Blog 004 - The World's Strongest... Developer

The scene: You’ve been on site for weeks, only getting piecemeal bits of work, waiting for your promised run to “open up”. You’ve thought about speaking to the developer about the pain and money this is costing you, but, its early in the job and you want to keep them on side and maintain that relationship. Instead, you work with them, you scrape by, you keep your head down and your mouth shut. Through the miracle of time, your work front opens up, usually at a faster pace and more units than was ever agreed. You make a good honest effort, but the pace is fast and you’re going through your learning curve, you lose a few days here and there and are working on trying to get some more labour to site to push on with the works. Then, the inevitable “ding” of an email in your inbox, it’s the Site Manager flexing his muscles like he is on the stage at Mr Olympia. In apparent memory lapse of the inconsistency and frustration they have put you through getting to this point, he starts the “disappointed… delay…cost.. etc” spiel he was taught at developer school. Now, with your back against the wall and threats of delays and contra charges, you’re left fighting for your reputation and money to deliver your trade package!

Sound familiar, thought it did! So what should we do? Needless to say, client satisfaction is always important, it’s the prospect of future work that keeps us doing the good job to protect our own good names.

Take a breath, remember, you’re the specialist contractor here. Often, the places you’re being pushed aren’t “quite ready” and your specialist knowledge will know this. Take a site walk and review the claimed available work fronts against what you believe to be the actual available work fronts. Now you know what you’re dealing with.

Keep a record of all areas that weren’t ready and use when required, be careful not to throw fuel on the fire, it seldom works.

Develop a plan to take on the works, this plan must be consistent with the output rate you agreed at the start of the project, only going faster to recover any time you may have lost yourself. Yes, the developer may have made lots of work available to you, but if you contracted to undertake the project on a specific output (units per week / metres per day / piles per day etc), you should work at this output, only going faster when comfortable to do so. If the developer wants you to exceed this, that’s acceleration and you’re entitled to more money for this…. Its your entitlement so make sure you get it!

Don’t be pushed around by the big guy just because they’re trying to recover their own lost time to date, always work to protect your own reputation and business. Developers sometimes forget to let specialists be specialist! Do not compromise your own safety or quality. Poor results in either of this will outlast any small pains now based on speed of works. A job done properly is still faster than a job that is rushed and done poorly, just try getting a developer ot believe it when they have handovers pending!

Have some sympathy for your counterparts at the developer, they’re just under pressure from their paymasters and are passing that pressure down. Don’t take is personally and don’t get personal with them. Remember, if your fulfilling your contractual requirement, nobody can come after you for the so called “delays”. Above all else, try to provide a good service and always keep detailed records of your works and others!

If you’re not sure of your contractual requirements or want to discuss anything further, drop me an email and we can chat!