Faithful+Gould, in association with the Saudi Council of Engineers, will be hosting a professional development seminar that will focus on how early engagement of project and programme management can provide vital improvements to the overall delivery of a project within budget and on time.
A first of its kind and part of an ongoing series, the seminar will be held at 6pm on Tuesday, 2nd June at the Al Khozama Hotel in Riyadh; and will feature a presentation by David Clifton (left image), Regional Development Director, Faithful+Gould on ‘How early engagement of programme / project Management can deliver improvements’. This will be followed by a session on the newly added PMBOK knowledge area, Stakeholders Management’ by Syed Basharat Aziz from the Project Management Institute.
Clifton said that offering professional development seminars is an important undertaking in ensuring the success of project delivery in Saudi Arabia. “In an ever increasing and congested programme and project delivery environment in the Middle East, this seminar will explore the benefits of early programme and project management professionals engagement and how applying business excellence in PMO processes can truly add benefits to projects.”
In addition to advice on dealing with the technical and time-sensitive pressures of delivering high-profile he also stressed that seminars such as this are vital now more than ever in a region where 30% of the workforce is employed in the infrastructure sector.
Much has been made of the volume of work which will be carried in the region and in particular in Saudi Arabia which has indicated that its budget for 2015 and the upcoming years will maintain a wide range of diversification initiatives and investment programmes to boost the government’s ongoing efforts to develop long-term non-oil development. The country’s efforts will focus on education, infrastructure, health, social services, security services, municipal services, water and water treatment services, and roads and highways and in the coming year, education, healthcare, science, technology, and e-governance projects will continue to be priority sectors.
Saudi Arabia intends to carry out 16 key power projects in its eastern province of Ihsa over the next three years to meet a steady growth in domestic electricity demand, according to a Saudi official. Meanwhile water, agriculture, and infrastructure projects have been allocated $16 billion (SR6 billion) in 2015. Projects under construction approved in prior fiscal years still have $37.9 billion (SR142 billion) remaining in their costs.
An estimated $8.9 billion (SR33.5 billion) will be spent to fund nearly 2,000 kilometres of new roads, airport upgrades and expansions, railways, sea ports, and infrastructure projects at Jubail, Yanbu, and Ras Al-Khair. Projects under construction approved in prior fiscal years still have $30.7 billion (SR115 billion) in their remaining costs.
