interview q planning engineer

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Tue, 2004-11-02 16:37

mohsin farooqi

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Sat, 2005-03-12 00:02 #1

Jaco Stadler

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interview (Q & A) for planning engineer

Hi everbody

iam called for an interview for planning engineer for a qatar based construction company

and

i want to know from dear planners what would be the probable questions ? and there

respective answers ? (Q&A). Any help from fellow planners is required

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Are you a graduate engineer ?

If yes then it should be easy.

You start of by making a BOQ. With other word’s how much material is required.

Once you have completed the material list all you need to do is get rates (Estimates) for

each of them.

Then you ad them all up and you have your budgeted price.

Then you do a Monte Carlo / or Other and determine your contingency.

If you still whish to tell your boss something I would suggest review your Job Description.

I remember many years ago before I became a planner my boss walked into my office and

ask me to do a project budget. It took me a half a day to find out what he is on about and

half a day to do. Needlest to say it was not 100 % correct when submitted to him the next

morning but he showed me the problems and told to fix it.

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Fri, 2005-03-11 18:14 #2

Erik Jonker

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Fri, 2005-03-11 17:13 #3

Philip Jonker

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Fri, 2005-03-11 16:13 #4

So in short I had to learn it the hardway.

Cheers

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Hi Mosin,

Try your best, don’t drink tea. Rather have lots of coffee. Sounds like you’ll be needing it.

Regards,

Erik Jonker


I WOULD SUGGEST< DO NOT DRINK ANY MORE TEA< SAY HAM"D"ALLAH" EVERY

MORNING< AND TRY SOME REAL PLANNING




mohsin farooqi

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Tue, 2005-01-25 02:39 #5

Neeraj Agarkar

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Mon, 2005-01-10 00:48 #6

Alex Wong

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Hi everybody iam well doing my job by Allah’s grace but now my vice president

want me to make a budget of a project, by giving the drawings of an waste water

treatment project and i had to estimate and make the budget which is what is the job of an

estimator IMHO but he insists saying your a graduate engineer and you have to make one

and the deadline is 16 march so my question is how to tell him that its not my cup of tea

but think well before suggesting he is my boss.


Dear Alex and Jaco,

I agree with what Alex said.

I would like to add that, even for a scheduler, it is required to visit the site, because I have

come across many such cases where the site engineer will boost up progress

measurements to keep the pressure off from Project manager or consultant / client.

For a planner, site visits are an absolute must, essentially because midway through a

project, site situation changes so much that the schedule will not give accurate projections.

Activity durations and their linking logic may have to be changed (with approval ofcourse)

and this should be done as committed by site engineer.

Resources requirement may change as per site conditions.

We have sites which are more than 1000km away from our offices but there is usually a

person from site who has to do the above coordination on behalf of planner.

Regards,

Neeraj


Jaco

I am not saying that, just talk, action too. If you get the job, it is part of the job as a

planner to go down to the site and understanding the progress and difficuity if you can do

it as regular as possible. Of course if physical constraint like location. Then I would ask if a

project manager can visit his site from time to time, why a planner cannot??



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Mon, 2005-01-10 00:46 #7

Alex Wong

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Sun, 2005-01-09 04:33 #8

Jaco Stadler

Being present in site will help to communicate and understand your job. Thats why I

always looking for planner willing to take the effort to visit to site. Of course, I can tell if it

is only just talk but no action. In addition, I came across so many time when the site

supervisor comments about their planner sitting in their air-conditioned site office and

never understand the real site conditions, and trying to instruct them what to do next...

Well if a plan only exist in planner’s own world and not the real world then, it will never

work.

I hope this will help to understand not only what to answer the question but also what a

planner should do in real project as well.

Regards

Alex


Jaco

I am not saying that, just talk, action too. If you get the job, it is part of the job as a

planner to go down to the site and understanding the progress and difficuity if you can do

it as regular as possible. Of course if physical constraint like location. Then I would ask if a

project manager can visit his site from time to time, why a planner cannot??

Being present in site will help to communicate and understand your job. Thats why I

always looking for planner willing to take the effort to visit to site. Of course, I can tell if it

is only just talk but no action. In addition, I came across so many time when the site

supervisor comments about their planner sitting in their air-conditioned site office and

never understand the real site conditions, and trying to instruct them what to do next...

Well if a plan only exist in planner’s own world and not the real world then, it will never

work.

I hope this will help to understand not only what to answer the question but also what a

planner should do in real project as well.

Regards

Alex




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Mon, 2005-01-03 20:51 #9

Alex Wong

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Sat, 2005-01-01 07:55 #10

Balaji Surendiran

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Alex

I tend to disagree I would suggest when a interviewer ask you a question be honest.

Also remember sometimes project are done 1 000 km Apart in this case your require the

propper controls systems.

Cheers


When the interviewer ask, how did you obtain the progress information: Always reply : talk

to the people (Supervisor, site managers) and site visit.

