The problem no-one is talking about
There is one major problem in pretty much all property projects. This problem gets little attention but is the root cause of the time and cost overrun that undermine success and impact wellbeing.
That problem is poor change management.
A million things happen on building and redevelopment projects and you have to stay nimble. Decisions are required every day. Whether responding to the conditions and environment, navigating supplier limitations or changing your mind about what works in situ. You have to constantly respond and adjust. But when decisions and resulting changes are not managed well, costs rack up and unwanted surprises are stored up for the future.
Take a simple decision to adjust the location or length of an internal wall. There are a range of knock on effects:
Is the adjustment clearly understood by everyone involved?
Has it been priced, along with evaluating related impacts such as space planning in the adjoining room, door dimensions and treatments, and structural impacts including load?
Has that pricing been checked, approved and updated into the costs schedule?
Are any implications for the programme clear, as regards re-sequencing of work and potential delay?
What about bigger changes such as the dimensions of an extension, or smaller changes by their hundreds?
In the current economic climate and with the price of material spiralling, costs control is key. To have a mouldy bucket of financial surprises at the end of a job when all the items are added up, or an interim certificate comes in and you have to spend an age cross checking your notes and emails and WhatsApp messages to figure out what was agreed and then have an argument about it, are one of the worst parts of property development. Add to that the time implications of changes and the importance of keeping the programme on track: to you and your family, to investors, to contractors and clients.
There are different ways people use to try to mitigate this problem - such as lists in a note book, Excel spreadsheets and general purpose project management tools, but it has never been tackled comprehensively for the industry. That is changing.
ClearBuild uses modern technology and an easy interface to make it easy. It helps you set your contract requirements and work programme clearly up front, providing the foundation you need that so often gets forgotten. Once that’s in place, you can control and track changes transparently, so everyone is clear on the latest commitments. When there are so many moving parts, approval flows reach the right people at the right time with the right information, and ‘lock in’ what is agreed for later reference.
With a platform for tackling the contract layer of property projects without you even having to think about it, the problem of poor change management is simply smoothed away.