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The planning phase of any project—for any industry—is an important piece of a very long journey. The planning phase sets the benchmark by which success will be measured. It provides direction and accounts for potential risks. For industrial facilities—with projects both small and large—small misses in the planning phase can create larger, costly issues down the road.

To get an insider’s perspective on what makes the planning phase impactful for an industrial facility, we sat down with Mujtaba Qureshi, a Project Manager at Enterprise Products with more than 15 years of experience. Before his work at Enterprise Products, Mujtaba managed major capital projects—and specifically oversaw the planning phase of those projects—at Chevron. Mujtaba is a civil engineer with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering, a master’s degree in Engineering Management, and an MBA in Project Management.

In our conversation with Mujtaba, he shared critical insights into improving the planning phase of any industrial facility project:

Ensure you have the enterprise-wide visibility needed to build successful plans.

“The planning phase is critical and it really sets you up for success,” said Mujtaba. “However, even more critical than the planning phase itself is the enterprise-wide visibility needed to inform the planning phase.” Projects that don’t follow a proper planning process and that lack visibility into mission-critical data end up creating major issues down the road. “Little gaps in the planning phase, created by this lack of visibility, begets bigger issues in the execution phase. They cause cost and schedule overruns and other negative project outcomes, which causes you to miss the expectations of the stakeholders,” said Mujtaba.

For example, several years ago, Mujtaba worked on a refinery expansion project. This project saw a few issues, all of which could have been resolved in the planning phase. “The initial data information, the design, the references that we needed to create a successful plan were not there,” said Mujtaba. “Because we could not provide the data needed to make informed decisions, the plan we built did not account for certain risks. Once those risks became reality, we didn’t have the data to alert us to pivot our resources and enact remedial efforts. As a result, the project that was originally expected to cost $16 million ended up costing more than $100 million.”

To combat this, Mutjaba recommends ensuring you have complete visibility into all project-related data as a precursor to the planning phase.

Develop the scope of your project early and account for boundaries.

“Early in the project, what we would call phase one, it’s critical to develop your scope,” said Mujtaba. But what happens when scope creep starts to come into play? It’s time to readdress your scope. “Work with your stakeholders and agree on what the new outcome and expectations are going to be,” said Mujtaba. He shared, “Make sure you get clearly written expectations from each of the stakeholders.”

Mujtaba shared that every department and group within that stakeholder category will have different needs for every project. Project operations will have different expectations compared to the safety group and the safety group’s expectations will be different from the engineering group’s expectations. “If your stakeholders cannot agree on the scope of the project, work with the team. Go back to the drawing board and discuss until all stakeholders agree to the redefined scope of the project. Then proceed with the project.” If this step is missed in the planning phase or not readdressed when scope creep becomes a reality in the execute phase, the project may need to be shelved or rescheduled to a later day.

One critical tip for industrial facilities working through scope is to include boundaries. “You must have boundaries mentioned in your scope,” said Mujtaba. “Make it clear what is inside the boundaries of the project and what is outside of it.” This practice can help teams address challenges that come up at a later date. When another stakeholder asks for something to be addressed in the project, if it’s outside of the original, agreed-upon boundaries, the conversation around how the change will affect project delivery becomes easier to both relay and understand.

Create a single source of truth for better data-driven decisions.

Traditionally, organizations have relied on a variety of tools to store their project/asset related data. With so many different tools, users have been required to extract data from each tool and then manually input that data together to get a “big picture” view of past or current performance. Of course, this manual process is prone to human error and is very time consuming. More often than not, these practices make data untrustworthy.

To combat this, Mujtaba recommends using a tool that can bring all of the data sources together into a single location. While data and tools are important, it’s critical that industrial facilities establish a single data environment where data is easily accessible. “You need to have efficient and reliable data to inform project plans if you want those projects to succeed in the execution phase,” said Mujtaba.

When data is routed to a single source of truth, business leaders can use accurate, easily accessible data to inform their decisions, making better choices during the plan phase to set up every project for success.

Leverage automation to keep stakeholders informed while focusing on more high-value efforts.

“In order to build efficient and reliable project plans, it’s critical to leverage automated tools,” said Mutjaba. Automation enables project professionals to hand off more low-value tasks, like data harvesting and reporting, to the automated tool so they can focus on more high-value efforts. Automation also helps to further data accuracy and trust as it removes the potential for human error.

In the vein of reporting, Mujtaba shared that the days of dealing with only internal stakeholders are over. “There’s so much external reporting that is required now,” said Mujtaba. To deliver robust reports with accurate data tailored to each stakeholder’s interests in a timely fashion, automation is a must.

Mutjaba continued, “In order to achieve this level of real-time reporting without having to devote your entire job to data compilation and organizing reports, you need an automated, project management system.” As a result, stakeholders are more informed of project efforts and performance while project planners and managers get to focus on what matters most: ensuring project success.

Ready to learn more about accelerating your journey to a smarter, more efficient industrial facility? Check out our eBook here to elevate your industrial facility execution processes.

Mujtaba Qureshi
Product Manager,
Enterprise Projects
Mujtaba has been managing projects and programmes for more than 20 years. He has experience as a facilities engineer (designing and commissioning energy projects), a construction specialist, and a lead project assurance engineer. Mujtaba earned his BA degree in Civil Engineering and MBA from the University of Engineering & Technology, and his Masters in Engineering Management from Arkansas State University.