1、AASHTO Project OversightTASK FORCE REPORTAmerican Association of State Highway and Transportation OfficialsAASHTO Project Oversight Task Force Report August 2004 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 444 North Capitol Street, N.W., Suite 249 Washington, DC 20001 (202) 62
2、4-5800 www.transportation.org 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.ii 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United
3、 States of America. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the publishers. ISBN: 1-56051-268-7 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.iiiAMERICAN AS
4、SOCIATION OF STATE HIGHWAY AND TRANSPORTATION OFFICIALS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 2003-2004 VOTING MEMBERS OFFICERS: PRESIDENT: John Njord, Utah VICE PRESIDENT: Bryan Nicol, Indiana SECRETARY-TREASURER: Larry King, Pennsylvania REGIONAL REPRESENTATIVES: REGION I: Allen Biehler, Pennsylvania, One-Year Term
5、 Dan Tangherlini, District of Columbia, Two-Year Term REGION II: Whittington Clement, Virginia, One-Year Term Fernando Fagundo, Puerto Rico, Two-Year Term REGION III: Mark Wandro, Iowa, One-Year Term Gloria Jeff, Michigan, Two-Year Term REGION IV: Mike Behrens, Texas, One-Year Term Tom Norton, Color
6、ado, Two-Year Term NON-VOTING MEMBERS IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT: Dan Flowers, Arkansas EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: John Horsley, Washington, DC 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.iv AASHTO Task Force
7、 on Project Oversight Members Tom Stephens, Chair Director Nevada Department of Transportation 1263 South Stewart Street Carson City, NV 89712 Bryan Strizki Manager, Bureau of Quality Management Services New Jersey Department of Transportation P.O. Box 600 Trenton, NJ 08625 Frank Gee Acting Chief Di
8、vision Administrator Virginia Department of Transportation 1401 East Broad Street Richmond, VA 23219 Tony Kane Director, Engineering and Technical Services AASHTO 444 North Capitol St., N.W., Suite 249 Washington, DC 20001 King Gee Associate Administrator for Infrastructure Federal Highway Administr
9、ation 400 7th Street, S.W. Washington, DC 20590 Jack Basso Director, Management and Business Development AASHTO 444 North Capitol St., N.W., Suite 249 Washington, DC 20001 Don Nelson Engineering promises made at one stage may be forgotten later, resulting in loss of public trust and, in the worst ca
10、ses, may even result in litigation. A project manager detects problems early and alerts management, then solves the problem and mitigates the effects, keeping stakeholders informed along the way. 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Dupl
11、ication is a violation of applicable law.AASHTO Project Oversight Task Force Report Page 2 Preamble Communication among internal parties in the DOT, as well as between the DOT and external stakeholders, is at the foundation of public trust and confidence. Ideally, the project manager has at his or h
12、er disposal a well-developed communications plan that, executed properly, will help to grow and maintain public trust and confidence. The need for good public information during the construction phase of a project is commonly recognized and addressed by State DOTs, but DOTs who wait for the big publ
13、ic relations plan to go into effect in the construction stage may find their communication to be too little, too late. The construction-focused approach misses opportunities to make project management easier and more effective. Maintenance of public trust and confidence for a large, complex project
14、must begin in the planning stage; a communications strategy must be planned out like any other aspect of the project. In general, a public communications plan should: Be incorporated into each stage of project development as a project management tool Educate the public on a project development proce
15、ss Set and manage expectations Include strategies to solicit input in addition to disseminating information Identify and tailor information and its delivery to key stakeholders Make the project transparent to stakeholders and facilitate ongoing communication so that there are no surprises Aspects of
16、 a communications plan may be tailored to various stakeholder groups. Stakeholders include users of the proposed project; business and residential neighbors directly affected by the project; elected officials; interest groups focused on environmental protection, economic development, or other issues
17、; and the medianot to mention those who are funding the project directly or indirectly. Stakeholders also include DOT employees, consultants, and contractors who are outside the project team. Meeting expectations gives a DOT credibility, and public trust and confidence is dependent on the credibilit
18、y of the DOT. The public communications plan educates the public about a projects life cycle and sets expectations about acceptable changes in project cost, scope of work, and schedule as the project specifications become more precise. The plan smoothes the transitions between project stages and inc
19、ludes strategies for announcing updated cost estimates, changes in scope, and adjustments to schedules. It also allows the DOT to identify project milestones and celebrate them publicly when achieved. Addressing General Public Trust and Confidence Issues Responsibility will be placed on the DOT to p
20、revent, manage, or mitigate the consequences of problems that arise with a project regardless of the cause. If a DOTs credibility with its constituents is low, the challenge of regaining public trust and confidence when a problem occurs is even greater. If the DOT is known as an organization compris
21、ed of highly qualified professionals whose main goal is to serve the public interest, the project management is much easier. Several states approach the issue of public trust and confidence in a general way by evaluating themselves and disseminating reports to the public. The performance measurement
22、 process starts with a committed CEO who monitors and questions results on a regular basis, and is built around 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.AASHTO Project Oversight Task Force Report
23、Preamble 3 a regular review of measures as well as a business structure that encourages employee accountability. The final report from NCHRP Project 20-24(20), titled Strategic Performance Measures for State Departments of Transportation: A Handbook for CEOs and Executives, shows that the process of
24、 measuring is almost as important as the measures themselves. State DOTs that successfully monitor and widely report on selected performance indicators include those in New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Washington. A follow-on research study that is just underway, NCHRP Project 20-24(37), Strategic Perf
25、ormance Measures for State Departments of Transportation: Benchmarking Performance, proposes to develop a core set of strategic measures that can be used as a framework to monitor performance at the State level. Effective management of the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) is also tied
