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The Importance of Understanding the Mediation Process

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Disputes are not uncommon within the building industry. Mediation is a process by which these disputes can be resolved without recourse to the courts, an action which can be both time consuming and expensive. The mediation format is structured to encourage open communication between the parties in dispute.

When a dispute cannot be resolved internally the issue can be directed to the courts, but there are also other alternatives:

Ensuring Environmental Compliance Through Planning

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Environmental compliance is an important issue. It applies to construction worksites, building companies and contractors who must adhere to all current legislation.  The penalties for breaches of environmental law can be severe and land you in court (with even accidental breaches possibly resulting in prosecution).

Ignorance is no defence and everyone in your business is responsible for minimising risk and being aware of the issues relating to your business and the site.  Compliance is achieved through a comprehensive approach which involves:

Achieving Success by Programming Your Project

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The success of any building project depends upon how it is managed from beginning to end. A project plan is an invaluable tool in the initiation, continuation, and delivery of any project, with wide ranging benefits, such as:

  • A timetable of tasks to be completed;
  • Resource requirements diarised;
  • Milestones to work to;
  • Flagging of statutory building inspections.

Such a program helps management to work on the project rather than in the project.

Site Establishment

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Effective site layout has an understated effect on workforce morale, and directly flows through to site productivity. On top of this, a well-designed and properly maintained site is rewarded by client recognition of professional management and high quality work.

This course examines key areas of site establishment, including:

Meeting Management

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Meetings are an integral part of any business or work environment, and as such it’s important for you to understand what a meeting is and how to use to your advantage. While they form the basis of much communication, particularly in the building industry, they can also be time wasters, taking you and others away from productive tasks and producing little of value themselves.

Because of their paradoxical nature, Meeting Management is the ideal course to ensure your meetings are never counter-productive. Objectives include establishing:

Creating a Partnership Approach

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For anyone managing a project, it’s imperative to create an understanding and transparent working relationship between all involved parties. Your success depends upon your relationship with the client, builders, and stakeholders.

Creating a Partnership Approach will enable you to foster the relationships to guarantee successful project outcomes. Core components of this course include:

Quality Management Assurance for Builders

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As a builder, it’s vital to monitor quality control. Your reputation depends on the quality of the work – plus you want to avoid having to return to a client to fix work

 

Quality Management (QM) is a management technique to help determine quality policy, objectives, and responsibilities. Its core components include:

 

  • Quality planning
  • Quality control
  • Quality assurance
  • Quality improvement

 

Understanding Your Business With Greater Clarity & Setting Growth Goals

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One important but often overlooked task is understanding your business better. Specifically, the goal is to identify your personal and professional targets. The key is a type of “retreat” where you take time away from the business to set some core objectives. Having a clearly defined goal is a key to success in business as a builder – whether you’re just starting out or you have years of experience.

Once you have these goals clearly set, you can become more efficient, avoid bad clients, and become more focussed on the end result.

 

Successfully Handling Variations

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In this blog series we detail the theory and application of scope management. In our last 2 posts we looked at Scope Management and Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), and this final post of the series introduces the key elements of scope verification and variation management.

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