PREMDALE CONSULTING

Joint Ventures

Construction projects used to be simple. The client would engage an architect to turn an idea into a vision, add some consultants to make it work and hire a builder through a tender process to turn it into reality.

Then along came joint ventures and client side project management companies.

I am not going into the reasons for the so called development but rather look at my own personal experience. Every time I have been involved in a joint venture it has started off all sweetness and light and degenerated into all out conflict. Usually the guys on the front line are not to blame, they just want to deliver a project, it is the senior management or as recently described to me “the shiny bums”. It is those in senior management whose annual performance bonuses who tend to cause the rifts between JV partners. In the end it is and always will be about the dollars.

In the interim the worldly wise, downtrodden project manager just gets on with the job, he has difficulty in finding resources for the project as each side of the JV don’t want to spend money, he finds he has two masters. A recipe for disaster.

So the project team tries its best, the architect is no longer consider, but the head office commercial number crunchers are the ones that pull the strings.

Imagine building some of the iconic projects of the past this way. Go back a couple of centuries and the architect designed and engineered the structure, sought finances and stood on the job every day and ran it. Now we have taken the JV model into the mining sector and as the clients have deep pockets they are paying through the nose for this set up and the flames are fanned by having client side project managers justifying there tenuous position.

I might go back to building industrial sheds. Me the client and his architect. are you reading this one Dante???????

RIP England Football [Again]

Waving but Drowning

Nobody heard him, the dead man,

But still he lay moaning:

I was much further out than you thought

And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking

And now he’s dead

It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,

They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always

(Still the dead one lay moaning)

I was much too far out all my life

And not waving but drowning.

by Stevie Smith God bless her

Rostered Day Off spent with James Joyce

As I am on a rostered day off in the morning, my thoughts turn away from construction to one of my other passions – Irish literature. The following is also on one of my other blogs which I do not publicise here as we all need some privacy.

When I was six years old I was on holiday in Ireland with my mother. An Irish lady born in beautiful Carlingford county Louth. Although she left school at fourteen she had a passion for literature especially Irish novelists. She was an out an out Feanian and her priorities were country, Catholicism and family in that order. It was she who introduced me to the magical world of irish writers. That magic started on a beautiful summer’s day with a visit to the grave of William Butler Yates at Drumcliff County Sligo. Much to my surprise my mother knelt down and then yanked me down too, and said a silent prayer not just for the great man but for Ireland and its people. (so I learned much later).

As I got older I would borrow my mother’s books and devour them: Yeats, Swift, Pearse, O Riordan, Wilde, Sterne, Goldsmith. But there was one missing – the towering presence of James Aloysius Joyce. And why? Because some of his work had been banned by the catholic church. Of course as teenager anything banned meant I had to have it. It was the late sixties and everything that the establishment did not want us to have, we made sure we had it. No matter if it were books, drinks, acid, music etc. Thus my life-long love affair with Joyce began. As we approach Bloomsday and remember the characters of Ulysses going about their day on 16^th June 1904, those early memories of my mother, Ireland, long summers and happy days return. A long way from the Pilbara in Western Australia where I now earn my keep.

So for those who follow this blog a little bit of the magic of Yeats followed my the magnificence of Joyce

The last three lines of one of Yeats’ poems are written on his grave stone

Under bare Ben Bulben’s head
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid.
An ancestor was rector there
Long years ago, a church stands near,
By the road an ancient cross.

No marble, no conventional phrase;
On limestone quarried near the spot
By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye
On life, on death.
Horseman, pass by!

And my choice from Joyce’s Ulysses has to be the following two passages from the episode Cyclops:

After the citizen spots this person at the bar, the person is described:

The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed hero. From shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his rocklike mountainous knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of his body wherever visible, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair in hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (Ulex Europeus). The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm breath issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his mouth while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations of his formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the summit of the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to vibrate and tremble.

And later the best description of Guinness ever:

Terence O’Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.

Project Success or Armageddon

Ok we all know about KPIs, LTIs, positive/negative cashflows, WIP, cost reports etc etc. We have dashboards on our laptops spitting out critical data regarding our performance, document management software etc etc. But if you break it right down, what makes a project so bad that the PM pulls the pin before PC.

Consider three simple points

the project team
the client
the budget

My theory is if you can tick all three as acceptable or above, life is great, the project runs safely and financial well, the client is happy for us to build for him again, we all stay until the end and then we spruke about it on our resumes. Of course during the project life these three point can get better or worse but consider them as an average. If we can tick two then life is hard, there may be a reasonable client, but the job is under priced but at least the team gets along and we put it down to experience. If we can only tick one box things are getting serious. Bad client, crappy budget, but the team still gets along, and when we look back a year after PC we only remember the good laughs as we will all probably working for someone else. The worst case, no boxes ticked I shall leave to the end of this missive.

