for purchasing, renting or purely investing.

The competition among different developers to develop the best housings with the lowest price has brought about the urgent need for organizations to evaluate their own organizational structure and management style. Having an appropriate framework and good organization management structure, the organization will enjoy many benefits. The immediate profit will be that the streamlined organizational structure will be more cost effective due to the appropriate use of resources. Next, good organization structure and management provides an extremely useful tool in controlling every stage of the project and prevent many possible risks.  In the recent times, many projects fail due to lack of good organization management and hence the lack of control.

If a project is well organized, it will bring about high satisfaction for customers, which will in turn generate greater revenue and higher return on investment for the developer. Good organization management structure will safeguard the firm’s long-term survival as well. Though some economists have viewed that the recession is over, other strategists still worry about the possibility of a double dip recession. Having a good organization management will help the firm stand strong in terms of crises. Though profits might be affected negatively by the external factors, if the organizations have good internal systems, they can still manage the firm well and keep the cost used at the minimum level to ensure the firm will survive in hard times.

The above compelling reasons are the key rationales to study in depth the subject of organization management.

TRAN DUC QUANG made a case study which objectives was to study the application of Project Organizational Structure Roles and Responsibility in a construction project from Appraisal, Feasibility Decision to completing -handing over phase. 

Conclusion 

The report attempted to explore and study in depth the key concepts of organizational management and appreciate the various organizational structures, which are relevant to the real estate and construction industry.

Given the very complicated nature of construction whereby each constructions project is unique and may involve many stakeholders, the real estate developer needs to consider both vertical and horizontal ways of structuring its organization and project. That is why matrix structure is proven to be very useful. Furthermore, in different stages of the project life cycle, the tasks required are different and hence the need for different structure during different phases of the project. Knowing when to employ which structure is important, as organization structure is a tool for managers to carry out the strategies set forth.

Having the appropriate organizational structure is essential for the real estate developer, as having an appropriate framework and good organization management structure, the organization will enjoy many benefits such as appropriate use of resources and prevention of many possible risks.  The tool will also help to close up the gap in project governance as good structure will allow constant interaction in between different levels. A well-run project will generate both financial benefits and high satisfaction to the stakeholders involved. It will help the firm stand strong in terms of crises and thus safeguard firm’s long-term survival.


The whole rational of organizational management is to facilitate the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements in terms of Scope, Cost, Time, Quality, Participant satisfaction. In organizational management, the important steps include:
1.       Choosing the right people
2.      Setting up the right organization
3.      Using the right system


The concept of how to choose the right people for the task and how to set up the right organization has been discussed extensively and expressed in detail at previous sections. There are many organization structures and each one of them discussed above has its own application, advantages and drawbacks. Selecting the appropriate structure for an organization will therefore be dependent on the task, the size of the firm, the subordinates, the managers and the environment.  Managers, in choosing the right organizing structure, need to study its vision, mission and its strategic intent and then strive to pick strategies and structures that are congruent. In choosing the right people for the team, managers need to define of what kinds of skills required, what kinds of individuals required in what timeframes and then select the right people.

As discussed in Literature Review and the Case Study of the Hotel, implementing the best organization management system involves a few stages, starting from finding out the right strategies, to matching the project life cycle stages to the correct type of structure. The case study of Marriott Hotel is a very good example that other real estate developers can study and replicate.

Organizational management aspect of project management includes Human Resource Planning, Acquire Project Team, Develop Project Team and Manage Project Team. Therefore, choosing the right people and organization structure alone is not enough. Managers need to be aware of many other factors that can be the crucial success factors in running the organization such as managing culture issues and facilitating good communication channel. Organizational management also includes active management of the employees in the organization. Making sure employees are well motivated is crucial for organizational management. Below are some the examples of how to manage the employees that firm can adopt:

Providing Constant feedback to employees

1.       Progress Reports: Reports providing feedback to the project team about performance against the project plan.
2.      External Feedback: The project team must periodically measure itself against the performance expectations of those outside the project.
3.      Project Performance Appraisal:  Performance appraisal objectives include re-clarification of roles and responsibilities,  development of team member’s training plans and establishment of specific goals for future time periods.
4.      Performance Reviews: Meeting are held to access project status or progress.

Provide various trainings to employees

Other things that a project management team can do are to send employees for courses to increase his skills sets. The courses that a company can consider are:
1.       Management: Successful conflict management results in greater productivity and positive working relationships.
2.      Cultural Management:  With cultural management skills, employees will be more confident in dealing with people from various backgrounds, especially for the large-scale joint venture project.
3.      Trend Analysis: Forecasting project results over time to determine if performance is improving or deteriorating.

