IPT Workbook 5

Integrated Project Team: implementation of agreed solution (part 1 of 2)

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Integrated Project Team

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At a glance

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

5.1 Induction/training/continuous improvement

5.7 No blame and risk

5.2 Working together

5.8 Programme

5.3 Managing expectations/client care

5.9 Quality management

5.4 Health, safety and welfare

5.10 Payments

5.5 Communications

5.11 Managing change

5.6 Delegation and empowerment

5.12 Managing the budget

Workbook

Step

Process

Culture and activities

Tools and techniques

5.0

IPT implementation

Making it happen.

5.1

Induction/training/continuous improvement

Understanding the principles and values

The purpose of an IPT is to bring together diverse groups of people and combine them into a seamless team for the pursuit of common goals. Everyone involved therefore has to gain a thorough understanding of this collaborative culture, which is likely to be fundamentally different from any previous way of working. Training in this area is required to give individuals and teams practical opportunities to acquire the skills and develop the behaviours that will translate the IPT concept into a successful and enjoyable reality.

All aspects of the project must be discussed with the various disciplines within the team, in order to avoid operational pitfalls. For example, having a lead time that is shorter than the time in which supplies can be procured will lead to dissatisfaction, recriminations and, possibly, a missed project date. Being realistic will ensure that the various disciplines can work within the time-scales, budgets and standards being set.

The Collaborative Working Centre provides training and mentoring services in the subject area of collaborative working.

Consistent induction

All projects should commence with a start process, which introduces team members to the concepts and focuses the team in determining a common set of goals and objectives.

Training

Workshops accelerate the team's development. Values can be brought to life through practical projects and reviews, giving an opportunity to experience collaborative working in action. They enable participants to:

• create new approaches

• see things differently

• become energised to achieve extraordinary results

• discover unrealised potential.

Cross-company training events should be run throughout the project. Training should be targeted to have direct relevance to specific benefits and/or problem areas and should include the opportunity to explore relevant issues in greater depth, to exchange ideas and best practice across a broad range of companies and industries. In addition it should be realised that some people require personal mentoring or coaching to help them develop.

Changes in team dynamics

Remember that team dynamics will change as the make-up of the team changes. There must be sufficient flexibility and adaptability in the ways the project is managed to recognise that when someone new joins, or a new activity begins, it may have an effect on the way the team is organised and on the dynamics that are necessary. Processes or procedures may have to be changed in order to accommodate the shift in dynamics.

Selecting additional members

The earliest stage of implementation is also the time to consider where additional skills and capabilities, not viewed as sufficiently significant to assemble earlier, are now required. For example, those who will be responsible for producing the operation and maintenance guides should be involved in order to define the way information and documentation is going to be collated and collected. This will ultimately lead to a much better way of delivering the final documents.

The same point can be applied to quality assurance. It is important to begin the implementation process by deciding how quality is going to be measured and how it will be reported. These decisions will change the way in which aspects of the project are undertaken, monitored and recorded.

Ensure that everyone is aware of the decision-making structure and how they engage in the process to resolve queries.

A training programme should be created, including the extent of internal and external facilitation.

Continuous improvement: Lean thinking and challenging traditional processes

Everyone needs to understand that efficiency and effectiveness are their responsibility. All parties need to question and challenge methods and approaches that are wasteful and cause confusion, duplication and misunderstanding. No one should perpetuate inefficient/outmoded methods at the expense of genuine opportunities to improve.

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5.2

Working together

This is the actual implementation of the project by:

• the teams, including the cluster leaders

• the cluster members

• the supply chains feeding each Cluster.

Focusing on goals and objectives

Care must be taken to focus on the goals and objectives throughout the implementation process. Everyone is involved in the project for the same reason: to meet the project objectives.

If that is achieved, everyone's objectives are met, for all wish to do their job right first time, meeting an appropriate standard of quality and for a fair price.

The goals and objectives will only be met if the members of the team work together in a mature environment for the benefit of every single person involved in the process, helping each other, sharing information and experience. This is the only way to work effectively on such projects and it is what the IPT is all about.

