Megaprojects construction holds a special place in the public imagination, the name conjuring up mystical edifices of spectacular scale and grandeur.  In fact, a megaproject is just as likely to be a government ICT project or a new high-speed railway. A megaproject is deemed to be so if it is valued over $1bn. Increasingly, however, we are sweeping past gigaprojects and entering an era of teraprojects – yet the ‘Iron Law of Megaprojects’ still resolutely holds true: nine out of ten such schemes come in ‘over time, over budget, under benefits’. When such large scale construction reflects budget overruns of billions of dollars, it becomes clear how these grand designs have brought down politicians and project designers in a sadly predictable pattern. Megaproject specialist Bent Flyvbjerg of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University succeeded in identifying four ‘sublimes’ or causes of such disasters.  The technological sublime: engineers are human too! It’s hard not to get caught up in the thrill of creating the world’s highest/ longest/ most advanced, so coupled with the professional kudos that accompanies such high-profile jobs, projects that shouldn’t really have been given the go-ahead are green-lit in a wave of enthusiasm The economic sublime: such large projects on paper can seem to be money-makers – thousands of jobs may be created, boosting local and national economies, creating an optimism bias that doesn’t carry through to reality The political sublime: leaving a lasting legacy for generations to come may appeal to the ego of politiciana, or a vote-winning grand infrastructure project to further their causes. It can be hard to dissuade political leaders from vanity projects or projects that, while impressive in theory, are so technologically complex that few understand what is actually required to bring them to fruition The aesthetic sublime: Designing world-leading projects can blind designers who may be persuaded by the fact that they can do it, without stopping to consider whether they actually should do it in practice To illustrate these pitfalls with real-world examples, we’ve gathered together below a selection of such ‘megafailures’ and explore how they came into being as well as where things went wrong. The Sydney Opera House Perhaps the most famous megaproject ‘megafailure’, the Sydney Opera House is now a globally recognised icon, its mere silhouette representing Australia on the international stage. However, the building’s inception is often held up as a masterclass in project mismanagement. Perfectly encompassing all four sublimes culminating in a megaproject disaster, political will forged ahead with a project that was little more than a sketch created by an architect who had a stunning idea but didn’t get to finish what he started as time and budget began spiralling out of control.  From an initial budget of AUD $7million and a timescale of four years, the iconic building ended up costing AUD $102 million and taking 14 years to complete, the most expensive cost overrun in history, according to Flyvbjerg. That’s quite an accolade to claim, however since its opening in 1973, it has made a considerable contribution to the economy, according to this report by Deloitte, contributing AUD $775 million to the national coffers.   Eurotunnel The idea of a fixed link between France and the UK is not a new one –  indeed, there was a project proposed as far back as 1802. It wasn’t until 1985 however that political will brought the Channel Tunnel as it is today into being. Following the signing of an agreement by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President François Mitterrand, procurement was initiated and work got underway in 1985. Eurotunnel was originally budgeted to cost £4.8bn, however it ballooned to £9.5bn as construction was completed in 1994, seeing cost overrun hit an eye-watering 80%. The overrun was attributed to ‘delays related to “construction cost, equipment delivery and testing problems”, and to changes to the design of the project during construction to increase safety.’ Serious problems persisted even after the project was finished, with the realisation that, rather than the initial estimate of 21 million passengers annual, demand was actually closer to one-third of that figure. Funded entirely by private finance, it took several years and multiple restructurings before the financial situation was resolved. As stated in this case study, ‘In hindsight it is possible that, had design been completed and agreed upon with the IGC before construction started, the project may have avoided some of its financial difficulties. This demonstrates the importance of proper planning and design to the successful delivery of infrastructure.’  Despite the years of financial hardship, however, the Tunnel is now considered a success, with 26% of EU-UK trade passing along its 40m deep tracks. The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) The enormous undertaking to create a modernised, integrated IT system for the NHS in the UK was announced with fanfare by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2002. It was considered the largest civil IT project in the world but would go on to gain notoriety as it stumbled, faltered and was eventually scrapped in 2011. The initial budget of £6.2bn was overrun by estimates of 400-700%, all of it taxpayer-funded, unlike the Channel Tunnel that was wholly funded by private finance.  The aim of the project was reasonable enough – to modernise the systems used by the NHS, such as online patient ‘choose and book’ options, electronic patient referrals, computerised prescription systems and digitising patient records.  However, in a sadly familiar pattern, we see that the writing was on the wall for this project right from the beginning as poor initial planning, rushed procurement and rampant scope-creep doomed the project to failure. Despite a cost of £12.7bn to the British taxpayer, the system that was in place as the project was scrapped was deemed to have brought just £2.6bn in benefits. We would also add as an honourable mention the HS2 railway project in the UK – we can’t yet include it as an example as it is still in progress and who knows what the final reckoning will be, however, as […]

