Where does it all go wrong – what NOT to do

Introduction

I want to pass on my observations based on a lifetime of Construction, all around the World. Off and on, I have spent the best part of thirty years in the Middle East, covering UAE, Qatar and KSA. I addition I have spent five years each in Canada/USA and Singapore. In between I took “time-out” to be a Project Director and Task Team Leader for the structural steel, roof and envelope packages on T5, at Heathrow.

You don’t do all of that without learning what best practice really is.

Genesis

In the beginning, a Client wants to build something. That Client may put out that he wants an architectural competition which will result a selection – for whatever motivational reason.

Then will be a gathering of the great and the good – a professional team.

At some point the Client will ask how much is this gonna cost and when can I get the keys.

This is where the misinformation starts, because everyone at that table have their own agendas which, for the most part, are NOT aligned with the Clients brief and  these days anyway, this professional team has no clue about delivering a building – only their little bit of it.

Probably, the appointed Main Contractor will not know the parameters of what the Client has been told, or on what basis the costs have been established.

Of course, the Main Contractor knows very well he’s probably being misled, so immediately sets out to mitigate his risk by making his delivery partners liable for any shortcomings.

Fortunately, he’s not on his own – the Professional team is also mitigating their risks by writing a Specification

Contracts and Specification

Both are something of a minefield – beware.

In Singapore I was given a Specification prepared by an Internationally reputable Consultant. In it, they referenced one hundred and forty International Standards. I was told it was my duty to select the most onerous and apply them to my bid.

That would, in essence, require me to buy, read and understand all these, often conflicting, International codes.

On top of that, they state that they cannot be held liable for the choices I make even if I’ve told them which I chose in my offer letter to the MainCon.

So, I do what everyone else does – a thumb-suck and add something to my own contingencies.

So, the Client has, probably unwittingly, paid the professional team to deliver a copy/paste specification and I have “winged” my price.

Contracts can be scores of pages long and the only thing that can be said about them is that they are wholly committed to seek reasons not to pay, at least not in full.

This leaves us with a client who has said what he wants, a professional team which, at best, has not actually pinned down a priceable Specification and a Main Contractor who is going to make sure he doesn’t suffer for the established non-compliances.

Engineering

There are lot of clever engineers but they can only work based on the briefs they are given.

Example:

Two forty storey Hotel towers, the end users of which have agreed to the cost of a link bridge at level thirty, for a combined-use gymnasium and wellness centre.

When asked if they had allowed for movements and tolerances associated with structural and thermal movement, they said yes. When asked if they had allowed for the weight of the water in the huge swimming pool – blank looks. They hadn’t  !

Engineers are noted for being over cautious. If the design safety factor is 1.5, they will adopt  2,  “just to be on the safe side”. Again the Client is going to have to pay, one way or the other; or the MC claws it back through applied and often obscure penalties.

Lesson, stop signing things you have neither read nor understood

Programming – a dark art.

In America, they describe programming as smoke and mirrors.

I recall when CPA was introduced back in the seventies. The only person who knew how it worked was the originator who, usually had no clue about how a project, is delivered.

Fifty years on and we have programmes like P6 – the originator being one of very few people who know what it is about.

I KNOW this to be the case –

I have seen it too many times. I am not being dismissive for the sake of it.

This is a good time to clarify my position because I am not all doom and gloom

None of this nonsense happens in America – there, the overriding focus is to get it done, get paid and get out. OK, it’s a bit rough and tumble but the outcomes are generally positive.

The best example in UK, for me, was T5 at Heathrow. The Client, BAA, created a project bank and bought all the currencies it needed – no exchange rate fluctuations stymying payment.

My part of the job finished early and the Company got a big bonus for doing so.

Why – because the professional team were professionals, proper realistic planning was in place. The Client did his homework before appointing delivery partners – not the so called professional team or the MC.

T5 was a major project and a proper budget was put in  place – I have read books about where mega-projects go wrong as so many of them do.

Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the UK spending on its military requirements.

I can go back to the TSR2 failures, aircraft carriers that don’t work.

Governmental screw-ups on the Chanel Tunnel,  CrossRail and HS2 – it’s the same story wherein some or all of the above missteps were in play.

Summary

It’s a pleasure to deliver great projects with great teams, but  as long as we delegate management selection to people who can only ask AI and  have no clue other than to earn fees, we continue on a downward slope.