26、 closely with credibility. The financially constrained STIP is the foundation of every State DOT work plan. Each state has its own methods for formulating the STIP, but fundamentally, cost estimates and schedules must be realistic if the DOT is to be credible. However, cost estimating and scheduling
27、 are both art and science, based on quantitative analysis and responsive to qualitative factors such as politics. States must present financially constrained plans while hedging against the risk that some projects will drop off and including “priority projects” that are often backed by significant p
28、olitical forces on the STIP. This is easier said than done. For example, pressure can lead to a project being scheduled earlier than it can realistically be delivered. When this happens, every priority must be given to the projects delivery, even if it means slipping other projects to later years. T
29、his in turn exacerbates another problem. The Federal requirement for financially constrained STIPs, while theoretically sound, is disrupted in practice when projects slip into a future year. If a schedule slips, for whatever reason, Federal money could be lost if it goes unobligated. To compensate f
30、or this risk, some states “overbook” the STIP to insure against the loss of Federal funds. Overbooking allows another project to be substituted for the delayed project. When is overbooking violating the financial constraint requirement? When does the sudden designation of a new “priority project” ju
31、stify schedule slippage? These are difficult judgment calls at best. Another STIP management approach that is sometimes called into question is to divide projects into smaller pieces. This approach is not necessarily inappropriate. In fact, in most cases this is necessary since a STIP is divided by
32、year of expenditure, by fund source, and by phase of the project. The pieces may functionally be stand-alone projects or part of a larger program of projects. Large projects often have multiple phases and the construction contracts are easier to track on a STIP as separate components. To track vario
33、us appropriations for what really are “subprojects” of a larger project, a project might be divided to reflect that appropriatione.g., a large project may be subdivided into an environmental study, a design project, right-of-way acquisition, or a single construction phase. This approach is a problem
34、 if a DOT divvies up projects to make them appear smaller, to avoid requirements, or to fit unrealistic costs into the STIP financial constraints. The multiple listings for the same project in the STIP make it hard to track and control the major project costs. It is not uncommon for the overall proj
35、ect costs to be lost in the myriad of STIP listings with the attendant loss of cost control. The sub-projects may or may not tie back to the major project estimate. When all the pieces of the major project listed in the STIP are added up, they may or may not equal the whole. A mismatch between the o
36、verall project cost estimates and the sum of the projects listed in the STIP leads to more credibility issues. Ultimately, the DOT must recognize that if STIP cost estimates and schedules are not realistic, the credibility will suffer. Some states have addressed this issue by significantly reducing
37、the size 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.AASHTO Project Oversight Task Force Report Page 4 Preamble of the STIP for any given year and by only putting projects in the STIP that have a hig
38、h likelihood of delivery. Utah took this approach more than five years ago with a high degree of success. 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.Introduction Page 5 Introduction With the growth
39、of the Federal-aid Highway program, State departments of transportation (DOTs) assumed progressively greater responsibilities for managing growing programs of projects through the delegation of authority from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). As a result of concerns raised in reviews of sev
40、eral high-profile “mega projects,” the U.S. Department of Transportations Office of the Inspector General (U.S. DOT OIG) recommends that FHWA increase oversight of the Federal-aid Highway projects. Congressional committees have adopted these OIG findings and during the past several years have increa
41、singly raised concerns about project cost control, project oversight, and the availability of qualified personnel to provide that oversight. Of particular concern are the so-called “mega projects.” The oversight environment is expected to change with the passage of reauthorization legislation. The B
42、ush Administrations Transportation Equity Act for the 21stCentury (TEA-21) reauthorization proposal, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible and Efficient Transportation Equity Act (SAFETEA), includes provisions to strengthen Federal oversight on projects with Federal funding greater than $100 million, as d
43、o the bills passed by the House (H.R. 3550, Transportation Equity ActA Legacy for Users, or TEA-LU) and the Senate (S. 1072, SAFETEA) in the spring of 2004. AASHTO followed the project oversight discussions closely prior to reauthorization and anticipated the need to assist its member states in impr
44、oving their own project oversight capabilities. As part of the consideration of issues in the reauthorization, AASHTO established a Task Force on Project Oversight in September 2001. The AASHTO Vice President serves as the Chair of the Task Force, which was originally led by Tom Stephens (Nevada) an
45、d currently is chaired by J. Bryan Nicol (Indiana). The task force objectives were to: Determine what AASHTO can do to assist the states in assuring sufficient project oversight. Gather information and provide input to the U.S. DOT, which will assist them in formulating policies and legislative prop
46、osals on oversight matters. Provide information on the efforts of the work underway or completed by AASHTO Committees and the U.S. DOT on project oversight. Prepare a report and recommendations for consideration in reauthorization, for future AASHTO policy directions and for use by the various state
47、s in their endeavors to provide good project oversight. In keeping with its objectives, the Project Oversight Task Force, which is comprised of representatives of State DOTs, FHWA, AASHTO, and U.S. DOT, reviewed and summarized 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Offi
48、cials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.AASHTO Project Oversight Task Force Report Page 6 Introduction what various AASHTO committees have already done to address cost control as well as issues of fraud and other areas of project oversight. The Task Force then develop
49、ed proposals to further enhance project oversight. This report summarizes the Task Forces work and includes non-binding recommendations pertaining to five key issues in project oversight: 1. Project cost control and cost estimating 2. Fraud 3. Quality control 4. Financial management 5. Human resources and technical resources 2004 by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials.All rights reserved. Duplication is a violation of applicable law.Chapter 1: Project Cost Control and Cost Estimating Page 7 Chapter 1 Proj
