Fluor: Developing Engineering Leads
The Problem: FLUOR is one of the world’s largest engineering, procurement, construction, maintenance and project management companies. Its business segments include Energy, Industrial Infrastructure, Government, Power, and Global Services. FLUOR had a program in place to train all of its discipline level leads in the basics of project management, but found that it was too broad and general for certain segments of its workforce, particularly engineering.
The Plan: FLUOR asked Quest to develop a Leader-Led engineering-specific project management program to be included in the College of Engineering at FLUOR University. The goal was to prepare engineering leads assigned to projects to assume overall responsibility for all discipline-specific activities on the project team, including engineering, design, and material functions. The program’s focus was on planning and controlling the work product and performance of the team.
The Quest team, working with subject matter experts within Fluor, developed a program that focused on the role of the engineering lead, contract performance, quality, and key phases and aspects of the project. This included engineering, project initiation, controlling the project, client relations and managing materials.
The course culminated in a significant case study which included all of these elements. It required an understanding of the intra/inter-discipline dependencies that exist when executing projects and how those dependencies influence the project outcome. This plan was then compared to a base model and the participants debriefed to understand the similarities and differences in their plan.
The Results: The program has been rolled out worldwide and given the highest priority. It is part of FLUOR University as a required course for all leads assigned to engineering projects.