Am I communicating or complicating things?

In publication one we focused on the importance of having single point of contact in the project environment where the key benefit of a SPOC is clarity and structure in communication it provides a clear delegation of authority, streamlines communication, avoids fragmented information, and holds stakeholders accountable. In article two we focus on how ProCM gathers and feeds information to the project SPOC being the project management.

Awie Schutte

Chief Operations Officer

Clear communication is crucial in capital projects to ensure everyone understands goals, timelines, and specifications, fostering collaboration, minimising errors, and facilitating timely decision-making, leading to project success.

While this seems easily achievable with a communication management plan these plans unfortunately fly out the window when pressure is on in a multidisciplinary project with multiple stakeholders, each serving their own function and deliverables.

The PMBOK communication formula, N(N-1)/2, calculates the number of communication channels needed on a project, where ‘N’ represents the number of stakeholders.

Here is an example: a project has 4 discipline engineers each with a draughtsperson, a project manager, construction manager, safety officer, an authorized inspection authority, a planner, a project sponsor and client representative which gives a total number of stakeholders of fifteen. The number of communication channels is 15(15-1)/2 = 105 communication channels that excludes the contractors’ representatives.
THAT’S MIND BOGGLING.

I passionately believe other than the conventional project controls and governance we are all aware of the biggest role of a project manager is to give a clear plan and directive. One version of the truth one common goal. How does one achieve this with a possible communication channel of 105 routes daily, and yes, I know you’re thinking the corporate answer “We have an open-door policy “however there is in each open-door individual conversation 104 opportunities for it to be misinterpreted or misunderstood and not carried forward as it was intended.

So how does one tackle it?

The answer is quite simple, rhythms and routines, for the right stakeholders at the right level.

I approach this with the iconic entrepreneur Jeff Bezos two – pizza rule, a guideline advocating for keeping teams and meetings small enough that everyone can be fed by two pizzas, promoting efficiency and focused collaboration.

I like to add a next sub-rule which is to make sure the pizza stays warm, no one takes two hours to eat their piece of two pizzas, so keep the meeting short and to the point.

How do we at ProCM with our metanoia approach implement rhythms and routines? Well, the answer is a bit of a blended approach between conventional project meetings associated with plans and a scrum technique. Heres what we do.

This meeting is 15 min; key execution staff is in this meeting per discipline / contractor representative. Each representative answers two questions.

Question 1 – What are you planning to achieve today?

Question 2 – Do you need any assistance to achieve this today.

This meeting is 30 min max and should happen first thing on a Monday morning representatives are from the owners team and engineering teams, this helps stakeholders plan their weeks achievements for the week and ensure contractors have all their required information and work areas available not to be hindered or delayed, the integrated schedule gets discussed showing what is the focus for the next two weeks.

Question – are we on track, where we are behind, can we catch up or resequenced to reduce the schedule risk shown.

Here the respective owners team representatives provide updates on their discipline showing what is the focus points for the week. Why you might ask we are already discussing the schedule. Well so often in corporate structures different departments will be driven by different Key Performance Indicators. For example, Safety is driven by procedure or number of stops notes to achieve, construction management is driven by progress, Engineering driven by the next engineering deliverable and not closing out on site technical queries holding up progress, Procurement is driven by savings, finance is driven by purchase order placement and invoice turn around time. If driven by their own key performance indicators, this can cause unnecessary inter team conflict and the outcome silo working, without a common goal.

Question – Is the Project manager providing clear guidance and a common goal to the team? This is your opportunity for you to point your team to the common goal, and to celebrate last weeks achievements.

This meeting should occur monthly. In my humble opinion in the last few years, I have seen these meetings degrade from a contractual update meeting to either a whipping tool or a meeting where the client gives the contractors senior representatives an update on the project as they are disconnected from the happenings on site.

Warning unpopular opinion – This is not a meeting to go through last months meeting minutes which no one had a look at before the meeting and give updates as a PM on minutes as an expensive scribe!

The goal of this meeting should be the contractor gives the client representatives an update on all disciplines of the project in their contract with supporting documents and annexures and contractual matters to be discussed and closed out.

Contractors should provide update and annexure on Safety, Quality, Technical queries, Drawings registers, plant and people register (Onboarding and offboarding) Progress update, risk registers, claims/ compensation events or disputes, Certificate status and invoice tracker. It is a lot to cover but if you keep it short and to the point to actionable items for the month this meeting should not be longer than an hour.

Here you as a stakeholder have weekly one on one with any of your direct appointees for 15 mins. You ask three questions, how are you doing, what is your biggest planned achievement for the week, where do you need my help.

You might be asking yourself why this in unnecessary there are so many platforms for updates. Well, its two-fold, one you still collaborating with people, they want to be valued. Two in a world where we get tens of hundreds of emails a day its easy to miss the one that is important for your team member, to achieve their weeks biggest achieving and focus on your own priorities. If they reporting directly into you, chances are you require their weekly achievement to achieve your weeks achievement.

Something to consider – Giving over control of an area when you are solely responsible and accountable on paper for the success of a projects seems counter intuitive. However I have experienced that people want responsibility, the more you give them, the more they feel part of the team, and the more they will contribute toward the project common goal. Appointing people in your team that are better than you is not a weakness as a leader but your biggest strength.