‘How Come we Didn’t Quite End up with the Building we Wanted?’
The question posed by the title is a doubtless one that many construction companies have been asked. The answer depends upon which perspective you are asking it from – as the provider or the receiver? The related question is whether detailed technical specifications and designs are enough to guarantee a successful project? There’s no question that detail helps, but it also depends on the quality of the ‘detail’ and whether it takes all the personal and process factors onto account, as well as the practical.
Building projects are typically broken down into five phases:
- Conception and initiation
- Definition & planning
- Launch & execution
- Performance and control
- Close
The degree of clarity at each stage determines whether or not the customer ends up with the outcomes they wanted. At each stage there are many opportunities for information to be missed or misinterpreted – particularly information that relates to the customer’s broader business objectives.
A Framework for Success
It’s not unheard of for a contractor to build to a design that lost sight of some significant customer objectives. Nor for project managers and onsite technical specialists to have an incomplete picture of the customer’s business needs as they strive to resolve day-to-day issues. A clear reference framework and KPIs are needed to guide decisions.
Because of the way procurement processes tend to work, the contractor has limited, or possibly no involvement during planning and architectural programming. They become reliant on the information documented by the designers and the effectiveness of communication systems that pass that information on (or not!).
User Needs
A technical specification may also fail to fully consider the needs of those who will eventually use the building and for what purpose. It may not give enough importance to the people who will need to maintain and repair the building in future. These are surely important criteria in judging success.
Where details are unclear it’s too easy move on and leave them to be worked out during project execution. Where’s the guarantee that they will be resolved in a way that the customer would want?
When eventually it comes to project close and review, any lack of clarity in the preceding phases becomes clear. But by then it’s probably too late to do anything about it other than, hopefully, learn lessons for the future. This is the scenario we always seek to avoid by ensuring we have the required clarity over our customer’s goals and priorities at every stage of the project.
Find out more about our building projects here.
