Chapter 1 - Introduction

1.1 Purpose and Scope of the Guidelines

The Project and Construction Management Guidelines document (hereafter referred to as the Guidelines) has been developed under Federal Transit Administration (FTA) sponsorship to assist those involved in advancing transit capital projects to achieve implementation success in terms of the project scope, function, schedule, cost, and quality.

The Guidelines were originally published in September 1990 and subsequently updated in June 1996. They summarize FTA requirements, best practices, and research results in the management of transit capital project development. The Guidelines are designed for use by FTA "grantees" (also used to mean "owner" or "transit agency") and their consultants as well as the FTA staff and Project Management Oversight (PMO) contractors. FTA maintains oversight for the grants that it awards, but assigns the grant administration and management responsibility to the grantees. FTA assigns the responsibility for oversight of nearly all capital grants to the appropriate FTA Regional Office.

Dedicated use of the Guidelines should contribute to effective project management on the part of the grantee, and effective oversight and guidance by FTA and the PMO contractor. Each project phase should: 1) start with inputs or a baseline, 2) have a process that refines the project definition and generates outputs that, 3) become the inputs or baseline for the subsequent phase. By defining the requirements for each phase and sound approaches to their accomplishment, the Guidelines allow grantees to define project requirements, allocate resources, perform project activities, monitor progress, and make adjustments, as required, to obtain the proper information and assure decisions are made at the appropriate time. Adherence to the Guidelines should minimize scope changes, schedule slippages, cost overruns, and quality problems, and contribute to fully meeting all the performance objectives of the transit capital project.

Because a sound management and control plan should be implemented early in the life of a project, the Guidelines encompass the planning phase, in addition to the design and construction phases, where the greatest level of effort is expended.

For completeness, the operational or revenue service phase is also presented to encourage a comprehensive, life cycle management approach. This approach systematically assesses the relationship between the constructed transit capital project and operational realities to determine future system needs, both modernization and expansion.

The Guidelines address the full range of issues and present management principles applicable to all FTA-funded capital projects. These include projects that could encompass a variety of modes (e.g., rail, bus, other fixed guideway); improvement types (e.g., equipment, facility); system evolutions (e.g., newly developed, expanded, modernized); and grantee sizes, capabilities, and maturities (e.g., newly constituted or established with experienced staff).

1.2 Reasons for the Guidelines Update

This update was undertaken to incorporate the changes in regulations and policies, and the experience gained over the intervening period from a variety of sources including the following:

• PMO Lessons Learned Program.
• Transit Construction Roundtable recommendations.
• Other FTA and industry sponsored research, guidance, and best practices.
• FTA Turnkey Demonstration Program and the results of other non-traditional project development approaches.
• Update of the FTA Quality Control Guidelines.
• Applicable research and training initiatives of FTA, including National Transit Institute (NTI) courses on Management of Transit Construction Projects and Design-Build Project Development.
• FTA safety and security policies and guidelines to reflect the new attention devoted to these topics, especially in the post-9/11 environment, including Guidelines for State Safety Oversight, Safety and Security Management Plans, Hazard Analysis Guidelines, and Handbook for Transit Safety and Security Certification.
• Guidance for Transit Financial Plans.
• Financing Techniques for Public Transit.
• Guidance for Bus and Rail Fleet Management Plans.
• Guidance for Land Acquisition and Relocation Assistance for Transit Projects.
• Other new FTA regulations, circulars, rules, and guidelines related to topics addressed in the Guidelines.
• Transit and other industry approaches to contemporary project and construction management topics, such as the Project Management Institute's Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, 2000 Edition.

The update process also provided an opportunity to review the structure and format of the Guidelines to improve its effectiveness. The resulting changes are summarized in the following section.

