The Construction Readiness Assessment is a game changer in guiding project teams to ensuring a productive start to construction.
The challenge is getting the project team to a full day workshop during such a critical time in the project.
To promote participation in Construction Readiness Assessment workshops, it’s important to understand how your contribution benefits other project team members and what insight you can gain that will benefit your role in the project.
If you are a workshop facilitator, these points can help you gain buy-in from your core project team members and justify their time investment to participate in a Construction Readiness Assessment.
How many participants should attend a Construction Readiness Assessment workshop?
For large projects, it is common to have 10 – 20 participants. Groups of more than 20 tend to be more difficult to facilitate. The dynamic changes and it becomes harder to have an open discussion.
For smaller projects where some team members may not be full time on the project, 5-10 participants is typical. Nevertheless, there are a considerable number of participants to get to a workshop.
Who should attend a Construction Readiness Assessment workshop?
The key groups that should participate in a Construction Readiness Assessment are:
- Project Leaders
- Construction Execution
- Project Controls
- Engineering
- Administration
- Health, Safety, Environmental, Quality
- Operations & Maintenance
Although it’s ideal to have all project stakeholders at the workshop, the reality is that not everyone will be able to attend.
Identify your core team members (who you need present for the full workshop) and break up the agenda to include the categories that require your core team members and alternate times for categories that require other team members so they can attend for portions more specific to their role.
In our training course, Construction Readiness Principles & Practices, we provide you with tools and sample agendas to help you optimize the engagement of all participants.
Project Leaders
Project leaders include the Project Manager, Project Sponsor and Program Manager.
The assessment may be championed by the Project Manager depending on how close to construction the project is.
The first category in the Construction Readiness Assessment relates to the Project Team and their understanding of the project goals and drivers. This provides project leaders with a tremendous opportunity to confirm that everyone is aligned on the project goals and drivers and make any clarifications if required.
The Construction Readiness Assessment also provides better visibility to where there is risk on their project. Due to the systematic and comprehensive nature of the Construction Readiness Assessment, the team is taken through every aspect of the project to identify gaps and risks that need to be addressed prior to construction.
Construction Execution
Construction Execution stakeholders include your Construction Manager, the Construction Coordinators, and key Contractors or Suppliers.
For this group, the Construction Readiness Assessment is an opportunity to provide additional input into constructability considerations. At this stage, the focus is still on engineering and the right people will be in the room to talk about coordination around sequencing of work.
Depending on how close to Construction the project is, the assessment may be championed by the Construction Manager.
Project Controls
Project Controls and Schedulers will benefit from sitting in on the entire discussion, especially if they approach it as an opportunity to identify areas of improvement from a systematic perspective. For instance, improved opportunities for schedule coordination.
The process also helps your Schedulers think through questions such as “Am I going to end up with delays in a particular area?” “Do I have enough float in the schedule?”, and “Do I need to think about contingency?”
Even if this group does not contribute to the discussion, the information they can glean from the workshop is going to add value to the project and potentially future projects from a continuous improvement perspective.
Engineering
Engineering Design Reps and Key Discipline Leads have an opportunity to gain clarity on any constructability concerns they have. These early discussions will help them balance feedback on constructability with the original business drivers for the project.
This is also an opportunity to ask questions to various contractors or suppliers and to get an update on any construction challenges or concerns there might be.
Administration
From an administrative perspective, including Contract Managers, Procurement, etc., gaining visibility into potential issues can be very beneficial. Understanding where there are potential contract interface challenges and updates on any changes to purchasing requirements are some examples of insight that can come from the engineering execution discussion in particular.
Health, Safety, Environmental, Quality
It is important to keep Health, Safety, Environmental, and Quality teams up to date so that they can understand the activities and interface points that may be of concern as it pertains to their role in the project.
Operations & Maintenance
Having representatives from Operations and Maintenance as well as Commissioning helps to ensure that the project aligns with the reliability, maintenance, and operating philosophies. The Construction Readiness Assessment provides opportunity for feedback and discussions as it relates to the schedule and resources that they’re trying to manage.
Hopefully, this post has helped illustrate the importance of committing to having the full project team in attendance at your Construction Readiness workshop.
In preparation for a workshop, the more familiar each team member is with their role in the assessment, the more productive the session will be.
There are some key techniques you can use to prepare and engage each workshop participant to encourage a productive Construction Readiness Assessment workshop. We cover these in our virtual, instructor-led course: Construction Readiness Principles & Practices.
The Construction Readiness Assessment is a game-changer to guide project teams in achieving construction readiness with confidence. As a Construction Industry Institute (CII) Registered Education Provider, our team at Valency supports organizations like yours around the world in implementing project assurance practices like this one.