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It’s an open secret in construction progress-tracking, even on major projects, is run to a surprisingly large extent by notes scribbled with pen on paper – as those of us driving the digitalisation of the industry have a tendency to exclaim to anyone who will listen! Excel Spreadsheets do much of the heavy lifting – but these are methods that are far from adapted to the specifics of the job. Perhaps the greatest challenge facing project management working on large projects is keeping of track of what is actually happening right now. Construction is technologically in the dark ages compared to digital advances made in other industries over the past few decades, making accurate status data hard, if not impossible to come by. ‘Over budget, over time…’ When you see how megaprojects are still managed, with vital progress-tracking ‘visualisation sessions’ that last for days on end conducted with Sharpies drawing on A1 flip-charts, it is astonishing that any of these large, highly complex projects ever get finished at all, let alone on time and in budget. In fact, it comes as no surprise that the ‘Iron Law of Megaprojects’ as described by Project Management thought-leader Bent Flyvberg at Oxford University, identifies megaproject delivery as ‘over budget, over time, over and over again’. The figures speak for themselves: ‘Nine out of ten such [mega]projects have cost overruns. Overruns of up to 50 percent in real terms are common, over 50 percent not uncommon’ Flyvbjerg 2014 Working in the dark Enterprise project management is a large, unwieldy beast. With so many working parts, calculating earned value is critical in assessing project progress, yet this can seem like witchcraft without adequate data. When it comes to calculating physical quantities deployed, megaproject operations are pretty much in the dark – money spent by contractors does not equate to actual physical quantities used, yet this and other imprecise methods are accepted benchmarks in the industry.  Progress update frustration Typically, updates originate from the work of QS’s/QC’s and others on the ground making notes while surveying worksites. Back in the office, these notes are then collated with site team records, photographs and spreadsheets, finally going through several iterations before a progress report is ready to be disseminated. The time lag between making notes to finished report could be days, if not weeks. One veteran project manager expresses his frustration that it is not unheard of for him to spend a week just tracking down the right person with the information he needs before he’s even able to begin reporting actual progress. Unfortunately, comments such as this are far from unusual.  Problematic rework levels As a consequence, decisions are routinely made based on out-of-date reports. Schedule-affecting issues may be brought to the attention of clients and project controllers weeks, even months, after they have arisen – by which time it is too late to make useful interventions. Hence the high levels of rework that are part and parcel of large construction projects, with estimates ranging from 4% – 9% of total project cost being spent on jobs that are essentially correcting work already completed. ‘Too late, too expensive’ leads to litigation It comes as no great revelation then, that having so many independent players with their own progress-reporting standards in the value chain almost inevitably leads to litigation. With no single source of truth across the whole project, disputes can end in a ‘he said, she said’ situation with opposing data, again in non-standardised formats, including the understandable biases each bring to the conflict. In 2015, an NBS survey, the National Construction Contracts and Law Survey, discovered 44% of firms had been involved in at least one dispute in the previous 12 months. The leading cause of disputes were time and money – ‘over budget, over time, over and over,’ to paraphrase Flyvbjerg. Access to real-time information alone could drastically reduce the number of disputes in the construction industry, as mistakes can be rectified before they become schedule-impacting problems. Should disputes arise, however, having an objective data source to which both parties can refer with trust and confidence is a true game-changer in the construction industry.  Real time progress-tracking Recognising the progress-tracking pain points experienced in large scale construction projects, Minotro has taken readily available data and developed an innovative method of delivering real-time updates – without the need to invest in an army of extra people or expensive hardware. Minotro is a SaaS solution that’s so easy to use, it’s accessible to practically any stakeholder wishing to gain invaluable instant insights into project progress after just minimal training. Operators from site managers to C-suite execs are able to obtain the data they need, with authorisations to ensure targetted information sharing. Minotro is the missing link to your current scheduling solution. Ask for an online demo to find out more. 