Finally, managing an organization is an ongoing process, and managers need to be actively engaged in running their own company. Once the situation changes, managers need to be nimble in adapting to the changing environment by changing the organization structure.

Abstract

This report focuses on various aspects of the main theme - Organization Management, which is a crucial factor for the success for real estate project.

Year 2007 was a booming year for real estate in Vietnam. Many housing development projects were successful built. However, as the financial turmoil started since 2008, the real estate industry globally has encountered one of the worst hit in the recent history. Competition for developing new housing projects with high quality yet low cost in order to win customer base is intense. In order to survive in this tough environment and emerge as winner, there is an urge for real estate developers to re-look in to building up their organizational structure in order to carry out smoothly the projects in accordance with customer’s expectation and international standards. In general, the success or failure of the real estate development project is dependent upon the quality of the employees, the clarity of the operation, the availability of the resources and most importantly, the appropriateness of the structure and the management system adopted.

This study, which refers to different theories and standards, has studied in depth the concept of organization management. The project indentifies the key concepts of various types of organization and its relation with the construction phases. It spells out the core governance tasks in the area of strategy, structure and organizational culture and suggests the best strategy that a real estate developer should adopt in order to cope with the increasing pressure of the internal and external environment. It further elaborates how to exercise authority and allocate power within an organization.


Finally, the real life case study of building the Five Star Marriott Hotel in Nha Trang City, a complex project that involves various team and parties, will demonstrate the key concepts and application of these concepts. 

Monday, 30 December 2013

Tuesday, 17 December 2013

A Critical Appraisal of Briefing Client in Construction Process

Vietnam is a one of emerging markets following the UK Trade and Investment (2010) report. Accordingly, Vietnam is a country which is a market-leading selection by international investors especially the construction industry which attracting impressively by the possibility of its profitability. Therefore, the development of strategies for international construction demands in Vietnam is very essential to meet the client’s objectives in terms of function, quality, value, time, and cost and certainly.

The lacking of skilled person to meet the requirement of construction project in Vietnam is a big problem and lead to late delivery and over budget. Whilst briefing always has been a key element of any project. Often, requirements and demands from client are not collected adequately to provide solutions and result is inappropriate. Briefing is a communication process combined with record system to publish a set of documents to the design team; it is a process of developing a deep understanding about the client needs. It is a continuous interaction and involvement of the client and professional teams are important in this process. Through good briefing and grasping what the real needs are, client and professional consultants can work more effective and productive on project and make decisions confidently.

NGUYEN CHAU DIEU AN made a case study which objectives were to:

1. review the concepts, definitions of client and client briefing in construction in order to understand the client’s expectation through the client’s briefing process.

2. review the methods for strategic client briefing and other relevant literature on client briefing.

3. present the problems of briefing in a specific project in Vietnam and its solutions.

4. propose a framework of briefing for next project.

Conclusions

Briefing has long been recognized as an important and essential part in the international construction process. It has a substantial contribution to the success of a project. However, briefing has not been acknowledged in the formal way by client and consultant in Vietnam construction industry. Client and consultants are not aware of the importance of the briefing process and most of them have not been trained in factors related to the client’s brief.

The literature study shows the essential activities and interactive relationships involving the client organization and the design team as they progress through each phase of the project. It provides the value information to achieve assessments and objectives of the project.

The aim of this study was to explore a construction client’s process for project briefing and to improve understanding of strategic briefing and briefing methods for both client and consultant in meeting the client’s expectation. The study showed the problems that architect is stuck by not admitting what a paramount briefing and clarifies elements which play important roles in a success of project.

1. To know the client’s objective through the briefing process

In order to achieve this objective, the literature has been reviewed on the concepts of the briefing process, the definitions of a client, client’s expectations and the client briefing process within the construction. The investigation tried to understand the expectation of clients through the client’s briefing process.

2. To apply techniques of briefing process for architect

To explore different methodologies and tools that can be used to establish client’s demand and expectation on construction project such as questionnaire development, need analysis, briefing content, communication.

3. To understand the administrative and official process impacting on the briefing process

In order to achieve this objective, involvement of client, stockholders, end user, and consultant during the process is very essential. Managing changes of requirement, recording verbal communication, and making decision are factors in briefing administration which impacts success or failure of the project.

Besides the objectives above, this research also provided the methods to the briefing process to get requirements from client such as empowering client, managing project, parties’ involvement, team building and using computer system, communication skill, and record system.

