Mobilizing armies of skilled labor from diverse locations and cultures, moving large equipment into remote locations in harsh climatic conditions and managing to budgets while costs are escalating make oil sands projects among the most challenging ever undertaken. Perhaps the most critical success factor in managing such complex projects is establishing and developing productive relationships. This key factor is very difficult to measure yet is cited repeatedly as the
number one reason for project failure. Consistently, project managers’ expectations of, colleagues, teams, subcontractors, workers and project partners are substantially different from what they actually think is expected of them. Such misalignments result in expected tasks not being completed in the way required for project success, tasks being completed in a sub-optimal sequence or excessive time invested on “low return” tasks.
These misalignments cascade into scheduling conflicts, delays, cost overruns, personnel turnover, increased stress, safety and legal issues.
The take-away: New methods have been developed for the gathering and analysing of expectations from both the expectation originator’s and expectation receiver’s point of view. This enables the diagnosis of misalignments critical to project success, and facilitates the timely conversations required to align expectations and to keep projects on track before they become critical variables. Resource and competency gaps are exposed and addressed. High achieving managers can be identified. A culture of communication, alignment and accountability can be measured and developed.