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Minotro is an advanced construction technology solution that allows you to instantly identify, and therefore rectify, bottlenecks to progress on major construction projects. Hours spent in project progress meetings are now just a distant, painful memory, as Minotro’s SaaS technology puts real-time progress updates in the palm of your hand, whenever you need them. With reports and charts that show you what is happening RIGHT NOW, Minotro is a project management game-changer. Find out how Minotro revolutionises enterprise project control

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It’s a truism that the construction industry is a gregarious one, with groups of people on-site working collectively to achieve a common purpose. Large projects, like their smaller counterparts, are comprised of teams working together like a finely-tuned clock, with each individual contributing to a common aim: finishing on time and in budget, all the while creating the minimum waste possible. Collaboration is vital in achieving this goal, but the past year saw huge disruption to the status quo as social distancing and lockdowns were imposed with little to no warning. READ: WHAT NOW – A NEW WAY OF WORKING? Move toward digitalisation For the foreseeable future, construction sites will continue to need boots on the ground. A certain amount of work will always require human intervention. However, the after-shock of Covid-19 has seen a sea-change in work practices around the globe. Our industry was taking its time exploiting the digitalisation that many other industries now take for granted. Specific disciplines had already widely adopted digital solutions, for example, architects have wholeheartedly embraced BIM technology, but the pandemic has delivered a much-needed impetus for the rest of the industry to exploit burgeoning digital construction technologies.  Progress tracking remotely works best if the data received by the project manager is reliable and as up-to-date as possible. Tracking progress has traditionally been a protracted operation. Project managers spent a large proportion of their time sending out RFI’s, hunting down responses and collating information received via Whatsapp, emails, or updates to spreadsheets – that may be in use by several people at once. The project manager’s administrative load was burdensome. Until Minotro came along. Minotro monitors real-time progress in such an easy-to-use, streamlined format, our clients have even found they can reduce the number of project managers required on a project. Time saved in tracking progress is so significant that, for example, one client reduced seven project managers per discipline to just one monitoring overall progress, all whilst working remotely. So, how does Minotro work? A master schedule does not need reinventing, nor are we trying to – Primavera P6 for example does the job perfectly well, hence why it’s in use on the majority of large projects. What scheduling solutions such as Primavera will not tell you, however, is what is happening on-site, at a granular, task level. Nor will it keep you up to date with what is happening in real-time. As a guide for what SHOULD happen, and when, it’s great. Not so useful when you have a superintendent asking about CURRENT progress or contractors pushing for payment based on milestones achieved in the project. In order to track day-to-day progress, many project managers still use Excel spreadsheets or similar generic solutions to keep track of day-to-day movements. These are excellent tools in and of themselves – but not industry-specific and therefore while useful, not fully adapted for the job. This is why Minotro is the answer to any member of the project team’s prayers. Owner, GC, sub-contractors – all stakeholders who have an interest in finishing on time and in budget need Minotro. Project progress gets tracked in real-time without having to make a blizzard of phonecalls, send emails or Whatsapps and then be obliged to sift through all the information they – hopefully relatively quickly – get back. Once the project master schedule is uploaded to Minotro, with commensurate tasks and worksteps agreed, team members on the ground with access to Minotro via an app, such as Quantity Surveyors, are able to update progress in real-time. These updates are visible immediately to whoever has permission to access Minotro’s charts and reports, giving them an up-to-the-minute overview that can also be filtered down to the lowest, granular task level. Progress is also benchmarked against the master schedule, instantly displaying current progress versus where it ought to be to finish on time.  Thus the project manager could be in another location, even another country, yet still have a bird’s eye view of project progress as it is taking place.  The construction industry has been congratulated by the UK government for its swift and effective response to the pandemic and the way it handled the drastic change in working conditions. Remote working in construction makes sense for a post-Covid world too though, with the digitisation of progress tracking one of obvious method of cutting down boots on the ground as well as cutting a hefty admin burden.   Minotro is a game-changer for construction project managers in a post-Covid world.  Find out more about Minotro, ask for a free demo and see how we can turbo-charge your project progress tracking 

