Advanced Project Management Workshop - APMW

This course will not follow the traditional lecture-style format, instead it will be an interactive hands-on workshop where the participants will work on several case studies directly related to the selected topics. This workshop will take an EPC contractor perspective while also highlighting how owner companies (NOCs and IOCs) interact with their EPC contractors to develop and execute their projects. The workshop material covers both onshore and offshore projects.

The main objective of this workshop is to present several real-life scenarios of different types of project issues encountered by contractors and work through these issues to show how they should be addressed to arrive at an optimum resolution. This workshop will focus more on practice and less on theory. In addition to the case studies created and provided by PetroSkills, it is recommended that attendees provide a few scenarios from their current or past projects to be used in the workshop as case studies.


"Class was excellent." - Project Engineer, South Korea


"I most enjoyed learning about costs and schedule management." - Piping Engineer, South Korea

This course is designed for senior project management staff of EPC contractors working on large international projects in the energy industry with a focus on the Middle East region. It is recommended for experienced project managers, project engineers, project controls managers, construction managers, and discipline leads.

How To:

• Allocate contract risk between owner and contractor
• Address terms and conditions at bidding stage (limit of liabilities, warranties, guaranties, approval of key personnel, special conditions, etc.)
• Handle owner-provided FEED as basis of bid
• Finalize terms and conditions before contract signing, contract administration, and records keeping
• Understand and negotiate liquidated damages applied to project milestones
• Handle change orders, suspension of work by owner or contractor, and contract termination for cause or convenience
• Prepare for dispute resolution and claim by contractor (documentation, timing, notice to owner, etc.)
• Determine when negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and litigation are necessary
• Identify governing laws in the contract
• Determine cost of claims and who is responsible for payment
• Protect yourself from claims by owner against contractor
• Prevent claims where possible
• Identify project risks and determine their impact during engineering, procurement and construction phases
• Apply risk management on a project at the right time
• Identify, assess, and mitigate project risks
• Identify pros and cons of a project risk register and mitigation plan
• Develop and use a project risk profile
• Address project risks in cost and schedule estimates, during the bidding phase, and in the contract
• Recognize FEED, scope changes, and scope creep (and how to address it)
• Understand how and why contractors can make scope changes
• Minimize the impact of scope changes by owner
• Handle scope addition, reduction, specs change, and material substitution
• Track scope changes and their cost and schedule impact
• Determine how scope control really works and how a contractor can use it to their benefit
• Improve likelihood of project success
• Improve confidence level in cost and schedule estimates
• Handle schedule delays, acceleration, and work stoppage by owner and contractor
• Manage contractual milestones (schedule baseline, critical path, and near critical paths)
• Benefit from fast tracking or crashing the project schedule
• Identify who controls schedule float and how resource leveling works
• Use earned value for project controls and completion forecast
• Manager cost protection for equipment, material and labor in lump sum contracts
• Manage contractor risk allowance: contingency, escalation, and management reserve
• Develop a robust project plan, including efficient engineering and best practices, streamlined procurement and logistics, construction phase, and contractor productivity
• Achieve commissioning success
• Effectively use change manage, constructability reviews, lessons learned and QA/QC
• Understand project resources: threats and opportunities
• Build and manage a good working relationship with your client
• Work with owner PMC
• Address issues in a timely manner with owner and PMC, including owner provided documents and equipment, owner/PMC interference and delays, late requests for scope changes, approval cycle, differing site conditions, and changes to contract provisions
• Establish and follow an effective communication protocol
• Handle verbal instructions by owner/PMC
• Interface with other owner contractors
• Deal with the cultural aspects and their impact on the project

• Introduction and Workshop Overview
• Why Projects Fail: Track Record, Reasons for Failure, Warning Signs
• EPC Contracts - from bidding to execution
• Dispute Resolution and Claims
• EPC Risk Management
• Scope Changes
• Cost and Schedule Management
• Project Planning and Execution
• Working with Owner (Client) and their PMC
• Workshop Wrap up