It is extemely important for a planner to know their site as well as their people on the job

in order to have a realistic plan/report. And this is what the employer always looking for.

If a planner planning is project 100% on his desk. I personally will never hire them.

Regards

Alex


Thanx a lot for the explanantions of Philip & David it was really very very useful &

interesting... V r always interested in knowing such unknown facts from experienced

planners like u.

Mail ID:[email protected]

Cheers

Bala



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Sat, 2005-01-01 07:54 #11

Balaji Surendiran

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Fri, 2004-11-26 09:24 #12

David Bordoli

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Thanx a lot for the explanantions of Philip & David it was really very very useful &

interesting... U r always interested in knowing such unknown facts from experienced

planners like u.

Mail ID:[email protected]

Cheers

Bala


In my humble opinion (ha!) I believe PERT to be a statistical technique that is applied to

critical path analysis (activity-on-line in particular) which takes account of the variable

nature of activity duration in a project. Using PERT, three time estimations of the activity

duration are made, the optimistic time (o), the most likely time (m) and the pessimistic

time (p). The expected time for the activity is then (o + 4m + p)/6. Using some fancy

statistics it is possible to calculate confidence levels for the completion time of the whole

project.

This technique was particularly useful at the time of its development as the projects it was

being applied to were pure prototypes and estimations of activity durations were educated

guesses at best most of the time and PERT attempted to make time estimations more

relaible.

You could have a look here for more information:

">http://www.ce.cmu.edu/pmbook/11_Advanced_Scheduling_Techniques.html#11.2%

20Scheduling%20with%20Uncertain%20Durations



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Tue, 2004-11-23 07:18 #13

Erik Jonker

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Tue, 2004-11-23 05:00 #14

Jaco Stadler

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(thanks to Bernard Ertl for providing that link)

Regards

David

[email protected]


A well-known pioneer in the early days of scientific management was Henry Gantt. Gantt

worked for Frederick Winslow Taylor in the USA and is to be remembered for his

humanizing influence on management, emphasizing the conditions that have favorable

psychological effects on the worker.

(I know of a couple of project managers who wold have fit in perfectly in that period )

The Gantt chart for which he will also be remembered, is a visual display chart used for

scheduling which is based on time, rather than quantity, volume or weight. It was created

in 1917 and was used for production control.

PERT was devised in 1958 for the POLARIS missile program by the Program Evaluation

Branch of the Special Projects office of the U.S.Navy, helped by the Lockheed Missile

Systems division and the Consultant firm of Booz-Allen & Hamilton. The calculations were

so arranged so that they could be carried out on the IBM Naval Ordinance Research

Computer (NORC) at Dahlgren, Virginia.

CPM was the discovery of M.R.Walker of E.I.Du Pont de Nemours & Co. and J.E.Kelly of

Remington Rand, circa 1957. The computation was designed for the UNIVAC-I computer.

The first test was made in 1958, when CPM was applied to the construction of a new

chemical plant. In March 1959, the method was applied to a maintenance shut-down at the

Du Pont works in Louisville, Kentucky. Unproductive time was reduced from 125 to 93

hours.

Hope this clarifies the details.

Regards,

Erik Jonker


Hi Philip

What came first





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Fri, 2004-11-19 02:48 #15

Philip Jonker

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The Critical path or The Pert Chart

Or are they the same thing.

(Or is it a chicken and egg thing)

and if memory is correct I think you are correct with NASA developing the Pert Chart. Come

on Amarica help us with the history facts about planning.

(I am sure it is not NAASA)

Cheers


Hi Moshin,

Seeing nobody answered your questions, I suggest you find a good book about project

planning.

The answers is as follows.

1. Gannt is a form of graphic presentation of planning, ie the bar chart. It is the named

after the guy who came up with the idea. (I was taught all this more than thirty years ago

so I stand corrected if I am wrong). PERT was a form of planning invented in the USA I

think by NASA prior to gantt. However the bar charts you used to make was originally

known as gannt charts.

2. Early and late dates? The difference between early and late dates is that early dates are

the earliest dates on which an activity can be performed in terms of the logic within the

schedule, and the opposite for late dates, ie the latest an activity can be performed but the

end date of the schedule will be maintained. In the old days before primavera, open plan,

super projects and the rest planners actually drew up pert charts, and calculated dates

manually. Have you seen the terms forward pass, and backwrd pass on your screen? A

forward pass is done to calculate the early dates, and the backward pass to calculate late

dates. The software uses the same calculations to achieve this.

3: Float is the difference between late and early dates. This is the time that you can be late

without being late overall. If the float is zero the activity is critical as there is no time to

waste. There is also more than one type of float, the two main types being Total float and

free float. Total float being the amount of float within the overall schedule, and free float

the amount of float within the activity’a sub chain.

4: I think I have explained critical already, but the reason the critical activities are shown in

red is so that that wiil stand out.

