_Articles – PPA-Consulting

Data Analysis with Multi-Layered NLP Agents

December 11, 2024

Accessing and analyzing data is often a bottleneck for non-technical users, requiring technical skills and time-consuming processes. A multi-layered AI agent architecture, powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP), addresses these challenges by enabling conversational interactions with data. This architecture consists of three key components: the Interface Agent, which interprets user queries and structures them into actionable blueprints, a State Manager that managers the query state, and Query Agents, which execute analyses through systematic reasoning and iterative sub-queries. This multi-layer architecture ensures logical, transparent, and efficient data analyses.

A Day in a Life with Jerome

December 9, 2024

1800 1st November 2024 The construction team was exhausted. After two weeks of extended hours, they’d finally made some headway on the project’s mounting delays. “The five EERs are finally done. Epoxy has been applied.” Dave, the construction manager, took photos of the team’s hard work and logged the progress via Jerome. Jerome is a digital project assistant who wears many hats. For Dave, Jerome takes the burden of time-consuming data entry and report writing, allowing the technical team to focus on engineering and site work. “I have updated the project status for Zone 2, EER 1-5 Epoxy application. EER 6-9 remains outstanding.” Jerome replied without hesitation. “I know…. That’s for tomorrow.” Dave uttered to himself, relieved that he wouldn’t end his day knee-deep in admin. 0630 2nd November 2024 Natasha arrived at the office early, as she often did, using the quiet hours to get a clear picture of the day ahead. “Good morning, Jerome. How did the team do yesterday?” she asked, settling into her desk. “Dave’s team completed the epoxy for EER 1-5. If EER 6-9 are finished today, we’ll see a 1% improvement in SPI and recover four lost days. Also, the lighting contractors are scheduled

What’s so Great about EVM?

September 27, 2024

Earned Value Management, or EVM, is a powerful way of measuring project performance in a comprehensive, robust and quantitative way. It combines costs and schedule into a single value metric, which Gantts charts, schedules and check lists just can’t do. But how does it work? Read more to find out.

Midboarding

September 20, 2024

Something is off… The project is moving forward and making decent progress. People are showing up, doing their bit, and dealing with the daily grind. But lately, something feels off. The pace feels frantic, deadlines are looming, and you can sense the tension hanging in the air. People aren’t really clicking like they used to. Conversations are shorter, more strained. Meetings, once productive, have turned into passive-aggressive exchanges. People take jabs at each other—small, seemingly harmless comments that sting just a bit too much. There’s more whining than problem-solving, and it feels like every task is harder than it should be. You find yourself frustrated, noticing the troubling signs everywhere. Enthusiasm has been replaced with a sense of “just get through it.” And sure, things are still moving—but are they moving in the right direction? Midboarding Midboarding should take place every six months. The objectives are similar to onboarding but adjusted to the realities of having worked together for half a year. The goal is to ensure clarity on: Rather than repeating the onboarding process, midboarding takes the lessons learned over the past six months and bakes them into a refreshed approach. By now, you’ve had time to observe your

I Love Meetings!

September 1, 2024

I have an unpopular opinion. I love meetings. There I said it. I get it, people hate meetings. But hear me out—when done right, they’re actually brilliant. Meetings are a space for dialogue. They encourage collaboration and cooperation. You can look somebody in the eye and get body language cues. You can interrogate ideas, dig deeper into data, and see things from different perspectives. Emails, instant messaging, and written reports just don’t offer the level of engagement that meetings provide. But before we move on, let’s define what kind of meetings I’m talking about. Workshops, seminars, creative charrettes, site walks, inspections, performance reviews, crisis meetings, one-on-ones etc.. are not “meeting” in the context of this article. I’m referring to your run-of-the-mill project meetings, where you might invite a bunch of people in a meeting room for an hour, or two hours, following some sort of agenda, and with a bit of luck, decisions are being made. There are reasons why people dislike these run-of-the-mill meetings. Most meetings are unfocused, go off-topic, or drag on way too long. You’ve got people playing on their phones, waiting for their turn to speak—or worse, waiting for the meeting to end—without any clear outcome.

Onboarding your Project Team

August 24, 2024

Onboarding your team properly is important. Very important. Obviously. Rarely do project managers do this well. During project kick off, you probably don’t have a fully mobilised team. The client wants progress, chasing you for documents, schedules and submittals. You barely have your office set up and you are firefighting from day-one. As the project manager, it is up to you to set an environment in which your team can succeed. Onboarding your team properly and professionally is a foundational step for this. Not only is it important for those who report directly to you, but also for everyone under your jurisdiction. I mean everyone. And you shouldn’t palm this off to HR either. HR doesn’t know your processes and your expectations. You are the project manager. People work for you, and it is up to you to set the rules. Your team needs to have confidence in you to lead a successful project. I’m not suggesting you do this all by yourself. Afterall, you do have a team. If you have a large team, say 300 people working on your project, it’s unrealistic to onboard everyone personally. However, it’s your responsibility to ensure that everyone is properly onboarded to

From Uncertainty to Clarity: A PMO Case Study

August 9, 2024

A rapidly growing organisation recognized the urgent need to establish a PMO with a robust management framework to improve operational needs and lay the foundation for future growth. Recognizing the limitations of time and resources, we decided on a six-month timeframe to implement meaningful change. During this period, we aimed to uncover key gaps, establish critical processes, create essential assets and onboard the teams. Importantly, the goal was not to completely overhaul existing practices but to implement meaningful and practical changes. This initiative represents the first step in a continuous improvement journey.

What will 6G Bring to Construction?

August 2, 2024

6G is expected to run initial trials by 2028 and deployment around 2030. Technically, 6G will deliver mind-boggling speeds of up to 1 terabit per second (Tbps)—100 times faster than 5G, faster than existing fiber networks. It will operate in the terahertz (THz) frequency spectrum, which allows for much higher data rates but also requires new antenna designs and infrastructure to manage its shorter range. Each advancement in mobile communication transcends mere enhancements in speed. It represents a shift in the way we work and communicate . While we are still going through the 5G Hype Cycle, the perception is that IOT and has not lived up to expectations. For example, IOT together with 5G was meant to revolutionise Smart City and Smart infrastructure. But these ambitions remain unfulfilled… Except that’s not entirely true. Sure… some cities are smarter than others. When people think of smart cities, they conjure up the image of data everywhere augmented reality with ubiquitous facial recognition and targeted advertising. But they are much more nuance. A smart city leverages IOT and ITC to enhance the quality of life for its residents by improving operations and efficiencies. Much of which is invisible. It isn’t like a

CREMA an Information Management Framework

July 25, 2024

Project Managers have to contend with a lot of data and information. Managers coordinate efforts and solve problems based on good information. The challenge is that there is a lot of it. In, say, a construction project, there are many moving parts. Each moving part generates information and data in many different ways serving different purposes. There are official reports, informal reports, memos, minutes of meetings, briefings, meeting transcripts, emails, instant messages, contracts, scope of work, technical specifications, engineering drawings, project plans, task lists, check lists, Kan Bans, progress dashboards, burn down charts, variation orders, client instructions, letters and notices, approval documents, Bill of Materials, procurement schedule, non-compliance notices, technical submittals, administrative submittals, cash flow, financial forecasts, budget, risk registers, change registers, progress log, compliance check list, equipment list,… and these the ones that reeled off the top of my head. And then there are water cooler conversation, one-on-ones, ad hoc emails, phone calls, online meetings etc… Buried deep, is a lot of good information, amongst a shed loads of noise, redundancy and erroneous data. It is critical that a project manager kicks off a project and onboard your team with an effective information and communication strategy that helps you minimise

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