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In the normal course of events, any project manager worth their salt would admit matters that hadn’t even occurred to them during the planning stage can derail even the best-laid plans. Unforeseen issues can and frequently do lead to delays that affect budgets as well as final project delivery times. Factor in a global pandemic and predicting the future with any degree of accuracy becomes a fool’s game. With such a collection of moving parts, and the old adage that ‘what can go wrong, will go wrong’ though, it is practically inevitable that disputes will arise. Global cost of construction claims It comes as no surprise, given the scope and complexity of large scale projects, that litigation is frequent and costly – in 2018, the global average value of disputes was $33m, taking an average of 17 months to resolve. With so many dependent factors – complexity of contract, sheer number of parties involved on the build, exponential risk in large projects, as well as pressure to finish on time and in budget – disputes are one headache that everyone could do without. Unfortunately, without the ability to track real-time progress, where potential issues can occur, problems will continue to arise. This study revealed: ‘… the lack of site staff awareness to proactively detect claims, inaccessibility or unavailability of relevant documents, and conflicts which arises during owner/contractor negotiation are all critical problems associated with the process of claim management.’ Whether disputes lead to costly and time-consuming litigation or not, mistakes still have to be corrected. This presents a significant problem for project owners. Studies show that 52% of rework is caused by ‘poor project data and miscommunication’, with between 4-6% the median cost of the project budget being swallowed up by rework – setting right mistakes that were made and not corrected at the time because they weren’t identified amongst the torrent of data generated by large construction projects. Minotro – a single source of truth The solution to many of the problems associated with construction litigation is Minotro – a single source of truth that all parties can trust. This overcomes the ‘he said, she said’ problem where two, or more, parties have their own, often conflicting, sets of data and points of view. Minotro drills down to task level, identifying who’s responsible for task completion, meaning there can be no confusion as to what task was carried out, when and by whom – and therefore who needs to put right any mistakes that have been made. When both parties have the same set of data, disputes are a thing of the past – it’s there in black and white. Reports can be generated at any stage in the construction process. Groups and filters deliver whatever you need, from project-wide reports to granular analysis of just one interest, such as a sub-discipline.   Minotro delivers real-time progress data, so everyone is on the same page at any given moment, helping to smooth disputes by offering incontrovertible confirmation of each task as it was completed. Throughout the value chain, interrogations can be made about progress, and risks balanced. Should unforeseen circumstances arise – a late delivery of cement, weather conditions take a turn for the worse – immediate decisions can be made based on what the current situation is, meaning mistakes can be averted before they become project-critical problems. Independent oversight Minotro is a solution that in itself delivers an objective oversight. However, if the owner so wishes, Minotro can also provide independent, qualified professionals from our global network of industry partners. From project controllers to quantity surveyors, we supply experts who ensure risk is mitigated and costs are controlled while offering an independent vantage-point. Covid 19 has presented many challenges over the past year, however, it has meant that the construction industry has seen rapid acceleration in the growing trend towards digitisation. As the industry recognises that another benefit to digitisation is swift dispute resolution, profit maximised and delays averted, it is only set to become more entrenched in the post-Covid world. Minotro offers the tools to aid ‘collaborative discussions’.  Ask for a free online demo to see how Minotro could benefit your next project

