Insights

Who is the host in a project meeting? Is it the organisation providing their office as a location? “Thank you for hosting us’, you might say, referring to the use of space and the tea and biscuits. But in another sense, the meeting happens in the Project Manager’s space, that is, within the community which s/he leads.

Leadership is a big subject, strewn with military metaphors. The leader may operate on the basis of power, wielded through instilling fear in the team members, because they are kept under scrutiny, and may be found wanting because their performance does not measure up. Some very successful Project Managers work like this, with greater or lesser subtlety; they operate an inquisition, checking relentlessly, expertly using tools to reveal who and what is at fault. This type of project management is a clear descendent of the military predecessor, because a hierarchy of power is in place and with it goes the ability to condemn. I put this in extreme terms to make a point.

At the other end of a continuum is the servant leader, whose self-defined role is to help all the team members to succeed. It is this model that I want to engage with here, and take a look at the servant leader as host – the person who creates an environment in which all are encouraged and assisted to give of their best.

You may think that this is impossibly idealistic. Well, yes it does depict an ideal, and I am not suggesting that it is possible to create a project environment which is all carrots and no sticks. But what we can do is to create a culture in which it is OK to ask for and to offer help. Within this, the tendency to suppress problems and pretend to be perfect will be diminished, and the tricky problems of managing the interfaces between areas of responsibility will become easier to deal with in a timely way.

Project Managers can be compared to conductors of orchestras, and even to ring-masters in a circus. A big part of their job is to ensure that things happen in a correct, co-ordinated and timely way. They telegraph orders, and the good team members obey them. But behind this is the school in which relationships are fostered and interactions practiced, and in which the various team members keep an eye on each other. This is not just altruism; if one falls, it may bring down another and spoil the whole act.

The Project Manager, like a team coach, ensures that the interplay is self-enhancing. S/he creates a space and governs it in a way that encourages a mutual, self-generating  prosperity. Within this space, the host is the catalyst for development.

Where is the brief in your current project? Has it done its work of informing the design, and therefore has it now been put to bed in the project archive?

In our courses, we spend quite a bit of time developing both the idea of the brief, and its use. We are strongly against retiring the brief from active use unto the project is complete. This is a bigger subject than can be covered here, so suffice it to say that the good PM puts the brief front and centre of the whole project process.

Of course, this only works if the brief is up to the job. A half-baked or obsolete brief becomes an enemy to project success. Therefore, as PMs, we have to do a significant piece of work in ensuring that the brief is good enough to be, and to continue to be, a reliable basis for defining the project.

OK. That is the intention and the mission. But how to start? Some clients are good at writing their own brief, but far from all. Some are cagey about stating the budget, because they fear that the statement alone may turn into a licence to spend all their money. Some may lack the imagination to paint a picture of the future state that their project exists to bring about. Therefore, it is our job to assist them in producing a document which is adequate to describe their aspirations and the constraints of budget, process and site.

Of course, there are few easy answers. At the start of a project, who is there around to say what a sketch proposal might cost? Who is there to say how it might be built? I am talking about the earliest stages here, when few appointments have been made. I know, in building types which are close to standard, you can look up historical examples and make allowances for any differences. But it is much less easy to do this on highly original schemes, or sites which are constrained by tight planning or the demands of listed buildings or conservation areas. Currently, we have the problems of labour and skill shortages and a rate of price inflation of building materials which can be astonishing.

The work of the architect in expressing requirements and style in a sketch does a great deal to move this situation along, because it gives everyone something to disagree with. However, a design can become a tyrant. Architects are trained to defend their work, and may do so for reasons of their own (‘design quality’, and the love of what they have created), rather than to further the client’s best interests. In such circumstances, it is for the PM to call the team back to a solid reference point – the brief.

“Just get on with it” is the spoken or silent wish of many clients. That is one thing if you are the first consultant appointed, and another if others have already made a start, for instance by producing a conceptual design. If that is the case, then what is the starting point to be observed? Is it the stage already reached, or is some unravelling required in order to begin at the beginning, with a clear understanding of the client’s wishes, needs, and business case?

There is lots of scope here for seeming too precious, too much governed by theory and not pragmatic enough. But on the other hand, if the unfolding design process has sprung from a poor, or insubstantial piece of analysis, then it is likely to get itself into trouble sooner or later. Therefore, at the very least, some checking is needed. I would call it a ‘review’.

If going back to check is greeted with groans of frustration, then it is time to lay out the structure of the project up to Practical Completion, framed by reviews at every work stage. The logic of this in maintaining a logical direction and efficient progress without the need for re-work will be easily explained. The benefits to compliance with the budget will resonate with any businesslike client.

Put so simply, it is hard to image why this clear, logical and simple approach should be resisted. If it is, it’s likely that a ‘Shaper’ is at work. This term, invented by Meredith Belbin, refers to the behavioural attributes that go with driving a project or a design forward with courage and single-mindedness. Obstacles are overcome, pressure is dealt with and focus maintained. All of this is useful, but only so long as the focus involved is genuinely that of the client’s project, and not just a personal agenda or fixation. One such that figures quite frequently is designers defending their design. This attribute, which is encouraged by the studio system used in architectural schools, is good so far as the defence of quality is concerned, but dangerous when allowed to challenge either the design brief or the project brief that lies behind it.

Therefore, the task that we, as Project Managers, have to take on and manage successfully, keeping all our team on board with us, is to generate and then maintain a focus on ‘the greater good’: the client’s needs, as set out in the Project Brief and all daughter documents. Descended from that are all the aspects of the design, the procurement process and the delivery of the project. Square One is the foundation of everything.

