Collaboration? Who’s got time for that?

In conversation with a group of construction leaders last week, one referred to a time a number of years ago “when collaboration was all the rage”.

It wasn’t the time to say it, but I thought: “If you’ve read the Government’s Construction Playbook, you’ll know it’s very much on the agenda now.”

And it’s true. As I wrote earlier this month, the playbook sets out what government clients will expect from the industry, and collaboration, both among construction companies and with government clients, is baked in.

For instance, the playbook tells clients to bundle projects into portfolios for bigger, longer contracts, which will likely require joint ventures.

It might be back on the government’s agenda, but how prominently does it feature in the typical project executive’s mind?

It certainly wasn’t on mine

Thirty years ago when I was a project manager, it wasn’t on my to-do list.

Back then my main priority was to get my tasks done. If I did that, the job would get built. That was my mentality because it was how my performance was judged.

My tasks typically included:

• Drawing up the construction programme (I refused to have a planner, and doing this was my way of working out the project);
• Producing information-required schedules;
• Monitoring and measuring progress against this programme;
• Writing the weekly agent’s report and sending it to head office;
• Preparing for the monthly architects’ progress meeting, including writing detailed responses to issues that might be raised by the client’s design team;
• Writing the design brief for temporary works design and frequently doing the design myself;
• Writing contractual letters, serving notice of delay and disruption;
• Chasing information from the architect and writing Confirmation of Verbal Instructions (CVIs) and Requests for Information (RFIs), checking and frequently disputing what came back;
• Working out the months ‘true cost’ and liaising with my site QS on ‘value’ and compiling the monthly cost/value report (CVR) and preparing for the CVR meeting with directors;
• Producing and monitoring the materials and subcontracts procurement schedule;
• Occasionally walking the site to have a look at progress, quality and to make sure everyone was wearing hard hats and boots;
• Chasing utility organisations and liaising with statutory authorities, including the dreaded factory inspector (now the Health and Safety Executive);
• Dishing out tasks to my 25 strong site team and chasing them up;
• Solving all the project’s technical problems, of which there were many;
• Confronting and chasing troublesome subcontractors;
• Doing guided site tours for visiting head office staff and other dignitaries.

Getting all that done at speed and with determination and enthusiasm had me down as a ‘good’ project manager to people that mattered to me: my boss and his boss.

Building my team and having it collaborate with other teams was not on my agenda; I didn’t think it was important, I didn’t know how to do it and I didn’t have time for it.

30 years on, what’s changed?

My sense is that the list of tasks has grown. Information technology no doubt speeds things up, but it also introduces new things to do. There’s BIM and all that entails, for instance.

Health and safety compliance is tougher, with risk assessments and method statements required for most things.

COSHH regulations were just coming in when I was a project manager, as was QA, and people were talking about the planning supervisor, then a completely new role.

I wonder how it all gets done?

Task is the focus

Most people I’ve encountered in the industry are task focused. Thinking through the above, I’m not surprised: there is so much to do in setting up from scratch, mobilising and running a temporary business every year or so.

This is borne out by dozens of self-assessments I’ve done with project teams. Managers and leaders in the construction industry are virtually always “Reds” and “Blues” – in other words, task focused.

There is lots of talk about team work and collaboration, but if we measure commitment by action rather than words, the typical project executive’s priority nowadays is the same as mine 30 years ago.

And just like me, they are trying to do everything themselves even though the list keeps growing and, with it, the length of their working days.

What about leadership, team and people development and collaboration?

With day after day filled with technical tasks, the job of leadership and people processes like team development and collaboration are left for a future day when there is time, and there never is.

Construction business leaders should be thinking about this in light of the playbook.

If it sticks, and it might, government clients will require collaboration, and the industry may find itself unprepared.

What has been your experience of joint ventures? Success or slog?

Collaboration requires a set of skills that can be learned. Managers and leaders have it in them; they can dial up their “Yellow” and “Green” styles – see image.

The question then becomes how:

1. How to shift the priority to people processes? And
2. How to collaborate in a deep and deliberate way?

More to follow.