Sebastián Novillo, Fortin de Piedra Project Manager, and Alejandro Sconfienza, Development Manager for the Neuquen Basin, spoke at the International Project Management Congress organized by the Project Management Institute (PMI), a virtual event held online for 500 professionals on November 2, 4 and 6.

This year, the congress was part of the celebrations held to mark the anniversary of PMI’s 25 years in Argentina, organized by the country’s three chapters: Buenos Aires, Cordoba and Nuevo Cuyo. As in previous editions, the event was aimed at the community of Project Management Professionals, and featured contributions from leading local and international experts who shared success stories and discussed the latest trends and innovations.

Under this year’s theme, "Enhancing the delivery of value in complexity", the Congress was an opportunity for leading industrial referents such as Sebastián Novillo and Alejandro Sconfienza from Techint E&C to share their experiences of “Construction challenges in complex contexts”. They described some of the factors defining the context for the execution of a project, generally associated with geographic and social conditions, which are often insufficiently analyzed—but can be decisive during construction.

Along these lines, Sebastián highlighted: “The context where a project is developed must be analyzed early on in the process and continuously monitored as work progresses. There are multiple factors that usually don’t represent any additional complexity for execution, but may, under certain circumstances, be critical for the success of the work. Aspects such as access routes to the work site, whether it’s the rainy season, local personnel qualifications or the social requirements of the neighboring communities can become decisive when executing works.”

Alejandro emphasized that any factors with the potential to make project execution complex must be handled using Risk Management processes: “You need to identify, analyze and plan the response in order to mitigate the risks, and when there’s a trigger factor, you need to be ready to implement the planned responses and monitor their effectiveness. This process must be repeated and updated continuously throughout a project’s lifecycle.”

Both experts drew on their extensive experience to discuss certain features of Oil & Gas construction projects in remote locations, describing the main challenges they had to overcome to develop the works and achieve the objectives on time. They talked about the Kamana project in Ecuador, where work was carried out to modify and expand pads, flowlines, and stations, and KP 127, in Peru, the site of a gas compression plant. They also mentioned the Auca project in Ecuador, where the company carried out the modification and construction of pads and access roads, laying power lines and flowlines, and expanding and building stations. During their presentation, the executives used these examples to explain how to add value to projects located in complex and challenging contexts.

This is the fourth consecutive year that Techint E&C has contributed to the PMI event as part of its strategic alliance with the management institution. The company currently has over eighty professionals certified as Project Management Professionals, and is one of the organizations in the region with the most PMPs.

Other industry leaders speaking at the event were Adrián Lasso (Vice President and Head of Innovation and New Business at Baufest), Andrea Churba (director of the consultancy Business Therapy), Martín Parlato (Posibl CEO), Spencer Horn (Certified Team Performance Trainer (CTPC) and facilitator through Team Coaching International), Sanjay Kumar (HR Director at Western Coalfields Ltd, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd.), and María Eugenia Rodríguez (organizer and creator of the annual ForoPMO Today event), among other key figures.