“Short views we take, nor see the lengths behind”, wrote the poet Alexander Pope, referring to the limitations of our minds. That is our subject here, the limits of the mind not educated in the difficult subject of construction management. This may sound arrogant, but it speaks of real situations in which a little learning can become a dangerous thing.

As Project Managers, our job is to bring expertise in projects to the party. What should we do when others, particularly clients, believe they already know the answers? It’s a difficult situation, and some would say, avoid such a client. However, opinionated clients may have their own credentials in senior management in other fields, in which case the point at issue is the unique nature of construction, and factors like the diversified pattern of expertise, the sometimes elusive location of the best expertise in a design situation, and the occasionally unknowable nature of what lies within the construction of existing buildings and below the ground.

However, prophesying woe does not make you popular. We exist to help the client along, and to bring the project to a successful conclusion, and this quite obviously demands an overwhelmingly positive tone. Attempts at positivity which too often include the words “yes, but” tend to erode confidence. Therefore, we need to frame our dynamic that goes from analysis to conclusion, from search to find, in such a way that our client and our team are led by the hand and, having been rationally sceptical, are able to form a consensus around a project path that has passed scrutiny.

Scepticism therefore is a tool that we can adopt and use, and one that instinctively appeals to managerial, ‘left-brain’ people who tend to seek certainty and find it difficult to cope with fluid situations. The good PM, therefore, is one who is completely on-side with the client’s ambitions, but simultaneously sifts possibilities and will only accept ones that, judged on a broad front, can be seen to work.

You may read this, and ask “how does this differ from the ‘yes, but’ situation? The answer is that the full panoply of possibilities is included as part of a positively-minded  search for a superior, or even ‘the best’ solution. The emphasis shifts from negatively critical - as betrayed by the word ‘but’ – to positive.

If your feeling is that there is not much difference, then let me say, the difference is not just one of emphasis, but also one of finding real solutions rather than of objection to proposed solutions. That is a huge thing; taking the client’s vision and making it work, rather than shooting it down, exactly what we are is employed for. Doing so in way that works with the client’s simultaneous enthusiasm and scepticism is the key.

How are we to decide on the shape of our design team? The truth is, all too often, that team configuration comes largely from habit, from doing what we are used to.

Here, I want to look a rather different approach. This is to ask, right at the beginning, what is the relative importance of cost, quality and time. It’s not an easy discussion to have with a client, because no-one is ever going to volunteer that budget isn’t of the first importance, since that would feel like financial suicide. However, what might emerge is a larger or smaller emphasis on design and grade of construction; similarly, you may get an impression of how important it is to have the building that results from the project quickly, according to a reliable timescale. This information may equip you to say something like, “it would be acceptable to pay a bit more if the grade of construction / finish is outstandingly good”, or “we must be able to rely on an opening date of 1 October next year”, or “we must have the best possible control over the budget – it is the most important thing”.

Such understandings would enable you to plan a procurement route. If economy and speed are the predominant needs, you may choose Design & Build. If you want an early start and minute control over the trades, then Construction Management. If you place a lot of emphasis on having everything priced in advance according to a design complete in detail, then Traditional Procurement.

These decisions are fundamental to how the team is employed. Some people will say, “Don’t worry; just start off with a Traditional Procurement approach, with all the designers employed by the Client, and you can always change it later”.  That means, for instance, that when the scheme design is complete, you can elect to switch say, to Design & Build, and have the contractor do the detailed design, under ‘novation’.

All this is true in itself, but also sloppy and wasteful, and may give you the worst of all worlds so far as design quality and use of time are concerned. However, you would probably shift a load of risk and save some cost in return.

What I am recommending here is a clearer-sighted approach which takes into account factors like the client’s experience and degree of risk-aversion at an early stage.  It is not as though these things are likely to change over a period of months – they are discernible right from the start, if we make it our business to enquire.

Armed with a bigger and better understanding of whom we are serving and what they require, we are then in a position to bring together the team in a way that truly reflects its function, with appointments being made appropriately.

Teams compiled according to the procurement route of the project (see Insight 4) may still be incomplete, unless we have not only the team functions (such as designer, structural engineer, etc) filled, but also the team roles. This term refers to how we work, and what sort of personal abilities we bring to the party.

I have borrowed this phrase from Meredith Belbin, whose theory identifies various behavioural types within teams. He calls these ‘clusters of behavioural attributes’, and you can read about them at https://www.belbin.com/about/belbin-team-roles; we cover the both the theory and the application of it in the APC course.

One of the skills of the PM is to notice what s/he has got, and what is lacking, within any project team. For instance, if we don’t have a Shaper, the vision may not be brought into, and maintained in, focus; if we lack Implementers or Team Workers, then we may end up with disadvantages bringing the project into reality. The project team, like an orchestra, needs balance. Knock out the woodwinds or the percussion and it’s not satisfactory as an orchestra anymore.

So, the PM needs the knowledge, skills and experience to detect whether the team has holes in it. How is s/he going to detect whether these are present or absent, in the short time that is available during the formation of the team? Of course, s/he could hand out forms and get people to answer questions so that they reveal where they sit on the Belbin spectrum. This is frequently done. When we get applicants to our course, we ask questions about their likes and dislikes in project situations, in order to achieve just this – and this is with people we have normally not yet met.

Within a project, the best way to start with each potential team member – each individual - is a chat. The informal circumstances help to build confidence and get frank, rather than aspirational, answers. Follow that with a team discussion, in which you can observe how each person perceives the boundaries of their role, and the way they contribute to the development of the project. The agenda for such a meeting would need careful management so that there are sufficient prompts for everyone to find a niche and a reason for speaking. Some Belbin roles can tend to be a bit quiet, but that does not mean that they do not have valuable abilities and the potential to make vital contributions.

If this process reveals a gap in the array of team roles, you will need to decide what to do about it. Don’t just let the situation fester.