It takes two to tango and strip the willow goes better with twelve. A big project is like a massive New Year’s ball just before midnight with two hundred people going flat out at the eightsome, wired up to their partners, foot hard on the throttle, max speed and precision & don’t get flattened by the drunken slob opposite.
When it goes well it is exhilarating. It is also a delicate & unstable equilibrium that can fall over without warning
The way to survive this potential chaos is to know where you are and what your options are at any time. The key underpinning is first, a single incremental document that relates the current state of play to the original scope and pricing of the project in real time and secondly, a production programme, updated weekly that balances the demands of the pricing document with the supply of available resources.
The scope and pricing document is produced by my joint managing director Colin Mackenzie and our production manager, Dominic Ash, organises the programme planner. They are virtuosos and under their guidance over the years we have survived all sorts of chaos and trouble. Opposite is a photo of a production meeting sheet in progress. Every time a piece of work is put into planning it recalculates the remaining available resource for that week. When the number goes negative, we know we’re over committed.
It’s not the most exciting event of the week but we are very proud of it. It keeps us safe and It keeps our clients safe.