Justin Jacobsen

Justin Jacobsen

Paper and Presentation: Why Good Execution is Not Enough

Abstract: This presentation will address the following questions:

  1. Why is diligent task management not enough to deliver projects on time and within budget?
  2. What are the forces acting on our processes that create disruption and deviation from the plan?
  3. What can we do to identify, mitigate, and adjust for these effects within our project delivery efforts?

We will provide alternative models for improving project delivery performance. Participants will leave with a better understanding of the importance of a systems approach to project delivery, a quantitative approach to building reliable workflow, and tools to consider for mitigating impacts to the plan.

Project managers are required to wear many hats – technical, tactical, and strategic. Staffing with technical expertise and applying industry accepted project management tools and techniques along with technical expertise is the central theme of most organizations’ approach to project delivery. The key planning tool of these project managers is the decomposition and delegation of complex tasks into component activities and tasks that can be managed within the execution process. The coordinated and efficient execution of these tasks and subtasks becomes the force that drives the organization toward project completion. Yet, in spite of experienced personnel applying conscientious task management at the project level most organizations continue to see negative impacts, disruptions, and delays.

PMI Talent Triangle: Technical Project Management


Biography: Mr. Jacobsen has more than twenty years of operational supervision experience with twelve years of program management responsibility delivering successively larger projects as part of diverse, multi-functional project teams. His experience covers a broad range of capital project types from upstream oil and gas programs, to international real estate development, to domestic mixed-use public-private projects, among others. Mr. Jacobsen serves as MBP’s Director of Innovation Development and is currently engaged company-wide working in the virtual environment from a home base in Raleigh, North Carolina. He leads MBP’s innovation program which focuses on identifying, researching, testing, and implementing new technology and innovative process solutions used to deliver customized construction management and owner’s representative services. His interaction with a broad range of clients, MBP service leaders, construction teams, and the continual surveying of the technology market enables new capabilities to be validated and implemented as they become available in the market. Mr. Jacobsen has championed our implementation of Lean Construction, Target Value Delivery, continuous estimating, pull planning and other tools and techniques uses across our service lines.