Now say the team is not great, there are some weak links, or in the worst case scenario, the PM has not picked the team, they have been chosen from on high and maybe the leftovers from other projects. Just names to fill in the organisation chart, keep the client happy and you get what you are given.

Now the client. We all have stories about difficult clients. My worst stories are not about clients but the ubiquitous client representatives. Over the last twenty years a whole industry has developed in companies engaged by clients supposedly to look after the client’s best interest, when in fact the only interest satisfied is the representative’s. They have to prove they are necessary so they crucify builders in every which way.

The final one of the trinity is the budget. How many times have you heard PMs say “which bloody lunatic priced this” or a more recent one I heard was “that estimator knows as much about construction as a horse does about astronomy”

Now what happens when none of the three boxes can be ticked. The team is not yours, they have not interacted well, some have left and more hand me downs are parachuted in, the client (more usually his representatives) is impossible and the budget bears no semblance of reality, now we are in trouble. As the great man said “Forget Armageddon, you are in hell already”

Can someone book that one way ticket – please.

Mentors

We all have them, but we mostly don’t recognize them. They may be family members, managers in the workplace or the old guy you thought was a fool but in hindsight proved to be a pretty wise old bird.

The resources sector has many such people who on the face of it seem world easy, weather-beaten and basically the classic “grumpy old man”. But these are the backbone of the industry. They never read motivational, or self-help books by American Harvard gurus. They have, unwittingly mentored many, many people. often withe either party being totally unaware of what was going on. take the young know it all project manager, two years out of university whose biggest site he has seen is probably his girlfriend’s bare arse. he has no idea about what really happens on site, yet he is a wizard with Primavera, has multiple dashboards on his desktop and can wax lyrically about hours to go, month end forecasting, bloody KPIs, etc, etc. yet has no idea how to manage and pull down and re-assemble a stacker reclaimer or a dragline. Without knowing it his mentors are the people who report to him. Yet often the people with the real knowledge, the backbone of the industry, go un-noticed and not recognised. Sent out to grass whilst the young punk climbs the slippery pole called the corporate ladder.

Long live the grumpy old guy. Hope you read this Dante – I am referring to you, you grumpy old bastard.

Fools aka Pratts

Why do we put up with fools?

Well the first step is to define a fool. Yes we have all met them, worked with them and sometimes we have all been one. If you know you have acted like a fool that’s a start but a lot of people really don’t know when they are being a complete 22 carat unmitigated pratt.

So consider the workplace pratt. The most well known to all of us is Ricky Gervais as David Brent, the bumbling, self deluded manager in the UK tv show “The Office”. Who has never compared their boss to Ricky’s tv character, but the really serious issue is when you have this sort of Pratt who reports to you Well the first step is to define a fool. Yes we have all met them, worked with them and sometimes we have all been one. If you know you have acted like a fool that’s a start but a lot of people really don’t know when they are being a complete 22 carat unmitigated pratt.

So consider the workplace pratt. The most well known to all of us is Ricky Gervais as David Brent, the bumbling, self deluded manager in the UK tv show “The Office”. Who has never compared their boss to Ricky’s tv character, but the really serious issue is when you have this sort of Pratt who reports to you. Often they believe they are doing a great job, work under the misapprehension that their staff see them as born leaders and their boss thinks they are indispensable.

Bearing this in mind my thoughts went to an incident a few years back when I was Project Manager building a new municipal sewage treatment plant in Mumbai, India. We were working for a large civils company and the client was the equivalent of the local city council. I shall leave the whole Mumbai experience to a separate blog. The team consisted of me, two superintendents, six (yes six) QA inspectors, a project controller, numerous administrators and a dozen drivers, plus various assorted foremen. Everyone accept for me and one of the superintendents were local Indians. The superintendent in question was British and still though of India as the last refuge of the British Empire. I used to get the constant carping of “they do to do it like this in the UK” or “since we gave
them independence the place has gone to the dogs” Curious racist and xenophobic comments considering the basket case that the UK had become. But I digress.

This superintendent was technically very good, a hard worker, honest and loyal. But he was hopeless at managing people and even worse at managing upwards ie to me. In his eyes he was never wrong. The spec was wrong, the drawings were wrong, the consultants were d###heads and the client was off his trolley. All incorrect but not in his mind. This caused unbelievable tension and anyone who has worked in places like India know this attitude leads not to confrontation but to confusion and communication breakdown. I tried everything, the arm around the shoulder, the quiet word, even the threat of a one way ticket.

In the end he had to be convinced that he had to go. But the twist is, and the managing of the situation was, for him to convince himself he had to.

Well he’d did and went!

The Dog and the Tail

There is an old expression: something about the tail wagging the dog, the gist being the person who should be in control is in fact controlled by those he should be controlling. Apologies for the tautology but you get my drift.