1.3 Format and Content Summary

From a thorough review of the previous Guidelines, the NTI Management of Transit Construction Projects course, and suggestions made by the Industry Workgroup that FTA assembled to provide advice and review of deliverables, an outline was developed that includes the following changes from the previous version:

• Discussion has been expanded on the Planning Phase in Chapter 2, the Transit Capital Project Development Process, to include management topics primarily addressed during that phase.
• Chapter 3, General Project Management Principles, has been modified to address only those topics that apply to several project phases, which is more consistent with the breakdowns suggested by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Construction Committee and the structure of the NTI Course.
• There are only three detailed, phase-oriented chapters: Design (Chapter 4), Construction (Chapter 5), and Testing & Start-Up (Chapter 6). The Preliminary Engineering (PE) and Final Design Phases have been combined to avoid redundancy, but transitional requirements between the phases are discussed within Chapter 2. The separate Revenue Service Phase Chapter has been eliminated; however, there is expanded discussion of Revenue Service within Chapter 2.
• Lessons learned/best practices and FTA guidelines and requirements document references have been incorporated (note the inclusion of text boxes), and hyperlinks to the source documents have been created. The hyperlinks can be utilized in electronic versions of the Guidelines, but simply appear as underlined text in printed versions.
• An attempt has been made to address the needs of smaller projects that are not considered Major Capital Projects (MCPs). This is done primarily in Chapters 2 and 3.

The following conventions are used in the Guidelines:

References legal or regulatory citations

References additional sources of information

References regulatory requirements for the Project Management Plan (PMP). The actual PMP requirements are highlighted in the text.

The remaining chapters of the Guidelines are presented as follows:

Chapter 2 addresses transit capital project development with emphasis on FTA's funding process and grant requirements. For each development phase, the major work program elements that influence effective project management are reviewed, noting significant milestones and decision points, and their inputs and outputs. The development phases addressed include the following:

• Planning
• Preliminary Engineering
• Final Design
• Construction
• Testing and Start-Up
• Revenue Service

This chapter expands on the concept that the existing FTA requirements should be recognized as the basis for effective project management. For example, FTA requirements during the planning and analysis phases and prior to capital grant funding commitment, are designed to provide assurances that issues of project scope, cost estimation, environmental impacts, and local funding commitments have been properly resolved. These requirements are intended to create a realistic project baseline for successfully managing the project, should it advance to subsequent phases.

Incentives are another tool FTA uses to encourage effective grantee project management. For an MCP, the Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) concept makes the grantee financially responsible for cost overruns. Thus, grantees have the incentive to establish a realistic project baseline and to maintain strong project management control.

A grantee should apply the management principles and guidance embodied in this document to their unique project environment through the development of a PMP. Specific regulatory requirements for the PMP are covered in Chapter 2. A PMP, which is required by statute for MCPs, provides a blueprint for the grantee's approach to managing in their unique project environment.

Chapter 3 outlines the general principles for managing the transit capital project development process applicable throughout all of the phases of project development. In addition to the traditional project management requirements for managing scope, budget including financing, schedule, and quality, good project management requires the application of some specialty management practices, such as procurement management, risk management, and communications management. Because transit capital projects are publicly funded and often have significant urban development impacts, these projects have many more legal and regulatory requirements than a privately developed project.

The general principles for managing transit capital projects are grouped into the following functional categories:

• Grantee and Project Organization
• Financial Requirements/Resources
• Scheduling
• Controlling the Project
• Procurement, Contracts, and Related Topics
• Quality Assurance/Quality Control
• Communications

The project management principles are purposely presented in a general manner in Chapter 3. The implementing agencies will have the responsibility to apply the general principles along with the specific guidance provided for the specific project phases. FTA and its PMO and Financial Management Oversight (FMO) contractors monitor the project management process of grantees to assure compliance with FTA Requirements and that the management objectives (budget, schedule, and quality) are being achieved. Thus, these Guidelines are intended to be firm in their definition of management principles and objectives, flexible in their application of standard and alternative approaches and techniques, and dynamic in their ability to consider new approaches and techniques in the future.

Chapter 4 recommends specific management approaches for transit capital projects during the Design Phase.

Chapter 5 recommends specific management approaches for transit capital projects during the Construction Phase.

Chapter 6 recommends specific management approaches for transit capital projects during the Testing and Start-Up Phase.

Appendices to enhance the effectiveness of the Guidelines include:

• Index of selected key words and phrases
• References numbered to correspond to the [Ref.__] notations in the text
• Examples of model project management approaches.