Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering Adds Two New Recommended Practices and Revises One

The AACE International Technical Board recently approved the following Recommended Practices (RPs) which, along with previously published RPs, are now available for complimentary download.

http://www.aacei.org/resources/rp/

(NEW) 70R-12, Principles of Schedule Contingency Management - As Applied in Engineering, Procurement, and Construction

RP 70R-12 describes schedule contingency implementation and schedule risk management techniques to consider when developing a capital construction project execution phase schedule. AACE International recommended practices are intended to provide guidelines, not to establish standards. This RP describes general principles for applying schedule contingency in engineering, procurement and construction project schedules.

Although this RP was written as a stand-alone document it can be used as a companion with the AACE recommended practices related to schedule planning and development, risk management, forecasting, and change management. Overlapping information has been eliminated from this document in deference to the more detailed guidelines in the other RP documents.

There are a wide range of opinions regarding whether or not to allow the use of schedule contingency. This RP reflects the general consensus concerning guidelines for the proper use of schedule contingency when schedule contingency is allowed to be used.

Because the application of schedule contingency is not an area of generally accepted practice, this RP is focused on describing the schedule contingency definition, attributes and principles that professionals can generally consider for application. This RP excludes discussion of schedule risk modeling processes and analysis as well as the integrated cost and schedule risk analysis. It also excludes the detailed procedure for managing contingency through change management and other project cost/schedule control methods. AACE recommended practices have been developed to provide detailed guidelines for those related processes.

This RP describes guidelines for implementing schedule contingency as part of the overall capital project risk management process when schedule contingency is desired. These principles may be applied to any phase of a project, but become more relevant at the time of planning for project control during the execution phase. After analysis of schedule risks on the established schedule model, the project team should plan the methods to establish time contingency in the project schedule logic, and describe these procedures in the project execution and control plans.

 

(NEW) 35R-09, Development of Cost Estimate Plans - As Applied for the Building and General Construction Industries

RP 35R-139 is a guideline for the development of cost estimate plans for the building and general construction industry. With reference to the Total Cost Management (TCM) Framework, this document addresses the need to develop effective estimate plans.

This RP is intended to provide a guideline (i.e., not a standard) for establishing and communicating how to prepare, review and approve an estimate plan.

 

The basic principles of cost estimate plans can be applied to various contracting strategies, project execution approaches and asset owner configurations in the building and general construction industries. Some key principles are:

• Preparation of an estimate plan helps to ensure successful estimate completion in an effective and timely manner.
• Engaging key stakeholders in estimate planning prior to starting the estimate improves the likelihood of meeting estimate objectives.
• The estimate plan defines what information is required from who and when.
• An approved estimate plan provides a duly authorized basis to proceed with the estimating effort, clarifying requirements and responsibilities.

(REVISED) 10S-90, Cost Engineering Terminology

About 70 new and revised terms have been introduced to this revision of RP 10S-90.  These are mainly in the areas of: risk; planning and scheduling; and earned value management.

Blueprint Webinars: All About Agile

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November 21, 2013, 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm EST

Virtually every enterprise today is somewhere on the journey of transitioning to agile development approaches. And most are struggling as they try to reconcile traditional business functions with agile development teams. It becomes even more challenging when you consider how to handle the realities of compliance and audit, business cases and funding, release management, program and portfolio management, just to name a few. How you deal with requirements impacts virtually every one of these areas and is central to how agile projects can be done successfully in the enterprise. Join us as we present an approach for requirements definition and management on enterprise agile projects. In this session we describe this approach in detail and show a real-world example of it being applied.
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Success with Agile Requirements: Challenges & Opportunities for Scaling Agile

November 21, 2013 2 PM EST
What are the agile requirements implications for products delivered “at scale”? What are key considerations for scaling requirements discovery when multiple business, customer, and technology stakeholders—often distributed in time and space—need to collaborate around requirements? Creating a shared understanding among such disparate groups and then pruning the backlog of potential product requirements that they discover is daunting—but doable.

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