End of the line
Six stages, a few questions each, picked at random from the stops on the line, so no two trips are the same. Tap a card, pick A or B, and find out straight away. Finish a stage to unlock the next.
- Win the work · Stop 1 · Should we bid?
The go or no-go meeting covers price, programme and risk. What's missing?
If nobody reads the information requirements before deciding to bid, nobody prices them either.
- Win the work · Stop 1 · Should we bid?
The client wants its own system used, and we've never used it. At go or no-go, do you mention it?
A system you have to learn is a cost. Better the board hears it now than the project finds it later.
- Win the work · Stop 2 · The client's wish list
Nine hundred pages of tender. Where is what the client needs from information?
Requirements hide in specifications, appendices and the contract. One list is how you find them all.
- Win the work · Stop 2 · The client's wish list
Helen asks the board a simple question about her own division and gets three answers. What's wrong?
An organisation needs its own information requirements, not just each project's.
- Win the work · Stop 3 · Whose system is it anyway?
Which system will be the Site Office, the project's CDE?
Your Records Office is your own organisation's CDE. The Site Office belongs to the project.
- Win the work · Stop 4 · Who's actually doing this?
Three electrical firms quote, and each has priced different information. Why?
Same enquiry pack, same information requirements, or you can't compare the quotes.
- Win the work · Stop 4 · Who's actually doing this?
The bid says the information work will be done by "the team". Is that enough?
When everyone is responsible, nobody is.
- Win the work · Stop 5 · The promise
What is the pre-appointment BEP?
The BEP is the promise. Copy the requirements back and you haven't promised anything.
- Win the work · Stop 6 · Can they actually do it?
A firm in the team says it can manage information. What do you check?
A claim is not evidence. Ask to see it.
- Win the work · Stop 7 · Pricing the information work
Information management is priced as a percentage somebody used last time. Is that all right?
The plug number was half what the job needed.
- Win the work · Stop 7 · Pricing the information work
The price is too high, and the cost plan has an information line nobody can explain. Cut it?
Cheap at tender, expensive on site.
- Win the work · Stop 8 · The plan for day one
The plan for day one says "set up the CDE". Is that enough?
A plan with no names and no dates is a wish.
- Win the work · Stop 9 · What could go wrong?
Where should information risks go?
Information risks are project risks.
- Win the work · Stop 10 · What we sent
Submission morning: five versions called FINAL and three people editing. What should have happened?
If you can't say what you sent, you can't say what you promised.
- Win the work · Stop 11 · Signed, sealed
Helen signs the contract. Where are the information promises?
If it's in what you signed, you're on the hook for it.
- Win the work · Stop 11 · Signed, sealed
When are the BEP, the responsibility matrix and the delivery plans prepared?
The plans form part of the appointment, so they come before the signature.
- Get ready · Stop 1 · Bid handover
The bid wins and the bid team moves on. What should the delivery team get?
Commitments nobody hands over are commitments nobody keeps.
- Get ready · Stop 2 · Which one's the real one?
The client has a CDE, so do we, so does the designer. Which is the Site Office?
Two places both claiming to be the real one is how you get two "latest" drawings.
- Get ready · Stop 2 · Which one's the real one?
Rex arrives on site on day one and nothing is set up. Where should project information live?
Information that starts life on a laptop tends to stay there.
- Get ready · Stop 3 · The plan grows up
We've won. What happens to the plans in the bid?
The plan that won the job is the plan you now have to deliver.
- Get ready · Stop 4 · Requirements to every firm
When should a new firm's logins and training be ready?
No login on Monday means everything comes by email, off the record.
- Get ready · Stop 6 · Who makes what, and when
The delivery plan was last opened at tender. Does it matter?
If it isn't on the plan, it's on nobody's list.
- Get ready · Stop 6 · Who makes what, and when
A keen design team draws something nobody asked for. What should have stopped it?
Demand first: what's needed, by whom, and why.
- Get ready · Stop 7 · Ready before day one
Mobilisation: who needs training before they get a login?
Untrained users find their own routes, usually the back alleys.
- Get ready · Stop 7 · Ready before day one
Rex's first week: nobody shows him where anything lives. Whose job is that?
If nobody shows you the town, you invent your own.
- Get ready · Stop 8 · One model of the whole job
Whose coordinates should every model and survey use?
Four sets of coordinates is how a plant room ends up in a field.
- Design it · Stop 1 · What's already in the ground
What makes sure the designers use the new survey?
The designers used a survey from five years ago because that's the one they could find.
- Design it · Stop 1 · What's already in the ground
A 400GB laser scan is too big for the shared system. Where does it go?
A file nobody knows about may as well not exist.
- Design it · Stop 2 · Made to the rules
Four files called FINAL. What tells you which is which?
Dates lie. Labels, used properly, don't.
- Design it · Stop 2 · Made to the rules
Where do the project's naming and production rules come from?
One rulebook, or four house styles.
- Design it · Stop 3 · Checked, actually
Rex has finished his first drawing. Who checks it?
Check, review and approve happen inside the team, before anything is shared.
- Design it · Stop 3 · Checked, actually
Drawing 042 is finished at five to five on a Friday. It's wanted tonight. What's right?
A tick is a claim. A check is evidence.
- Design it · Stop 3 · Checked, actually
Alex puts 40 drawings in one PDF to save everyone some clicks. Problem?
One PDF of 40 drawings is 40 drawings nobody can find.
- Design it · Stop 4 · The night before
When do all the firms' models get looked at together?
Problems found the night before become problems on site.
