Friday 25 April 2014

A dedicated change management team anyone?

We've sort of had discussions around this before, but in an ideal world wouldn't it be great if the following occurred.....
1. On a Monday, at the start of a job, we had the most brilliant Works Information and Accepted Programme (I saw you roll your eyes then..!). We were in a position to therefore manage the job for once and not just administer it.
2. During the day there were a couple of early warnings notified, a bit of a Contractor delay discovered and 2 compensation events popped up.
3. On Tuesday the [change management team] (basically add whatever name you want here) worked through the 5 things that arose on the Monday such that first thing Wednesday we had made a few changes to the Works Information, the Completion Date happened to stay the same, the Prices (let's assume it's an ECC Option C target contract) moved up a bit, we had a new Accepted Programme and the forecast Defined Cost slightly changed.
4. Repeat 2&3 for the next 6 months/year/whatever the duration of the job. The point being, we had some dedicated resource to work through the entire effects of the day before and conclude them all that day ready to pick up today's stuff tomorrow. Make sense?!

So,
a. do people do this (or have done, I'm not just talking about CEs)?
b. is this realistic?
c. do people want this?
d. what might this cost be and would this be cheaper than the way we do it now?

Answers on a postcard please.....

For dedicated resource I was thinking that Employer/Contractor pooled very capable people (planner, estimator, designer, QS, buyer and so on) and somehow split the costs. Possibly not even full time commitment, at least to start off. We're away from man marking here and we're into a real time process of dealing with risk and opportunity.

Insane end of the week head in a bucket of sand stuff, or something that would turn the industry on its head in terms of how we actually address risk and opportunity on a real time basis?

Don't restrict the use of early warnings.....

I've recently read an opinion that the 4 bulleted instances stated in clause 16.1 of the ECC are the only occasions the Project Manager/Contractor could notify an early warning. I don't think the contract says that at all.

For a start, the Contractor may notify any other matter which could increase his total cost (see clause 16.1), but even this is too narrow in its thinking. Regard the 4 bullets as the minimum instances an early warning must be given (this is in fact an obligation on PM/Contractor) therefore there is no maximum scenario in practice. The ECC does not say 'in these instances only' or 'do not otherwise notify' or anything like that. So why not think about notifying opportunities through the early warning process as well as the bad things..."Here's something we may be able to exploit, let's have a risk reduction meeting to discuss...."

We should use the early warning process for good and bad matters; we should of course notify the matters we must notify but make sound judgement on those we therefore may wish to notify if we believe such are worth of our time.

Tuesday 8 April 2014

Student NEC dissertation

Dear all,

Another student's questionnaire for you to complete at lunchtime if that's ok! In his own words....

"I am currently completing my MSc via Leeds Met the final part of which is my dissertation. I am going to do it on NEC3 and in particular bespoke Z Clauses. I have prepared a questionnaire which I am struggling to get responses to. Would you mind having a look at it and possibly completing it. Also if there is anyone you know suitable to complete it please forward it on. All in all it should make a good piece of research particularly as I feel Z clauses do not help or improve NEC3 in many instances."

Thanks in advance,
Rob

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TTG2YPR