Pruebas in Vitro

3.1.1 PROGRAMME AND KEY POINTS

Figure 3.1 depicts a strategic management programme through which every BS contract must travel. This is followed by a schedule of key points in Table 3.1. These documents should be the site manager’s home base—a constant source of reference at which he can remind himself at any point on his contract as to where his services subcontractors are and what their next objective should be.

3.1.2 DECLARING A MANAGEMENT STRATEGY

The practices recommended in each chapter of this second part can be applied immediately. However, overall project benefit can be achieved

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3.1 Strategic management

Figure 3.1 Strategic management programme.

64 Management strategy

Table 3.1 The management of building services contractors: schedule of key points

Note: Do not expect a services contractor to willingly deliver the methods, management and control documentation covered above. It is almost certain the site manager will have to ‘extract’ performance from the building services contractor.

through the declaration of a management strategy for the BS contract.

The employment of such a strategy could be in the form of a simple procedural statement. Naturally, decisions will need to be made as to when to declare the policy to the BS contractor.

The management strategy framework, for that is all it needs to be, can be formulated from the building blocks of Chapters 4 to 11. The blocks are of different shapes, sizes and materials, and for success they must be stabilized into a coherent policy. See Appendix G ‘Declaration of management strategy requirements’ for an example of a BS contract.

3.1.3 THE TIME TO DECLARE

There is an important choice to be made here. The builder will not wish, or need, to give an impression that compliance with his BS management strategy is onerous, to such an extent that tenderers increase their prices. The statement of management strategy to be complied with, if included in tender enquiry documents, should not be prefaced with words like, ‘conditions’ or ‘special clauses for building services contractors’.

Those builders entering into joint ventures, partnering, or preferred contractor arrangements must look for a meeting of minds on their proposed management strategy which can be mutually adjusted to suit any particular project. Others may see the use of management strategy statements as only differing in detail from the range of subjects they normally discuss with a contractor at a pre-award meeting. If the requirements for complying with a BS management strategy are to be raised for the first time at a pre-award meeting it is most important that the details are sent to the BS contractor well before the meeting.

Nobody likes to receive this sort of surprise, which although non-contractual, may at first sight create the wrong impression.

There is a great deal to discuss between the builder and the BS contractor at pre-award and it would be a good idea to have two separate meetings. The first meeting would cover the normal subject matter raised by the builder, common to any contractor, followed by a session on the BS management strategy requirements.

At the meeting to discuss the strategy the builder must set the tone and state that his objective is to receive confirming evidence from the BS contractor that construction, commissioning and the requirements for handover are proceeding as planned and meeting the specified standards. The documented assurance of progress should enable the builder and BS contractor to be mutually supportive when difficulties arise—as they will—for BS never fails to surprise in the rigidity with which it adheres to Donald A.Norman’s version of Hofstadter’s Law [1]:

Strategic management 65

66 Management strategy

• It always takes longer.

• It always costs more.

• It will always be harder.

• There will always be more.

• There will always be less than you expect.

• Even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

By the way, Hofstadter’s Law says:

• It will always take longer.

• Even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Up until the arrival of the BS subcontractor, work has been carried out in construction stages: groundworks, foundations, frame, envelope, floors, cladding and possibly some brick and block work. This is work the site manager is most comfortable with. The organic growth to the specified geography is readily visible, starting with one or two subcontractors and manageable quantities of drawings and information. This work will almost certainly have included drainage under the building and some enabling works associated with services entries. Enabling works have allowed the pattern of construction stages to flow. Now, with the arrival of the BS contractor or contractors in combined or separate elements, mechanical, electrical and public health starts on site. The information, drawings, specifications, bills and schedules being referred to seem to quadruple and the pattern of work is not always obvious to the uninformed. It is this shift in workload that the site manager must recognize and be geared up to manage. What follows in fleshing out the strategic management programme and summary will cover probably 80% of project types and related services complexities and provide a working platform for the remaining 20% of even more complex and densely serviced projects.

The site manager’s leadership and interpersonal skills can make the difference, even under the most difficult contract conditions, between a project in conflict or harmony. There will be problems for the site manager creating opportunities to use those skills and ensuring that all relevant parties involved understand their responsibilities for contributing to its resolution. In achieving problem resolution there will be some friction. It is the site manager who must ensure that the rotating speed of problems does not abrade them, beyond the hoped for highly polished finish, into senselessly burnt out relationships and on to the handover of a thinly disguised damage limited project.

Success in implementing the strategic management programme will depend on the quality of the site manager’s leadership. Management is POCC—planning, organization, coordination and control. This 3.2 Relationships

definition will stand testing on any building project. Consider that a project must have a strategy and there must be a plan to meet the strategic needs. There must be organization to implement the plan. That organization is contracted to the builder, project and construction manager and they further subcontract the work to other organizations.

All of these parties require to be coordinated, brought into proper relationship to combine and create a completed project. The activities of procurement and construction resourcing of plant, equipment, materials and labour must be controlled, as must the preparation, commissioning, testing, documentation, training and handover of BS systems. The site manager must be strong, and proactive on the basis of knowledge. How much knowledge? Sufficient to bring negotiating skills into play in the grey areas and firm up in the fuzzy edges of responsibility. Through the exercise of such skills problems can be resolved. The best site managers will recognize that the need for fair treatment of subcontractors can do much for project harmony and lighten the reins of essential control. The route for this harmony model must be through:

• the selection of suitable subcontractor(s);

• the provision of the attendances contracted for;

• working to agreed programmes;

• teams with appropriate organizational, technical and personal skills and the flexibility to create harmonious interfaces.

This model will not work without equable partnership in the objectives which must be reflected by the services contractor. Where this is not being provided as of right it is the site manager’s duty to demonstrate inadequacies to the provider so that getting the correct performance does not degenerate into an acrimonious extractive process.

If there is one area above all others in which the site manager can do most to demonstrate his encouragement of the subcontractor it is to pay him fairly and promptly.

Having selected the right subcontractors to bid, evaluated their offers, removed any technical and commercial anomalies and included them in the winning tender the contractor is now in a position to award a services subcontract. The site manager who has been involved up to this point will be far more comfortable at the pre-award meeting than the site manager who is told ‘This is who you are getting’. Even then all is not lost. But some situation retrieval may be necessary for it is at the pre-award meeting that the die of future relationships is cast.

The purpose of the pre-award meeting depends on where you sit round the table and the industry’s economic health, which may be anywhere between boom and bust. Wherever the industry is on the arc