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Articles
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NAPL's Leadership Excellence |
Build Your Project Team First, Your New Plant Second |
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By Hal Ettinger |
Group Approach:
- Identifies Real Needs
- Builds Consensus
- Spreads The Burden
- Maintains Continuity
When building an expansion or new plant, company owners often overlook the crucial first step; assembling a Project Team. A building effort has a better chance of succeeding without delays and added costs when it is directed by a Project Team of in-house personnel and outside resources. A Project Team offers numerous advantages, including:
Your building program is based on real, not perceived, needs. By bringing together people from within your organization, as well as outside resources, you're better able to analyze your situation and determine the requirements of your project based on actual needs.
You build consensus and set clearer goals and objectives. When only the company owner, or a few select individuals, take on a building project, they may suffer from tunnel vision or have a myopic view. They often don't have the benefit of frontline perspectives, suggestions, and advice. A Project Team makes possible a clearer understanding of, and agreement on, goals and objectives.
No individual is burdened with taking on too much. Often owners fail to understand the extent and workload of a building program--and for good reason: They've never done one. In-house people have ongoing responsibilities. They can't break away from their usual work load to attack the building program on a daily basis. A Project Team lets you delegate and distribute responsibilities so no one is excessively burdened.
You can capitalize on new and different ideas. By bringing together a wider range of people who are knowledgeable and experienced, you create a broader dialogue to determine issues and their best solutions.
You have better project continuity. When a Project Team is in place from the beginning, the building program is less apt to become disjointed. The team understands the early decisions and can carry that information forward. Without a team, as the project progresses, employees may question where a decision or direction came from and why. By delegating responsibilities to the team, the project has continuity, flow, and history.
You can avoid project delays. A Project Team reduces delays down the road because, through dialogue and discussion, it can make decisions earlier, identifying issues up-front which, if encountered later, could cause schedule delays.
"Look for people who can give you a good sense of what employees need."
You increase your chances of meeting budgets. By identifying needs and requirements and developing designs around them, you can better control your costs. Additional costs are incurred if needs and requirements are identified after design--for example, "We need to add a wall here" or We shouldn't have a wall there."
Any building or expansion project should begin by discussing the proposed capital improvement with your management group. Is a building program really necessary? Why are you considering expanding or relocating? Do future sales or marketing plans require physical changes? do you need room for new equipment? Are you near the end of a lease? If you decide you do need to build, before giving any consideration to design--or if past the design phase, to construction--you should form a Project Team.
You'll want team members who are leaders or decision makers, or who can address present and future department requirements. Also look for those who can give you a good sense of what your employees need and how they feel about the early decisions and direction of the project.
After choosing a team with the right chemistry, assign individual roles and responsibilities. The team director should be someone who knows the company's vision and history, and has been involved in the business planning. You also need individuals who will be communication links-- compiling, interpreting, and releasing information during the project.
Once assembled, the in-house Project Team must create a road map to accomplish the building program (See Leadership Excellence, Vol. 1, No. 2). They'll also need a "to do" list and, most important, to announce the plan to employees. The team should schedule regular meetings, and should maintain thorough records in the event questions arise later.
The team is now ready to determine the outside resources it needs: architects, engineers, builders, construction managers, etc. Team members should review company profiles, check references, conduct interviews, and consider proposals. Finally, they should select companies whose expertise and experience will best complement and enhance their own.
Kickoff Meeting
The outside resources formally become part of the Project Team when everyone convenes for a project "kickoff" meeting. The joint assembly should now further develop a team strategy, redefine responsibilities and, if needed, add new roles. It determines how it will accomplish the next steps, such as preliminary design or development of a construction timetable.
Even at this late stage (and certainly at any earlier point), the team may conclude that the building program is "no-go" and abandon the project. If it is a "go", the Project Team is its brain trust, overseeing implementation of the building plans, and putting designs and walls around its ideas.
Forming a Project Team doesn't happen overnight. The process moves slowly at the beginning as ideas are formulated and people brought on board. Four to six weeks may be needed to get the team in place. But once it's assembled, you can be assured of a smoother, more efficient building program that will meet everyone's expectations.
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