- Design it · Stop 5 · Questions to the designer
Rex asks the designer a question in a phone chat and gets the right answer. What's missing?
The right answer, kept in one phone, is the wrong answer for everybody else.
- Design it · Stop 6 · Authorised and accepted
Who authorises a design, and who accepts it?
Approve, authorise, accept: three checkpoints, three different owners.
- Design it · Stop 7 · Shop drawings
A supplier's shop drawing comes in. Who is usually the accepting party?
Who accepts depends on whose appointment the drawing belongs to.
- Build it · Stop 1 · Ordered off the current revision
The specification changed a fortnight ago. What should the order be placed against?
Ordered off the old spec means delivered to the old spec.
- Build it · Stop 2 · Briefing and permits
The method statement is at C02. The copy on the cabin wall is C01. What do you do?
The gang builds from what they're told, not from what's current.
- Build it · Stop 2 · Briefing and permits
Rex's crane pad calculation has a tick. The sums are perfect, the inputs aren't. What should a check look at?
"Show me your working."
- Build it · Stop 3 · Hold points
The concrete is booked for Friday at 7am. The inspection isn't. What's missing?
Once it's poured, nobody can inspect what's inside.
- Build it · Stop 4 · Found on site
The licence for the protected newts is in an appendix. The digger is in the pond. What would have helped?
Information nobody uses is information nobody has.
- Build it · Stop 4 · Found on site
The ground is worse than the survey said. What does the contract need?
Miss the notice and you can miss the money.
- Build it · Stop 5 · Site records
Forty signed inspection sheets live in one red binder in the cabin, next to a river. What's better?
One binder, one shelf, one flood.
- Build it · Stop 5 · Site records
Site fixes a problem by lunchtime and tells nobody. What's lost?
If it isn't written down, it didn't happen.
- Build it · Stop 5 · Site records
Monitors spot movement on Tuesday. The people who could act find out eight days later. What's missing?
Data nobody reads is just a number in a folder.
- Build it · Stop 6 · Changes and instructions
The client asks for extra asset data by email, and the team just does it. Problem?
Free work has a habit of becoming expected work.
- Build it · Stop 7 · Late, not extra
A delay claim hangs on when a drawing reached site. The proof is in six inboxes. What should exist?
The claim you can't prove is the claim you don't get.
- Build it · Stop 8 · Valuations
Rex measured from C02. The basement is now on C03. Why is Kofi's valuation wrong?
Measure from what's current, or measure twice.
- Build it · Stop 8 · Valuations
Payment is tied to accepted deliverables, and ours keep coming back rejected. What helps?
No acceptance, no cash.
- Build it · Stop 9 · The monthly report
The dashboard looks lovely. What should Helen ask?
A dashboard is only as good as what's feeding it.
- Build it · Stop 10 · It got out
Drawings showing how The Glasshouse is controlled leave the building. What should have stopped it?
Some information needs a locked door, not just a route.
- Build it · Stop 11 · The drawing in the van
042 has been reissued, and Dave's van copy is C01. What should happen when a new revision is published?
The newest drawing is useless if the old one is still in the van.
- Build it · Stop 11 · The drawing in the van
Site builds from an old drawing. Everyone says it isn't their fault. What's the fix?
Whose job is it? Write it down before it goes wrong.
- Build it · Stop 12 · Audit rehearsal
Priya books an audit rehearsal four months out, and the project keeps moving it. Why hold it?
A rehearsal is cheaper than a major finding.
- Build it · Stop 13 · Audit day ★
The assessor says "show me". What do they want to see?
A process nobody follows isn't a process.
- Build it · Stop 13 · Audit day ★
When does an assessor get most out of visiting a job?
No work, no evidence.
- Hand it over · Stop 1 · As-built
Forty design drawings get an AS BUILT stamp in one afternoon. What's wrong?
Drawn is not the same as built.
- Hand it over · Stop 3 · Manuals and asset data
The escalators arrive with 40 PDFs, and the maintenance team needs serial numbers. What should the order have asked for?
Ask for it when you order, or chase it for ever.
- Hand it over · Stop 4 · The safety file
A year of safety information gets put together in the last week. What's better?
Last-week files are made of whatever the inboxes cough up.
- Hand it over · Stop 5 · Signed out, signed for
Handover is Friday, and the plan is to send all 2,000 files. What should the client get?
2,000 files is not a handover. It's a search problem.
- Hand it over · Stop 5 · Signed out, signed for
What is the asset information the client keeps?
The project model serves the job. The asset model serves the next fifty years.
- Hand it over · Stop 6 · It's all on the drive
The job's handed over and everyone moves on. What's left to do?
Left on the drive, it gets tidied away before the defect claim arrives.
- Hand it over · Stop 6 · It's all on the drive
A supplier finishes and leaves, but can still log in. Problem?
An open door is still an open door after the job.
- Hand it over · Stop 6 · It's all on the drive
Bad information is costing the job a fortune, and nobody can say how much. Why?
What nobody measures, nobody fixes.
- Use it · Stop 2 · One year on, and five
One year on, why does the as-built Drawing 042 matter?
The job ends. The asset doesn't.
- Use it · Stop 2 · One year on, and five
Five years later the owner needs to repair a drain. Where should they look?
The handover is how the owner remembers the job.
- Use it · Stop 3 · Lessons into the next bid
What should the next bid take from this job?
The line ends where it started.
- Use it · Stop 3 · Lessons into the next bid
Who uses the project's information for longest?
A year to build it. Decades to run it.
Marking your answers…