Elvin Box's blog

Sat 25th February

It was with interest I reviewed the piece in today's Guardian by John Crace on the state of the QS profession. As with all pieces that attack a profession, there will be a response that not all situations are like that and what is under fire is merely the minority report. Well, let's at least listen to the ‘complaints', because all organisations who are customer focused know that is how to improve the ‘offering'.

Yes, in cost management terms, Wembley is a disaster. So too was the Channel Tunnel, the British Library and the Scottish Parliament. Guilty as charged. The QSs responsible displayed an inability to predict out-turn costs of these projects. The thing is, was it actually possible to do so?

Crace stated that QSs get it so wrong because of their belief that "everything can be bought for the best possible price, that the sun will shine 24 hours a day and that everything will fit perfectly". OK, a tad over the top, but it is satire after all. That said, as with all lampooning, it is not a million miles away from the truth.

The QS profession, and the rest of the industry in fact, have to get with the script. We can no longer manage our major projects like grandad used to. In any way, shape or form. The scenery has changed. The world is dynamic, complex and fast paced.

The QS profession, and the rest of the industry in fact, have to get with the script. We can no longer manage our major projects like grandad used to

Elvin Box, QS News blogger

The level and type of control that could be exercised in those bygone days will never work in today's technological world where change occurs almost in a instant and not over a generation.

What sends major projects into a tailspin as a cost management exercise is the ability of those involved to make changes at speed with the assistance of technology, while we are all still desperately attempting to dog them over the line with, at the end of the day, basic manpower. Lets face it, the recent headlines on Wembley have been about how many men are working so many hours to get the state of the art stadium finished. There is a serious imbalance there, don't you think?

What are we to do? We need to get better at change overall. In fact these days it is constant transition. ‘Change Programmes' per se are just off the mark. We need to manage chaos and complexity, not try to control it. To do this successfully we need a far greater appreciation of the phenomenon itself. We need to get better at integrating the project team so all appreciate the problems that one another faces with a Wembley type project. We also need to be far more realistic when managing the expectations of our clients.