Understanding Construction
Project Management

Project Time Management is a subset of Project Management. Consequently, the ultimate achievement of effective Project Time Management is directly affected by the culture, ideology, approach, and capacity of the Construction Project Management program that embraces it.

The secret to successful Project Time Management entails four things:
Collaboration, Coordination, Cooperation, and Communication.

• Collaboration means that we are all working ("labor") together ("co"). This fact alone does not mean or imply that we are working harmoniously, only that we are working alongside one another.
• Coordination suggests that we have taken to trouble to figure out how to orchestrate our separate efforts so that they do not interfere with one another, and that maximum synergy is achieved.
• Cooperation speaks to the attitude of the players. It suggests that we have respect for one another, and trust in one another. Our word is our bond, not some contract language that a clever lawyer can show us how to circumvent.
• Communication implies that we are not islands unto ourselves, but that we interact with others as a natural part of performing our work. Because the only constant in life is change, there is an ever-present need to communicate with one another.

Conflict is the great inhibitor of effective Project Time Management, and it is the overarching Project Management "operational context" that sets the tone and conditions for the project altogether.

All of the above is to say that even if we desire to implement a different and better Project Time Management approach (as espoused in ICS-Compendium Volume 2), we will have little chance of success if the overall construction project management process, technology, and ideology is appreciably different.

For example, how could we implement a Project Time Management model that pursues the Four C's of Collaboration, Coordination, Cooperation, and Communication --- if the prevailing Project and Construction Management philosophy is Command-and-Control? How can we advocate trust and respect, if the contract between us wreaks of distrust and disrespect?

These are some of the vital discussions that this book presents. It closes out the Dominant Project Management Series by offering fascinating, prudent, and insightful suggestions to Owners and Contractors alike, as to how to really achieve ultimate Project Time Management.