This should be supported by appropriate contractual documents covering the supply/execution of work and provision of goods and services including:

• responsibility of partners (or cluster partners) in letting, controlling and managing such contracts

• scope, decision to sub-let, and selection criteria

• terms to be incorporated in such contracts, including the team charter

• basis of remuneration (e.g. cost/reward or lump sum)

• assignment, exclusion, termination, and dispute resolution

  (including supply and works contracts with third parties).

The contractual form does not necessarily dictate the way the team will integrate or the way individuals will behave, but an appropriate form will reinforce the intent and culture of the IPT, and is recommended.

See Chainlink workbooks for different types of supply chain arrangements.

Constructing Improvement: The Clients' Proposals for a Pact with the Industry published by the Construction Clients' Forum in 1998 and progressed as the Clients' Charter (via Achilles) in support of effective project performance.

Strengths and weaknesses

Teams of people are brought together to carry out specific functions. They should be assigned roles where skills are most relevant to the task. In a fully effective team, strengths will be maximised and weaknesses will be minimised.

An individual may be able to see a way of solving a problem, but nothing can be solved as effectively by one person as it can by a whole team. This is not consensus, so much as asking for opinions, taking the best ideas and then delivering a better solution.

SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis can help to identify, classify and prioritise in terms of key underlying issues. The analysis looks at current performance (strengths and weaknesses) and factors in the external environment (opportunities and threats) that might affect the future.

	The CBP website has more information on SWOT analysis including a Director's Briefing.
	People Development and Teamwork, a guide by the DTI, looks at the roles within teams, the stages of team development, a model for teamwork and techniques to ensure effective teamwork.

Taking stock of cohesion

At regular points in the project, team effectiveness should be measured using a stocktake tool. This enables progression of the team to be monitored and corrective measures and/or additional training or development to be applied as necessary.

Feedback on performance

Appropriate feedback mechanisms should be used so that team members throughout the project can receive feedback on how well they are performing, on an individual and a team basis, against the values and expectations of the rest of the project group. Everyone is then able to see how they can change, adapt and develop.

It is also important to take stock of the project itself and make sure that everyone understands the position that has been reached. This may well affect the training needs and these changes must be fed back, to ensure that the loop continues to operate.

Agreed feedback methods, e.g. meetings, two-way toolbox talks, idea boards, etc.

	The Collaborative Working Centre training module on Performance Measurement and Continuous Improvement will be relevant here.
	The CBP website contains a reference to 'Team Performance Measurement' – a tool enabling key suppliers, the client and the project manager to collectively define a construction project's success criteria and regularly measure performance against them.

Trust

A significant weakness of any industry is an adversarial contractual and confrontational culture. In general terms, this manifests itself in a lack of trust between the various parties involved in a project, each viewing the others as adversaries intent on doing them down and minimising or removing their profit.

One of the most fundamental differences in the collaborative approach – and one of the values to which people experience great difficulty in adjusting – is the requirement to trust other team members and recognise that they are trying to achieve the very best results of which they are capable. This is why collective ownership is one of the cornerstones of the IPT approach.

It is not appropriate to harbour a grudge, particularly if you assume that everyone always does the best they can. While someone might not understand the implications of an action that has a negative effect on others, they obviously won't have set out to cause trouble. Working together to resolve such issues will guard against the possibility of a grudge building into a major personality clash. Having got to the bottom of the problem, it might even be necessary to disagree, but that isn't the same as harbouring a grudge.

One of the keys to trusting other people is learning that they are different from you, accepting and valuing the differences. Understanding personal team- working styles can be a great assistance in dealing with this and avoiding unnecessary conflict and mistrust.

Personal responsibility

Individuals working on IPT projects have to be prepared to exercise free choice and free will in order to take personal responsibility for their contributions. Often, there are organisational and structural pressures that suggest certain rules of behaviour, which people use to deny or deflect responsibility. Once the spirit of these rules is closely examined, they should be entirely compatible, as long as collaborative values are applied as the guiding principles. Individuals must be open and honest with themselves, before they can be so with others.