Good luck with your interviews. Insh Allah



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Thu, 2004-11-18 17:41 #16

mohsin farooqi

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Sun, 2004-11-07 08:52 #17

Jaco Stadler

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PS Jaco I liked your dissertation on costing. Good luck to you and your wife:-)


Hi to all,

Well Planners by Gods grace i think i got the job as they said they short listed me and

thanking to all my fellow planners who had guided me and plz guide me in future also, i

require your opinions as they are worth for a novice like me . especially thanx

Daya,Shazad,Jaco Stadler for there comments and Shazad eagerly waiting for the name of

book you said you are going to send me.if any one give the answers for all the other

questions i had posted will be a great help.

regards

mohsin farooqi


Cash Flows

I would suggest you read a book on the subject. (AACE have some good books)

The answer is simple.

Yes.

Most people do know how cash flow work.(You use it everyday)

You get your salary Cheque = Budget

You promise your wife you will buy her something = Commitment.

You Get the Item delivered

You get invoiced

You pay the person.

What ever is left "over" at the end of the month is your’s/or your wife’s = Profit/loss.

(Normally I have found any money loss it is mine - any Profit made belongs to My Wife)

Then we go on you purchase on credit = (cash Negative)

You pay your account on last month pays = (Cash Positive)

You pay your account as you recieve your pay = (Cash Neutral)

Calculating wat you will spending the month is your = cash forecast (Cash flow) (tricky if



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Sun, 2004-11-07 07:15 #18

mohsin farooqi

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you dont have estimating experiance lesson = Know your wife) This you achieve by saying

on which day you are going to pay which account.

And then their is thousand more things.

The tricky part in cash flows is when you use more than one currency’s (Currency

savings/loss projection) and inflation. Also try to calculate interest.

So next time just think a little about everyday live (we all use planning etc evryday of our

live)

PS the answer to your qeeustion regarding percentage complete on the excavation I would

sugget the following manner.

1) Calculate total Volume required for excavation (1000m2)

2) Calculate total Volume to Complete excavation (400M2)

This will tell me you have 40% to complete so you are 60 % complete. (I prefer looking at

wat is required to complete rather than what is completed which eliminate estimating

errors in progress)


My Final interview was taken today and the delegate from Qatar asked me the following

questions

The

1) put on some of the tasks you encounter in constructing a small villa?

2}Which platform or version of p3 u work?

3) Do you know to work with cash flows? etc

well all gone well except the later question

plz give answer for my last question and other comments

Regards

Mohsin



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Wed, 2004-11-03 16:30 #19

mohsin farooqi

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Wed, 2004-11-03 16:28 #20

mohsin farooqi

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Wed, 2004-11-03 09:32 #21

Dayanidhi Dhandapany

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Hi Everybody, well i had gone for the interview today and the very basic question

encountered from the interviewee was If you consider a Road project in which there are

lots of activities going on like asphalting, excavation , etc and if You Consider a activity

Excavation, which will be going on repeately simultaneouslly for the entire stretch of say

50km and its divided among 1000 mtrs stretch, how would you know the actual work done

for the 50km stretch for excavation. my answer was make subprojects for the each

1000mtrs and update this subproject updating and scheduling for this sub projects will give

you the actual work done for the whole main project whether my answer was correct or

any one from roads or fellow planners can give a correct answer ? any way i had to

convince him once again for the final interview shortly regards Mohsin


Hi to all

well iam having 4 months of experience only in planning ,for a contracting firm into

construction in oman, and i was the only planning engineer in the firm . where i worked on

p3 platform, where i used to make baseline programmes that too for projects which are

ongoing ,for the clients .this baseline projects where nothing but mere requirement for the

client as per the contract.So kindly be symathetic and answer my questions

1) what is gantt? i mean in my previous job i used to make bar charts which states

activity id ,activity description ,duration, %complete,thats it.

2) what are this dates early start early finish, late start, late finish imply after scheduling ?

in certain terms how is scheduling done with the software ?

3) what is float define in your terms best suits me if you give with an example?

4) what are critical activities and why does the bar chart shows red colour for this activities

any way thanx for replying my earlier questions


Probable Questions: 1. Brief something about your previous project experience and your

achievement in the project. 2. Have you used Resource loading, project budgeting etc. etc.

Cash-flow curve.......etc...etc into your schedule. 3. How good you are in preparation of



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Wed, 2004-11-03 09:02 #22

Shahzad Munawar

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weekly/monthly progress reports. 4. Any experience in cost controlling?. 5. How well you

could handle Primavera(for an example). 6. Can you perform well under pressure. 7. Why

do you want to be considered for this post?. ........etc...........etc................


Firstly prepare yourself for basic knowledge and techniques of Planning if you have 1~2

years experience but if you have more experience then concentrate on what you have

performed in that period.

There are no specific questions that we make it as guidelines for interviewers.




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