星空传媒

One initiative I have been working on involves helping site managers make an effective start to a building project. Have you ever counted how many tasks a building site manager has to get done in the first four weeks of the project?

Well it鈥檚 about 120, ranging from half-hour tasks to exercises that take days to complete. The list ranges from writing to utilities companies to discover the whereabouts of underground services, risk assessments for early trades, requisitioning long lead-in materials, producing the contract programme and scheduling information requirements from the design team.

With no cabins and phone or IT connections the site manager鈥檚 office tends to be either the front seat of a car or the end of someone鈥檚 desk back at head office 鈥� less than ideal for getting 120 tasks done.

With help from several site project managers, I recently analysed all these tasks. The results were sorted into broad categories according to the length of time each took (see table). Not surprisingly a significant proportion of time is spent on buying and arranging site resources. Virtually no time is dedicated to 鈥渋mprovement鈥� 鈥� again, not surprising, as the early priority is to get the job going. However, the project managers agreed that too much time is spent on routine administration - such as filing and managing drawing registers. They also agreed that time spent on admin was to the detriment of the real value-adding activities such as planning, communicating and liasing with the client.

We then looked at how to improve the chances of getting the project off to a flying start and thereby making the job easier.

This simple strategy emerged.

Have a checklist - set out the 120 tasks so that the site project manager does not have to try and remember them all

time spent on admin was to the detriment of the real value-adding activities such as planning, communicating and liasing with the client

tandardise wherever possible - many of the letters and routine tasks lend themselves to standardisation, saving time spent working out how to format forms or what to say in routine letters

Reduce the burden of paperwork - while much of the increase in paperwork is necessary (eg risk assessments) internal company bureaucracy is a burden on site staff and adds no value to the building process nor for the client

Provide administration support - some relatively inexpensive admin support would free the project manager from all the administration work, freeing him to get on with the higher value-adding tasks

Pay attention to the small jobs - often the testing ground for young technical staff in their first management role. The early part of the project is daunting for the first time site manager. Without support many of the tasks simply don鈥檛 get done. This poses a risk for the company, the project and the site manager

Don鈥檛 start on site until ready 鈥� time spent up front will pay dividends in terms of smoother project delivery, quality and client satisfaction.