Although there are still problems in Vietnam construction industry, this study has been achieved by the conclusion that the construction industry in Vietnam will be focused on a briefing process especially in application methods of briefing, training and acknowledgement a brief properly to get efficiency, profitability of a project.  

Recommendation to improve briefing process in Vietnam construction industry

1. Perceive role of briefing

Need to train all parties involved in a project aware of how important the briefing is, the role of briefing in a project and contribution of briefing to the success of a project. Through a better briefing, an architect can get what the real client wants and client’s expectation. Even client, they will be able to make decisions related to investment with great confidence.

2. Understand briefing process

Briefing process is an interactive process between the client and professional teams and briefing happens continuously during the construction process. Briefing process needs many techniques, tools to get requirements and demands from client such as team building, getting information, analyzing, managing changes of requirement, recording, and communicating.

3. Apply different techniques in construction

Find out various techniques to apply in a briefing process such as using computer system to improve communication between client and professional team (Science & Engineering Research Council) includes general approach, questionnaire development, data analysis, system contents.

Abstract

Client briefing plays a crucial role in success of a construction project. A successful briefing can achieve the target time, cost and quality for a project and make decision on project confidently. Although there are many attempts to approach client’s requirement and needs for a project, it is still not collected adequately to make appropriate solutions in design. In Vietnam, client briefing is not considered an important process and architects usually focus on design without paying any attention what their client really wants.  

The objective of this research are to provide a basic knowledge of briefing process which is not consider as a integral process in construction process in Vietnam, present research, analysis of problems of briefing in a project and recommend a briefing framework in order to avoid client’s frequent changes and control information collected systematically.


This Project Report has taken a general view of Briefing Process in theory and analyzing a case study that applied in Vienam to find out reasons of failure, lack of briefing techniques. The report points out that a framework of briefing need to be established for identification what a client really wand and clarification of client’s demands.  

MPM Gathering Day 2013

MPM Gathering Day 2013
08 Dec 2013
Lan Anh club, Ho Chi Minh city

MPM Gathering Day 2013 in HCMC on 08 December 2013 successfully organized by MPM Alumni club with over 80 participants who are MPM/CEIM alumni, MPM students, AITAA-VN representatives from Ho Chi Minh ciy, Can Tho and Vung Tau.

They had chance to gather together and review the unforgettable memories of the studying time at AIT during activities of Gathering day such as tennis cup and gala party. 


The tennis cup for men's doubles only were interested in over 30 registered players and its result is as following:

- Champion: 
  • Dr. Hadikusumo, MPM/CEIM Coordinator
  • Mr. Le Quang Dung, MPM3 Can Tho student
- 1st runner up:
  • Mr. Nguyen Phan Hoa Binh, MPM3A HCMC Alumnus
  • Mr. Dau Hong Quan, MPM7 HCMC student
- 2nd runner up: for 2 men's double
  • Mr. Luu Hoang Nam, MPM7 HCMC student
  • Mr. Engwan, MPM faculty
 and 
  • Mr. Nguyen Duc Trong, MPM3A HCMC Alumnus
  • Mr. Phan Tuong Liem, MPM2 Vung Tau Alumnus
Everybody felt very excited with karaoke songs from single or group alumni and student "singer". Ten lucky persons won 10 lucky prizes during Gala party. Lucky prizes came from MPM program and sponsors. 

We highly appreciate our sponsors for this event and their contributions for MPM activities for a long time. 
- Mr. Do Huu Phuoc, MPM3B HCMC
- Mr. Hoang Thanh Ha, MPM6 HCMC and QTC company
- MPM6 HCMC class
- Ms. Mai Do Thuy Dung, MPM1 HCMC
- Ms. Lu Ngoc Anh, MPM6 HCMC
- Mr. Nguyen Van Nhan, MPM3A HCMC
- Mr. Nguyen Chanh Phuong, MPM3A HCMC
- Mr. Chau Anh Tuan and Mr. Vo Thanh Phong, MPM4B HCMC
- Mr. Thuyet, AITAA-VN, SOM 01-03
- MPM Program
- Dr. Hadikusumo and Mr. Engwan

On behalf of MPM Alumni club, we would like to say thank you to all MPM faculty, alumni, current students who made the success of MPM Gathering Day 2013. We would hope all of members of MPM family will connect closely, maintain our network and meet together again in Gathering Day next year.







Ready for FINAL ROUND


Semi-final round - men's doubles

Semi-final round - men's doubles

2nd runner-up for tennis cup
1st runner-up for tennis cup

Champion - Dr. Hadikusumo and Mr. Le Quang Dung

Group photo of MPM Gathering Day

2nd prize of lucky draw

"Group singer" of MPM7 current students