October Overview – Julie Bell-Barker
In this month of October, whilst watching the escalation of conflict in the Middle East, my thoughts immediately turned to the potential risk and impacts on the projects currently being delivered at home in the Midlands. We should never underestimate how quickly international events can impact construction projects locally. Supply chain delivery delays or fuel increase could have a detrimental effect on project programmes and costs.
However, delivering construction projects have always been fraught with risk which is why its so important to ensure your project has a resilient robust project plan. During my years in construction (both private and public sector) I have witnessed projects being delivered efficiently and projects being delivered poorly.
At CEM we believe the key to success or failure of any construction project is the project’s people. The project team can be one of the biggest risks, with human dynamics, team culture and collaboration playing a key central part to success. Adding to the project resilience is the team’s competencies, experience and resource levels.
How often have you seen resource levels squeezed due to cost challenges, both client side, consultancy side and contractors side? Never underestimate the level of resource and the level of experience required in a construction project and the impact of getting this wrong.
This month, I thought I would share some of my key fundamentals for delivering a construction projects, whilst they may seem obvious project requirements, its good to reiterate the importance;
1. If you are undertaking a retrofit refurbishment project, ensure the full condition of the building is known before establishing budget cost and scope, ensure adequate time and budget is allocated to ensure all intrusive and non-intrusive surveys are completed.
2. Ensure the pre-construction consultants have the correct competencies and experience for building type, age and operational usage (e.g. Listed Building, Leisure Centres, Schools, Concert Halls, etc). Its also important to ensure the pre tender information is robust, consistent, comprehensive and articulate. Traditional full design contract verses contractor Design & Build requires different design team competencies.
3. Important to have an ‘Intelligent Client’ with the right resource competences and resource capacity, its easy to underestimate the level of sustained collaboration and commitment required from a client when delivering construction projects.
4. Ensure a fully completed design before starting construction. Its an obvious statement but how often is something missed pre-tender or simply left to resolve once on site? Remember, its difficult to make up lost time once in construction phase.
5. Ensure all the project Risks are fully costed, ensure there are timelines for the Risks together with a detailed mitigation plan.
6. Ensure a robust clear project Governance Structure is in place, with a decision-making process and sign off structure, evidence and monitored.
7. Manage expectations and collaborate with non-construction stakeholders, both internal client structure and externally stakeholders.
Whilst all the above can never guarantee a success project, it will ensure a level of project risk resilience that would enable a stronger team to help better weather any project storms.
