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Leadership in Transportation

~ John L. Craig Consulting, LLC

Leadership in Transportation

Monthly Archives: March 2016

Some Common Causes of Program Failures

06 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by John L. Craig in Government & Policy, Program Management, Transportation

≈ Leave a comment

Throughout complex, long-duration mega-programs, changes occur, many between the “white spaces”. That is events, activities and risks that are not specifically identified and addressed. Some of these might include changes in leadership, changes in technology, changes in staffing, changes in politics, reinterpretation of contracts, and others. The following is a list of common causes for program, or project, failures and problems.

  1. Inadequate leadership
  2. Inadequate planning
  3. Inadequate relationships, trust, engagement and alignment
  4. Inadequate or dysfunctional organization, including lack of needed skill sets
  5. Inadequately prepared client, stakeholders, partners and/or program manager
  6. Inadequate culture of accountability, responsibility and authority (for decision-making)
  7. Inadequate communications
  8. Inadequate feedback loops, reports and reporting
  9. Inadequate quality control/ assurance plans, execution and/or not inculcated throughout the organization
  10. Inadequate team, defined roles, responsibilities and buy-in
  11. Critical path not identified and followed
  12. Performance metrics not adequately used
  13. Scope does not reflect realities of the program and/or scope creep
  14. Schedule does not reflect realities of the program
  15. Budget does not reflect realities of program
  16. Issues not aggressively resolved
  17. Inadequate continuous improvement, change management, lessons-learned and good practices
  18. Inadequate and/or continuous training, including safety culture
  19. Failure to identify, assess and manage risks
  20. Failure to allow for changes in technology
  21. Inadequate program closeout

This list is not intended to be comprehensive, so please add to it based on your own experience.

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, only this time more wisely.”

– Henry Ford

Transportation Asset Management

06 Sunday Mar 2016

Posted by John L. Craig in Asset & Life Cycle Management, Government & Policy, Transportation

≈ Leave a comment

The essence of asset management is to better prioritize resources to optimize outcomes, basically institutionalizing a business-like approach to managing infrastructure. This is not so-called “rocket science”. It is simply what any organization, public or private, should be doing to best use its resources in achieving desired results for its customers and stockholders, whether referred to as asset management or not. To my knowledge, no organization has sufficient resources to do everything it needs or wants to do. Thus, a systematic approach of setting priorities must take place—asset management.

In the bigger picture, asset management is an extension of engineering economics. Utilized for over a hundred years, engineering economics has, and continues to be, a primary means for decision-making for infrastructure development. The ability to retain, retrieve, and analyze increasing amounts of data in recent decades has enabled evidence-based decision-making on a network scale. Made possible by computer and digital technology, other “big picture” analyses are increasingly emerging to include the discipline of sustainability that facilitates decision-making between economic, social and environmental realms.

Every public and private body is under increasing pressure to justify investment and that it is making best use of its resources. It is tempting to generate an office of asset management in addressing these pressures. However, inculcating an asset management approach requires a cultural change where the entire team thinks in more holistic terms on how to better utilize resources to optimize outcomes.

Many organizations have developed a strategic approach that identifies better allocation of resources for the management, operations, preservation and enhancement of infrastructure to meet the needs of current and future customers and stockholders. As an example, in the mid-1990s the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) formed an Asset Management Committee. I was privileged to serve as Vice Chair and Chair. Within a short period of time, the entire transportation industry in the United States recognized the value of asset management and has been refining processes ever since.

At about this same time, the value of performance measures was emerging in conjunction with asset management. There are essentially four traditional elements of asset management that interact:

  1. Performance measures (what target is desired and achievable)
  2. Asset:
    1. Inventory
    2. Condition
    3. Utilization
    4. Value in dollars
  3. Life-cycle cost prediction
  4. Agency or organization cost
  5. User cost
  6. Trade-off analysis and investment strategies (by combining the above to produce an optimized budget)

An example of asset manage, while Director of the Nebraska Department of Roads, determined that the optimal allocation of resources in a broad sense (including budget) was:

  1. Critical bridges
  2. System preservation
  3. New capital investments

Asset management is quite literally the best of continuous improvement. That process never ends. An account of the full collection of resources must be pursued. Some are visible and some are not. This is a partial list of assets commonly owned by transportation agencies:

  • roads, including for all modes
  • trails
  • bridges, including vehicle and pedestrian
  • public transportation assets and systems, including buses and trains
  • culverts and drainage structures and systems
  • other structures such as sound walls
  • signs of all kinds
  • lighting and electrical systems
  • heating and air conditioning systems
  • buildings, including for people, equipment and materials
  • airports and aircraft
  • waterborne ferry systems and craft
  • land
  • roadside vegetation
  • rest stops and visitor centers
  • rail grade crossings
  • traffic control signals, devices and systems
  • changeable message boards, fixed and portable
  • vehicles
  • equipment to include heavy wheeled and track, construction and maintenance, snow and ice, mowing
  • materials of all kinds
  • tools of all kinds
  • intelligent transportation systems
  • intelligent infrastructure systems
  • transportation management centers
  • information systems, including software and hardware
  • data of all kinds
  • economic impacts
  • environmental impacts, including aesthetics and views
  • societal impacts, including access for the disabled
  • user impacts, including to traffic and safety
  • human resources

There are other resources so feel free to add to this list. They must all be managed in an asset management framework to make best use of available resources and to optimize outcomes. This is what customers and stockholders expect.

“Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”

– Mark Twain

Recent Posts

  • Program and Project Management: Three Questions
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 13: Reimagining the Future)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 12: A Look into the Future)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 11: Leadership and Education)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 10: Social, Economic, and Environmental Issues)

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  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 11: Leadership and Education)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 10: Social, Economic, and Environmental Issues)

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Categories

  • 3D Printers
  • 5.9 GHz
  • 5G
  • Alternative Delivery
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  • Augmented Reality (AR)
  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Batteries
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Recent Posts

  • Program and Project Management: Three Questions
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 13: Reimagining the Future)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 12: A Look into the Future)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 11: Leadership and Education)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 10: Social, Economic, and Environmental Issues)

Recent Comments

jseprogrammanagement on Program and Project Management…

Archives

  • October 2022
  • June 2021
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  • January 2021
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • September 2015

Categories

  • 3D Printers
  • 5.9 GHz
  • 5G
  • Alternative Delivery
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Asset & Life Cycle Management
  • Augmented Reality (AR)
  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Batteries
  • Benefit-Cost or BC
  • Biological Diversity
  • Biomimicry
  • Black Swans
  • Business Transformation
  • Clean Energy
  • Climate
  • Cloud Services
  • Collaboration
  • Communications
  • Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV)
  • Construction
  • COVID-19
  • Cyber-security
  • Design
  • Drones
  • Dynamic Transportation Management
  • Economics
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Environment
  • Extinction of Species
  • Fuel Taxes
  • Funding
  • Funding Gaps
  • Future
  • Gas-Fueled Vehicles
  • Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
  • Government & Policy
  • History
  • Homo sapiens
  • Infrastructure
  • Intelligent Infrastructure
  • Intelligent Transportation Systems or ITS
  • Internet of Things or IoT
  • Interstate
  • Investing
  • Leadership
  • Learning and Success
  • Lidar
  • Machine Control
  • Maintenance
  • Management
  • Materials
  • Mobility
  • Mobility as a Service
  • Mobility Ecosystem
  • Multimodal
  • Multimodal Needs Assessment
  • Needs Assessments
  • Oil
  • Operations
  • Owner
  • Pandemic
  • Partnerships and Collaboration
  • Pedestrians
  • Performance Measurement and Management
  • Planning
  • Program Management
  • Program or Project Controls
  • Project Management
  • Recycling
  • Relationships
  • Resilience
  • Results
  • Return on Investment or ROI
  • Ride Sharing
  • Risks
  • Robotics
  • Rural
  • Safety
  • Scope, Schedule, Budget
  • Smart Cities
  • Social Justice and Equity
  • Society
  • Solar
  • Strategic Planning
  • Sustainability
  • Team-Building
  • Technology
  • Transportation
  • Trust
  • Urban
  • Utilities
  • Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax (VMT)
  • Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X)
  • Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I)
  • Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V)
  • Virtual Reality (VR)

Meta

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Recent Posts

  • Program and Project Management: Three Questions
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 13: Reimagining the Future)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 12: A Look into the Future)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 11: Leadership and Education)
  • The Mobility Ecosystem: the changing landscape and the need for fresh, new ideas (Part 10: Social, Economic, and Environmental Issues)

Recent Comments

jseprogrammanagement on Program and Project Management…

Archives

  • October 2022
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2017
  • September 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • September 2015

Categories

  • 3D Printers
  • 5.9 GHz
  • 5G
  • Alternative Delivery
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Asset & Life Cycle Management
  • Augmented Reality (AR)
  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Batteries
  • Benefit-Cost or BC
  • Biological Diversity
  • Biomimicry
  • Black Swans
  • Business Transformation
  • Clean Energy
  • Climate
  • Cloud Services
  • Collaboration
  • Communications
  • Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAV)
  • Construction
  • COVID-19
  • Cyber-security
  • Design
  • Drones
  • Dynamic Transportation Management
  • Economics
  • Economy
  • Education
  • Electric Vehicles
  • Environment
  • Extinction of Species
  • Fuel Taxes
  • Funding
  • Funding Gaps
  • Future
  • Gas-Fueled Vehicles
  • Global Positioning Systems (GPS)
  • Government & Policy
  • History
  • Homo sapiens
  • Infrastructure
  • Intelligent Infrastructure
  • Intelligent Transportation Systems or ITS
  • Internet of Things or IoT
  • Interstate
  • Investing
  • Leadership
  • Learning and Success
  • Lidar
  • Machine Control
  • Maintenance
  • Management
  • Materials
  • Mobility
  • Mobility as a Service
  • Mobility Ecosystem
  • Multimodal
  • Multimodal Needs Assessment
  • Needs Assessments
  • Oil
  • Operations
  • Owner
  • Pandemic
  • Partnerships and Collaboration
  • Pedestrians
  • Performance Measurement and Management
  • Planning
  • Program Management
  • Program or Project Controls
  • Project Management
  • Recycling
  • Relationships
  • Resilience
  • Results
  • Return on Investment or ROI
  • Ride Sharing
  • Risks
  • Robotics
  • Rural
  • Safety
  • Scope, Schedule, Budget
  • Smart Cities
  • Social Justice and Equity
  • Society
  • Solar
  • Strategic Planning
  • Sustainability
  • Team-Building
  • Technology
  • Transportation
  • Trust
  • Urban
  • Utilities
  • Vehicle Miles Traveled Tax (VMT)
  • Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X)
  • Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I)
  • Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V)
  • Virtual Reality (VR)

Meta

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