Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) recently hosted a conference at the ICC in Durban attended by 200 delegates and 17 industry speakers. President of Cesa, Naren Bhojaram, opened procedings explaining the theme “Unlocking Infrastructure Delivery and Restoring the Ethical Balance in Construction”.

Some organisations’ projects have been unduly criticised for being poorly planned and having unrealistic cost and time projections. The reasons behind these problems or mistakes are often attributed to a lack of communication through the different levels within the project team. However, communication barriers are, in fact, only one of many possible mistakes a project team can make.

We all know that risk management is supposed to manage risks. But people have very different understandings when they use the word. Unfortunately most people ignore official definitions when they manage risk in practice and instead rely on their own ideas, reducing the effectiveness of the risk process from delivering the full range of potential value.

Andrew Hubbard speaks to Dr James ‘Ox’ van Hoften, a former United States Navy pilot, astronaut and project pioneer about his experience as a project manager and the future of the profession.

Project managers are, amongst other things, in the business of measuring and improving: Trimming waste, streamlining efficiency, managing resources and foreseeing risk. Any team or company can benefit immensely from the addition of a project manager and these skills are in high demand.