Improving the Management of Environmental Engineering Projects through the Best Value Project Management Model for a State Agency

Abstract

The State Agency is the regulatory agency responsible for ensuring quality of air, land, and water resources. Historically the State Agency has experienced difficulty in managing environmental professional services. To potentially address the issues, the State Agency tested a new approach to managing their projects, the Best Value Project Management Model (BV PMM), which focuses on using logic and natural laws instead of technical information and experience to improve project performance. This paper presents a case study on the State Agency’s implementation of the BV PMM on their indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) Water Quality contract that ran 60 individual projects. The main functions of the water quality unit program is to identify, assess and remediate sites that are contaminated with hazardous substances. This paper presents the BV PMM, its development, and documents the case study results after one year of implementation. Results include an improved PM utilization rate (22% increase), increase in vendor work performed (102%) in 33% less time, and increase in customer satisfaction (22%).