Three actions to start projects on the right foot
Mobilising a civil construction project is typically a frenetic period. For the lead manager, that’s compounded by countless people vying for their time.
When that start-up time comes, most firms have a mobilisation checklist or readiness-to-proceed document. These can be excellent tools. They set out what needs to be done to satisfy client and/or company requirements, based on typically generic principles. There’s no value in making these documents larger or more cumbersome – but here are three project-specific actions we recommend accompany any generic project start-up procedure:
Draft your close-out report
Properly induct your team
Define tangible milestones
Draft your close-out report
The job has not even started and we’re suggesting you draft the close-out report! It seems crazy, but there’s a reason. All too often, project teams finish jobs and realise the data they’d like to have in their back pocket to explain success, inform estimators back at head office, or help on future projects, does not exist. The start of a job is the time to start recording all the data you need. Once things get busy, you’ve missed the boat – and missed critical early-days data. In nearly every case, individual data sets may be basic, but when combined with others, they create a powerful analysis tool. For example, knowing the volume of cut to fill is as interesting as knowing how much diesel was used…but what’s really useful when trying to benchmark the next project, is knowing the litres of diesel required per cubic metre of material moved. Similarly, knowing the number of fitter hours is interesting, but knowing the ratio between fitter hours and plant service metre units (SMUs) is invaluable.
Properly induct your team
When managers or engineers arrive on site, they’ve typically spent weeks or months preparing for the job. They’ll have read the drawings countless times and know what needs to be built and why. However, when plant operators and other site team members arrive, it’s likely they’ll have no idea what the project is even about. Most jobs have a site induction, but the amount of technical information tends to be low and often by non-technical team members – so the chance of getting the most critical information across is low. Significant value is generated by simply developing a quick presentation to let your delivery team know what the plan is. Get some typical cross sections up on a board, run through your mass haul, discuss technical risks, and so on. Your team will be better for it.
Define tangible milestones
Every project has milestones, but so often they are bland: complete stage one, open bridge X, etc. Turn this on its head and set some milestones that sit outside the formal program – milestones that your entire team can see and feel. Here are some examples we’ve used:
Roll a bowling ball through culvert Y
Drive a remote-control car from abutment 1 to abutment 2
Destroy the garden gnome with the first blast
What’s powerful with these is they are simple but linked to a milestone of real project worth. This approach also means that everyone in the wider team can get involved. Take our first example – if the milestone was purely completing that culvert, only the culvert team would really care. When you broaden it, now the environment, safety and design teams can celebrate the milestone too. They require a small, cheap token (eg a bowling ball, toy car, garden gnome) that we recommend you place in a prominent position in the project office to remind everyone on a daily basis what the upcoming goal is. Talk about them at every opportunity. It’s amazing the hype that can build up around these seemingly obscure milestones – and who wouldn’t get a smile out of seeing a garden gnome obliterated! The point is, they make progress accessible, front-of-mind and fun. They turn ‘their milestones’ into ‘our milestones’. When each gain in efficiency and quality can change profitability – it’s worth the effort.
If you’re part-way through a project, it’s not too late to consider these actions in at least partial form. If you’re about to start up a new project, we back the value of these when it comes to setting your project on the right foot from the outset.
Photo by Marc Mueller on Unsplash
