A contractor's survival guide

The work that the CIOB has been doing on managing the risk of time delay is impressive. And now the institute wants your two penn’orth of comment, assuming you know what’s what when it comes to managing time on construction projects.

CIOB has it in mind to publish a guide to good practice in the management of time and the draft is here. Now then, the first real attraction is that this is not about fighting for an extension of time. True, it does get to all that. First, though, it tries to hold our hands in managing the clock even before it starts ticking. It’s the first step to avoiding disputes – begin by looking for trouble!

Controversially, the draft says design and build contracts require more careful risk appraisal. The same goes for looking into guaranteed maximum price contracts and those called engineer, procure and construct contracts. These projects are umpteen times trickier than the others, and will easily break the time clock, so allow for delays before you set it. Worse still, of course, is the client that is still to make up his mind about what it wants. Remember you are managing this job at the beginning to avoid a dispute at the end. The draft warns, too, about the more traditional adventure, where the client’s architect and engineer have already done the design. It’s your job “just” to build.

The appraisal coaxes you to look for design features that are likely to disrupt parallel works. Do you see why the CIOB is coaxing you to fathom the tricky bits of a programme before you dig a sod? And up to now there isn’t a word said in the guide about computer software or data.

What it does say is a real truth: that the grand plan of progress will soon fall apart, no matter how much “appraising” you do on the drawing board. So the guide talks about organising yourself to plot progress, or the lack of it, and gives you angles for dealing with “intervening events” – cock-ups and changes of mind to you and me. The trick, in my book, is to be honest with yourself, recognise a rotten turn of events and deal with it today.

Credit: Simone Lia

But it’s true, too, that complex projects cannot be time-managed intuitively. These jobs require a scientific approach to assessing the consequences of “intervening events” on a multiplicity of activities. Let me emphasise that the CIOB guide says it is intended for complex projects. But it has gems for all occasions.

The more I read this 159-page commentary, the more I held the authors in awe. Explained in everyday language is the detailed role of the project planner, the nuts and bolts person dealing with the start and finish dates of activities and their sequence. Then we move to the vital topic of change control. Here it states the brutal truth that “it is indefensible to proceed on the basis that an intervening event, including variations, changes of mind, and new ideas will not occur”. And yet I witness little effective management of time consequences, never mind cost consequences. So there is huge guidance on change control.

Managing the time model is about having a well thought out scheme for doing the whole job at the outset, then developing that into the fine detail of inter-trade scheduling. Then comes the inevitable change orders, the omissions, the errors and the disappointing performances by all sorts of people.

All this requires managing so as to attempt to get the job in on time and make a builder’s profit. It is while going about the good preparation to build that the dispute about extension of time is easily avoided. Any architect burdened with the job of cranking the handle on the extension of time machine will have such an easy job if the time manager has used the CIOB’s ideas.

It’s all very well to whip the builders or main contractors into shape, but what’s to be done at subcontract level? Isn’t it time to place subcontracts with start and finish dates – or shall we just press on with orders that say “as and when required” or “start on seven days’ notice”. And nobody does, do they? And lo! the programme goes to pot …