Developing respect

From self-respect should follow the development of respect for others with whom the individual comes into contact.

Collaboration

Collaboration means the search for the very best solutions, innovating and creating new opportunities that are only available by exchanging information and exploring others' ideas; producing outcomes that are of benefit to everybody, without there being any need for compromise.

Inclusive values

Everyone who accepts the IPT values 'buys' a package. Openness, honesty, using initiative, teamwork and fairness are all part of it and must be applied inclusively, without any suggestion of selecting and rejecting, according to personal wishes. Only then will participants be entitled to the protection of the 'no blame' culture that is a central pillar of the collaborative process.

Collective understanding

An idea will sound even more radical or unrealistic if those considering it don't understand what is being discussed, what the idea is and what the issues are. It is therefore important to take time to achieve collective understanding by listening to what is actually being said and ensuring that everyone realises what they are agreeing to, or discarding.

Encouraging initiative

In one very real sense, the evidence of a few mistakes being made is a very positive sign, because it demonstrates that people are continuing to use their initiative. The proportion of correct decisions that a person takes increases as they gain experience. If they are criticised on the first occasion, all that will happen is that they will stop using their initiative.

Such criticism might avoid one or two mistakes being made, but it could also be responsible for undermining many good and viable ideas that would otherwise have made a positive contribution to the project. Instead, people should be encouraged to be realistic about where they can take risks and where they can apply their initiative. This should not be mistaken for being negligent, naïve or reckless.

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5.3

Managing expectations/client care

Managing expectations

Expectations of the people who have an interest in the project, but who are very much less familiar with it, need to be managed, so they understand what they are getting and why. Principally, these people are the end users – those who are actually going to own the end result when the project is completed.

For example, the traditional construction industry is poor at this essential aspect of communication, with the result that users all too often take over a facility that does not match their expectations for one of a variety of reasons. Users have probably been asked to agree a design using drawings they don't fully understand. They may not even realise that they won't get what was initially described, because there isn't enough money in the budget

The users have hardly been involved in the process, yet they have had to agree to what was offered and will only realise that it isn't what they asked for after completion. No one has helped them to understand that it will be different and why it will be different. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding about the requirement, or a failure to understand why it was so important or, possibly, that the users were asking for something that they couldn't possibly have. Frequently, misunderstandings arise because the vocabulary is different. End users do not have the experience in project delivery to describe what they are imagining and project personnel do not understand the business needs enough to realise they have heard something different.

Managing expectations is simply about helping people to understand. This starts at the very concept of the project and continues through and beyond its completion. It includes initiatives such as establishing a client care team, which is involved in the project from the earliest point. As soon as a project is sufficiently advanced to be meaningful, end users should be invited to visit and preview what will be theirs. This process should continue throughout the project.

By managing expectations, it is almost certain that critical issues will have been raised at a point when it was possible to do something about them, or to explain why it was not appropriate to do so. There might have been elation or disappointment at the time, but there certainly won't be shock or anger when the project is completed.

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Client care

A small team, drawn from operational functions and client-focused 'completers', should be responsible for managing expectations to ensure they are understood, remain realistic and are escalated as necessary. This could take the following forms:

• prototyping

• virtual walk-throughs

• project open days

• one-to-one briefing sessions

• mock-ups.

The client care team acts as the focal point for interaction between the customers and the IPT, acting as translator and 'internal consultant' to ensure aspirations are effectively considered and where appropriate delivered, and helping customers to understand where and why aspirations cannot be met (budget, time, sequence, sustainability, etc).

This should continue beyond completion of the project, until the operation is fully proved.

Customer care Team Charter, roles, responsibilities and user interface plan.

5.4

Health, safety and welfare

Efficient management of health and safety depends on a coherent and systematic approach by the whole team, applying similar procedures and a set of agreed minimum standards for achieving common objectives. A combined strategy, which promotes the earliest involvement for each element of the team, should be put in place.

This should include the creation and upkeep of a health, safety and welfare plan covering the activity of the IPT (in addition to the legislative needs of CDM regulations, etc).

