Building Process Development
Five Stages of Business
Primary reference page:
Service Delivery
Building Professionals
Training & Development
Managing Expectations
Five Stages of Business
ABLE believes any business process consists of five stages:
When used to describe the Building Process, the five stages translate into:
These five stages offer a useful way to differentiate between the competitive stance that a Project Builder, Small Design & Construct Builder and Green Innovator Builder might use, and to break the chosen strategy into definable process parts.
Service Delivery
Information Flow
Within each building process, there is a flow of information. The client explains their hopes and dreams (expectation) to the designer (or salesperson) and they pass that description on to the estimator. At some point the estimator passes the description to someone external to the builder’s office (supplier, contractor, engineer etc).
The process works well when the right information is passed to the right person and that person knows what is expected of them.
Work Practices
The five stages provide a useful way to break Service Delivery Roles into definable steps so that building professionals have a better understanding of the work practice sequence which is most likely to result in the “passing-the-right-parcel” onto the next person in the building process.
Delegating Responsibility
In the side bar of the ABLE Workshop Learning Model is the statement…“When I delegate responsibility I must also delegate appropriate resources and authority. But I CAN’T delegate my accountability!”
ABLE believes better work practices are achieved when individuals have the skills and knowledge they need as well as access to the resources and authority they require to undertake the work.
For example: in the “Constructing” phase of the building process the General Manager has delegated responsibility for all building work to the Construction Manager, who delegates responsibility for specific houses to the Supervisor, who delegates responsibility for specific work practices to the Tradesperson.
But each step in the chain also requires the delegation of appropriate authority and resources. If the Supervisor has the authority to “hire and fire” tradespeople but not suppliers and contractors, then they cannot be held responsible for the continued poor performance of a Supplier or Contractor that only the Construction Manager can “hire or fire”.
Accountability is different because it cannot be delegated. If an individual agrees to perform work, then they are accountable for the outcomes of that work. When outcomes are agreed before starting, performance can be verified. When a “good job” is the only description available, disagreements about performance are difficult to resolve because each party is likely to have started out with different expectations (for more information go to Managing Expectations).
Training and Process Development
Used together, process development improvements, individual training and developing an integrated documenting system can improve affordability, compliance and workmanship outcomes.
Technical Services outlines the integrated training, document and building process development services that ABLE can provide.