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In a little break from our normal blog service, we thought we’d give you a behind-the-scenes look at one of the funding projects we’ve been working on and what’s entailed in applying for an EU ‘Seal of Excellence’ grant award. It’s a complicated business and we couldn’t have done it without specialist help, however, it may be of interest to those seeking funds in future.  As a construction tech start-up we have already proven our viability, attracting blue-chip clients in the initial phase of operation, and raising capital from private industry investors. These seed investors recognised the growth potential of Minotro’s progress tracking tool in an industry that is rapidly digitising from an historically analogue start. Our vision for the future is to enhance AI capability through extensive investment in R&D, so we responded enthusiastically when the Horizon 2020 scheme was brought to our attention as a possible source of funding.  Horizon 2020 is a European Commission-funded grant programme that has run from 2014 to the final call, in which we participated, in November 2020. The aim of the programme is:  ‘[to place] Europe at the heart of world-class science and innovation, making it more competitive, creating economic growth and new jobs. It offers an open, simple structure for accessing funding in order to remove barriers to collaborative innovation, get new projects off the ground quickly and achieve results faster.’ What is Horizon 2020? The programme encompasses all EU member states and saw almost 4,300 companies in our sector applying for less than 70 awards in this, the final opportunity to apply before the scheme ends and the UK leave the EU.  Detailed proposals are invited, with companies expected to offer a comprehensive study of their intended project. This necessitated an intense few weeks putting together a 30-page document that set out a broad, coherent project outline regarding our proposed use of the grant funds. The proposal detailed work packages identifying the pathway to market, as well as in-depth financial forecasts. Once submitted, there follows a tense time as applicants wait to find out if their proposal has reached the final stage – an invitation to present their project to a panel of experts in order to make final decisions on the awards. Sadly – we weren’t invited to present this time. However, due to the fact that it was the final chance for the UK to enter, as well as the final call for the scheme, the field was extremely full. In the first three years alone of the scheme, a ‘total of 115,235 eligible proposals were submitted […] – representing EUR 182.4 billion of requested EU financial contribution and close to 400,000 applications.’ (Horizon 2020 in Full Swing). We were obviously disappointed not to reach the invitation stage of the competition, however – it was gratifying to receive the EU Seal of Excellence certificate from the international panel of experts. The certificate (above) recognised our ‘high quality project proposal also, along with a recommendation to invest to other sources.’ Although it’s a shame not to have the chance to present our project to the panel, we feel vindicated in our vision and satisfied we were able to demonstrate our project is viable. We are confident we are on the right track and are looking to the future with bags of energy and optimism! If you’d like to find out more about our real-time progress tracking solution, please click the button above

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We have a question. Think back to those halcyon days, when you were a newly minted project manager, eagerly looking forward to a fulfilling career. Why did you choose this profession? Can we hazard a couple of guesses? Reasons why you became a project manager: Working on interesting, stimulating construction projects Satisfaction of seeing a job done well Beating the challenge to finish on time and in budget  Reasons why you hate being a project manager: Meetings Meetings Waiting for answers Meetings Did we nail it?! There is a reason why ‘how’s that deadline working out for you?’ is a common meme circulated amongst project managers of all levels. From small scale to enterprise construction, each have their own challenges. Managing large construction projects with multiple sites and disciplines is a pressurised business, and complex to monitor without an army of people. Using tools not specifically suited to the industry to stay on top of current progress means the task is even more convoluted than it needs to be.  