Under the Patronage of H.E. Engr. Fahmi Bin Ali Al Jowder
Seminar on Role of Project Management in National Development
Manama, Bahrain 18 November 2009: Under the patronage of H.E. Engr. Fahmi Bin Ali Al Jowder, the Minister of Works & Minister In-charge of Electricity & Water Authority, The Project Management Institute – Arabian Gulf Chapter: Bahrain Branch (PMI-AGC:BB) organized a seminar on the Role of Project Management in National Development, which was held on the 12th November, 2009 at 7.00 p.m. at Bahrain Society of Engineers (BSE) Auditorium. Over 250 delegates attended the seminar.
The Project Management Institute – Arabian Gulf Chapter: Bahrain Branch (PMI-AGC:BB) is a vibrant Association and Service Provider of Choice in the professional practice of Project Management in the Arabian Gulf Region, with a mission to promote Project Management in the region to help organizations and businesses achieve optimum results through applying PM principles, and enhance the alignment of PMI-AGC with the PMI Strategic Plans to further increase the value and portfolio of benefits to members and stakeholders.
On this note, Eng. A Majeed Al Ghassab, President PMI-AGC, Bahrain Branch stated “We will continue to provide useful project management platforms and opportunities, for practitioners, engineers, planners, academicians and management personnel to interact, share their experiences, improve their knowledge and showcase their projects and best practices ”
The seminar was sponsored by Hill International, @ Bahrain, Scott Wilson and D.G. Jones and partners, and featured two presentations, namely “Lean Construction Project Management” by Dr. Ghaffar Imtiaz, Technical Advisor and PMO to Mayor - Jeddah Municipality, and “Project Management Facilitates Governance & Transparency”, by Rizwan Mumtaz, Director, PMI-AGC: BB.
Event Summary:
H.E. Engineer Fahmi Bin Ali Al-Jowder, the Minister of Works and Minister In-charge of Electricity & Water Authority who patronised the event and was the Chief Guest, presented mementos to the speakers and sponsors, and continued to be present throughout the Question & Answer session.
The event was highly successful judging by the massive turnout of over 200 attendees, the interest showed by the audience as evidenced by numerous questions asked during the Q&A session and the queries and conversation held following the closing of the event and throughout the dinner.
Dr. Ghafar Imtiaz gave a condensed presentation that summarised the current thinking and trends in the application of the Lean Methodology in the Construction Industry. He emphasised the primary objective of the methodology namely elimination of waste in all facets of the project including material, labour and services. He pointed out that the origin of the methodology was from the car production industry and noted the efforts were led by Toyota.
Dr. Imtiaz highlighted the startling statistics gathered from the construction industry in various countries including USA, UK, Nigeria and Sweden amongst others that show an average wastage of more than 30% of the value of projects.
The status of adopting the Lean Methodology within the GCC based on the research conducted by Dr. Imtiaz indicated that it was in its infancy and hence he called for urgent steps to be taken to introduce it given the size of the savings and the additional efficiency benefits to be reaped from applying its principles.
Rizwan Mumtaz, who possesses the distinction of managing iconic projects in the Kingdom of Bahrain for the last 15 years such as the Bahrain International Circuit (BIC) Project, gave a presentation on how the application of appropriate Project Management methodologies facilitates good governance and contributes towards transparency, sighting examples and experience of such application in his successfully managing some of the largest projects undertaken in the Kingdom such as the BIC.
He emphasized that Corporate Governance related to accountabilities and responsibilities for the management of the performance of an enterprise and stated that following recent studies, Senior Management responsibilities of Governance had been extended, for example, in the area of provision of corporate performance information, particularly on the financial side.
“Governments and regulatory authorities have amended laws and strengthened codes, to make responsibilities of Governance more explicit, and to introduce new requirements and standards relating to the production of financial and other data”, concluded Mr. Mumtaz.
Nada Khonji, PMP, Director of non-technical presentations & Community Relations of PMI-AGC Bahrain presented an overview of PMI-AGC with a brief history and a summary of the Chapter's achievements.
The event was concluded with a dinner over which the attendees networked, socialised and shared their experiences.