The traditional project had a PM at the top of the pyramid and the next level would be site manager, project planner and contract administrator. the next level foremen, supervisers etc. Everyone new their role. The PM reported to the Building/ Construction/ Operations manager and they in turn reported to the Rgional/General Manager. Life was simple, comunication flowed up and down the organisation and everyone new their career path, what they were responsible for, and who they were responsible to.

Times have changed. In a world where the most junior cadet can email the client’s managing director and the first thing the PM knows about it is when the sh*t hits the fan, control of communication has become like knitting fog. OK we have Acconex (but don’t get me started) and other project controls, now that term did not exist a few years ago in Australia. Have you ever heard such American nonesonse “Project Controls Manager”. There is only one person in control – the PM, not some glorified QS.

Anyway I digress.

Back to the tail and the dog. Because the construction industry, in particular within the resources sector, is booming, we have had to hire people who if times were tough we simply would not entertain them. People who were supervising the construction of timber framed housing are now erecting structural steel, not on a domestic sub-division but inside a complex, dangerous production facility. Putting it simply – different rules, procedures, practices and trades. So these inexperienced “newbies” start to rely on advice not from the people they report to as that would show their shortcomings, but they ask the workforce. Before long the guys on the tools are asking for scale rules, contacting suppliers, organising deliveries and bacically running the job themselves. The canny PM spots this early and sorts it out, but if there is a long workforce it can go un-noticed until either someone gets hurt or the jungle grapevine tips him off.

Do you blame the person that hired these people? Normally you would say yes, but when you cannot get anyone who wants to be a supervisor and earn $50K pa less than those he supervisors, you eventually hire someone, anyone.

FIFO for real

There is a great deal of talk in the media about Fly In Fly Out and I suppose Brisbane to Port Hedland which is the same distance as London to Jerusalem, is a fair way to go to work.We mobilsed a week ago so now it is life in the camp for three weeks then back to Brissie for one week! Round trip nearly 10,000 Kim’s or 6,200 miles in the old money so lots of frequent flyer points, long waits at airports, crap airline food and we won’t mention DVT. Is it worth it? Well most of the workforce gross $5,ooo per week and pay more tax in a year than two school teachers earn. They all get free accommodation, flights home and some of the best food I have ever had, plus free Foxtel, WIFI, laundry, transport to work, gym etc etc. And project managers get exactly the same conditions but some earn more than the Prime Minister of Australia. So yes it is worth it. Of course long hours and 13 days straight without a day off is tiring, but the full week at home plus the dollars make it worth while. But there is another side that is often overlooked. You work with people 10 to 12 hours each day seven days a week, you breakfast with them, have dinner with them, wash your clothes with them, and have to listen to them. So situations arise where someone you dined with the previous evening, is someone you have to pull in to line the next day. The secret is keeping a distance from those who are under your responsibility. And if you don’t the consequences become personal. Maybe that is why “the boys” call me an arrogant prick ……… But that’s better than a soft prick.

Surgeons

Apologies for the lack of recent posts the author has been hospitalized. I had an operation to fix up my ulnar nerve in my right arm. Which meant I could not type. The surgery was straightforward but not having been under the knife for forty years, I found the experience daunting. However, my surgeon was what only can be described as the best.

Surgeons are often perceived as dictorial, dismissive and a breed apart. Mine was not. Yes he had the air of authority and not one for small talk but he really cared about his patient ie yours truly. So thank you Doctor Halliday.

A week ago I could not open a Coles bag of salad, my right hand was turning into a claw, now the hand works and I can do the simple things with my hand that we all take for granted, like typing this post.

For those who are not too squeamish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDtss_aOHEI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

D and C

Design and construct is my preferred method of delivering projects, yet it can be the most frustrating. I like it because the project team can manage the process but I get frustrated when the team do not manage it well, and as a PM it is my responsibility to manage the team. Yes that sounds like a pile of crap because it is, the real reason is that it means the consultants are working for me NOT the client. I get to approve their invoices, comment on their drawings and generally get up them when they don’t perform.

An architect recently huffed and puffed that he “was not a subcontractor” and why? Because I insisted he signed a consultancy agreement. He being so apoplectic that his Dickie bow started spinning and carried him off to his 1992 Saab 900.

Now for hydraulic consultants aka a plumber with a tie. I have met very few of any real calibre, there are a few but not many. Structural engineers are absolute stars. They charge out a young kid straight from university at some exorbitant rate and when the check his calls just double the size of the steel member to allow for a “safety factor”.

But please don’t start me on acoustic engineers, green star rating advisers, interior designers, Colour coordinators, and the rest of the assorted bunch of “experts”.

But I am exaggerating a tad, I actually have a few friends in the consulting game and they give the construction survivor an equally hard time. There is a difference – I will never work for them. But will they keep working for me?

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