Cutting out all unnecessary steps to get to WHERE YOU ARE NOW leaves you with the reason you started this job in the first place: the immense satisfaction of getting a great project finished on time and in budget. Of course it’s doable, but you need the right tools to help you get there. While construction is a vital part of the global economy, the industry has been slow to embrace the digital revolution. It is still surprisingly common to find tools that were not designed for the purpose in use on worksites. Whatsapp, Excel and emails are still the predominant means employed to communicate job progress, so when the right delivery arrives but on the wrong day, or a team of welders turn up but there’s nothing ready to weld, wading through messages to gain insight into how the situation arose is tiresome, as well as time-consuming. Additionally, this results in only certain members of the team being privy to the relevant information, creating siloed work practices whereby those who ought to be in the loop are, often accidentally, excluded from the paper trail. In the real world, this means a strong blame culture develops, as the absence of one point of truth leads to disputes and finger-pointing. So, what’s the solution? Real-time collaboration across the whole team, with one single source of verifiable data that can be tracked to individual task level, delivering true accountability.  Project progress that can be followed as it is happening, with authorised users able to access the data they need, as and when they need it.  Charts and reports that are updated in the moment, so every stakeholder can see exactly what has been done, what needs to be done, and what are the factors impacting completion. Minotro offers all this and much more. Take the guesswork out of progress tracking, speak to us for a free online demo.

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One of the banes of day-to-day life for a project manager is data – chasing, collating and making it available to stakeholders so they can track progress. It is estimated that up to 40% of a project manager’s time is spent looking for information which arrives in multiple and diverse formats. From these various sources, the data has to be standardised and collated into a coherent whole to be circulated to stakeholders. Then, guess what? The report that is produced is already out-of-date by the time it is in a format that can be circulated.  ‘I wasted nearly a whole day today chasing information on a crucial project task, I eventually got the response I needed but we’re even further behind the schedule now’. Does this quote sound familiar? We’re guessing there are a lot of project managers ruefully agreeing that it’s something they experience all too frequently. The construction industry is suffering from several ailments (leaving aside the current Covid crisis): Blame CultureWhen there isn’t one objective source of data to refer to, a blame culture develops as various parties working on the project keep their own records with no objective source of truth. This can lead to miscommunication at best and costly downtime and missed deadlines at worst, with siloed working meaning there is no view of the big picture everyone should be striving towards together. Adopting a single, centralised source of information means that everyone’s singing from the same hymn sheet and can’t point to alternate data to justify errors. Only seeing half the pictureThe schedule established at the beginning of the project is, more often than not, a wishlist that bears no resemblance to the final picture. We already know that so many megaprojects come in ‘over budget, over time, over and over’ that it is the exception that comes in on time and budget, not the rule. The problem is that the schedule offers an overview of what should be happening and when, but not what is actually happening NOW, down to an individual task level. This means that errors, late deliveries, unexpected weather patterns – any number of occurrences can lead to further delay.  Find out more about megaproject overrun Poor tools for the jobIronically, in a business such as construction which is predicated on deciding the best tools for the job, project management is still shackled with old-fashioned and outdated methods of procuring and presenting information. It is shockingly common to still see pencil and paper on a work-site, in an age when smartphones are ubiquitous. This is changing, however, Whatsapp and Excel spreadsheets still tend to be the norm when it comes to communication and data distribution. While functionally adequate, this is a slow, hit-and-miss method of communication, which translates into scrolling through days of messages to find information, or missing messages altogether, while Excel is simply not fit for purpose for today’s complex construction projects.  What you need is a software solution that offers lean, agile project management, a solution that can tell you exactly where you are NOW. Wouldn’t it be amazing to be able to access information and produce reports instantly, at the touch of a button? To not have to spend all day chasing data, and in fact just get on with managing your project? Minotro does all this and much, much more. Click above for a free demo to see what Minotro could do for you.

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