Doing it Differently: Systems for Rethinking Construction

"This is a serious and impressive work...It will help those who are committed to changing the industry to create structures to do so, whether in one area or in totality. It offers a whole range of powerful tools, which will be particularly useful to those with the personal drive to apply them to rethinking construction. It is packed with examples that help to flesh out a rigorous analysis of how the industry can improve." David Fison, Kvaerner Construction This informative and practical book provides numerous tools, techniques and case studies that will help those motivated to change the way things are done within the construction industry. It explores the rapidly changing expectations of the clients of the construction industry and includes the development of a tool kit to help make a difference. It also encourages both clients and Industry to explore the concepts outlined in the Government's Report Rethinking Construction, and helps develop its basic ideas focused on the customer process and people. Winner of the CIOB Author of the Year Award 2000

Table of Contents:
Preface Part 1: The need to do it differently Meeting the challenge Part 2: Thinking differently Focussing on process Finding leverage Hardand soft Practical foresight Part 3: Making the difference Business cases Managing the team Managing the life-cycle Looking to the future Reviews This is a very unusual book. In every respect it is worthy of our serious consideration. Just as Egan has challenged our industry to seek new, better means of delivering our products to the market-place, this book challenges us as individuals to seek to `raise our game’ in the way we do our work.The authors are an interesting team. David Blockley manages to combine leading Bristol University’s Department of Civil Engineering with a healthy degree of involvement with industry – as well as being a Vice-President of our Institution, whereas Patrick Godfrey of Halcrow is one of the leading edge thinkers in the UK construction industry, working with a range of major clients. They originally worked together developing approaches to risk management and their partnership has flowered into a wide vision of how new techniques can be used on our projects.The resulting publication is not adequately described by the word `book’. What you get for your money is in fact a manual, a programme of learning which will challenge you and set you thinking your own thoughts about ways of rethinking what you do. This is not for the faint-hearted; there are about 300 pages of A4 text to work your way through – and that’s what you have to do, as the text is a journey which takes you on a logical profession from one set of ideas and techniques, to the next. To give you a flavour of the topics covered, here is a small selection: Integration of purpose and people with process Understanding `process’ Holistic thinking Hard systems and soft systems Use of `the Italian flag’ Analysis of `engineering’ wisdom and judgement Team working Use of `time boxes’