5.5

Communications

Communicating and listening

Without doubt the key to successful implementation is ensuring that appropriate communication methods are in place. Effective two-way communication processes will highlight how well the culture is developing and where there are failures and weaknesses that must be addressed. It is therefore vital that they function up and down the process.

Potentially large numbers of new people are now going to be involved in the programme, all of whom need to understand the IPT, its values and why working this way is different. In particular, they need to realise that confrontational and adversarial approaches are not being applied, and that a 'no blame' culture is essential.

This is an area where team and individual training, coaching and/or mentoring is often of great value.

True collaboration requires constant communication, which must be active and two-way. By accepting that there is nothing individuals can do which cannot be done better by a team, collaboration automatically becomes the highest value which can only be reached by truly listening to other people and adding their valuable contribution.

A project touches an organisation at many levels. The team must recognise this and communicate at appropriate stages in the project.

Communications Plan

Rethinking Construction's Respect for People toolkit provides insight into issues to consider in developing a communications plan.

Sharing information

Fundamental openness is the key to consultation, ensuring that all information is shared, nothing is held back and that everyone understands what is required and by when. Open communication by all ensures that information continues to flow, enabling the project to become truly focused. In the event of problems occurring, the issues should be openly discussed to achieve a resolution.

Each discipline should meet regularly to share information, discuss the project plans, any issues raised and generate ideas. These forums, populated by individuals with similar aims and objectives, will become a rich source of ideas that moves the whole project forward.

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Integrated systems

Modern technology should be the catalyst for common systems and open information channels for use throughout the IPT for:

• design and drawings

• project planning and resourcing

• safety management

• value management

• cost planning

• cross-disciplinary training.

Communication platforms and protocols.

The following companies offer integrated systems:

	BIW
	Buildonline
	Asite
	Bidcom
	Building Software

Openness

The IPT should be an environment for openness, with recognition that equality of information is essential for mutual respect and effective collaboration. No one should use information they have as a means to gain advantage over another.

This does not imply that confidences cannot be respected, or that certain matters should not remain private, for everyone has a right to an inner level of information that is relevant to them, but not necessarily to every other member of the team.

5.6

Delegation and empowerment

It is to those people who understand how to assess risk and apply initiative that responsibility should be delegated as widely as possible. Every member of a collaborative team should understand the process and boundaries and should feel empowered, knowing they are trusted and that it is recognised they have the capabilities to deliver what is required of them. In this way, those people who are closest to a problem will be able to recognise it, determine the solution and, after appropriate consultation, ensure that it is implemented.

Without such an approach to delegation and empowerment, trivial decisions will be passed up the line to people who are more remote from the problem and who, in any case, should not be spending their time dealing with such matters.

Task force approach

One of the most important aspects of the implementation process is, wherever possible, to use a 'task force approach', which means assembling the entire project team in the same location. If the scale of the project can support it, this should be on-site, as close to the activity as possible. This allows the free and easy use of face- to-face communication, one of the most effective methods. It enables people to build relationships, to understand the culture that exists and to become immersed in the project's activities, its problems, opportunities and solutions.

Challenging and questioning

Even though the consultation process should have been characterised by challenging and questioning, every member of the team must continue to do so. The workforce should be empowered to use their skills and capabilities to make critical evaluations, on the basis that those actually carrying out the task will know how well it will work. Inevitably, there are going to be changes and variations. The business needs are going to develop, so there will be new requirements. Challenging and questioning will establish whether there is need to change, if it is viable and whether the result will be an improvement. All of this is so much more constructive than carrying on with a task with a belief that it is not going to work.

Challenges

Once a person acknowledges that others can offer skills and capabilities that he or she cannot, he or she must accept and indeed encourage what amounts to a challenge from those colleagues. There is everything to be gained and nothing to be lost by doing so. A point of view can be evaluated to see if it improves the solution under consideration and can be dropped if it doesn't. Most people will accept such a position without rancour, once they know their idea has been discussed and they understand why it has not been adopted.

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