Sense of trust that needs addressing for developers

THE WAY FORWARD: Anwer Sher believes a lack of trust is hampering project progress.

Anwer Sher, General Manager of Escape LLC and Managing Director of EMS talks about the need for empowerment on a project.

Being on the development side of the equation, I believe that I have stumbled on an old truth that many project owners have forgotten: select a good team and then trust them to do the job.

The trouble is that project developers hire top-notch project management companies and consultants, and then tie their hands by not empowering them to make any decisions. In some cases, I notice that there is suspicion of these project managers and consultants, as if they will connive with the contractors. If the selection of the project team is done well, then not empowering them is akin to taking a horse for the Dubai World Cup and then tying up his front legs.

The damage that this sort of incapacitation does is enormous as decisions are delayed, and when made are often reversed several dozen times, while procurement strategies are muddled and conflicted to the point that the project is really handicapped from the word go.

As it is, the process of construction has become more fraught with risks, especially as contractors and suppliers seem to be calling the shots, and this will become more difficult if the management team is unable to get the management to make simple decisions.

There is a litany of inefficiency that has crept into the construction process because of this mentality, which results in frustration and losses.

It would be interesting to do a study of projects where a developer's incompetence and lack of trust in the team has caused problems on jobs. While it is admitted that not all consultants are top-notch and one needs to have a complete and engaging discussion during the selection process of the team, once the selection is done the buzzword should be 'empowerment'.

I also believe part of the problem is that a number of developers have cropped up with bags full of money and nothing more to their standing.

In some cases these marketing-led developers have never even built a telephone booth let alone a complicated structure they selected just because it looked good in the brochure. The fact that such developers sit on top of a project management team where method statements and procurement strategies can be complex and difficult to implement beats me.

But what is the solution? The easiest is to get a course arranged for these developers to understand the roles of all parties, and then, if the message gets through show them practical cases where empowerment of the team was actually a major factor in pushing the project forward and in some cases actually finishing the job on time.

It would be nice if some sort of scoring system came through from the markets where consultants graded the developers in terms of the empowerment they bring to the project.

Unfortunately, because of the exigencies of the business, many consultants get trapped into a project where after a while they realise how ineffective they have become because of the developers' control over the process but they can't walk off the job as it hurts their 'reputation'.

I have even heard developers telling me how they fired a consultant, as he was 'incompetent', when I know for sure where the problem really lay - and this is the risk for project consultants that prevents them from walking away from incompetent developers' projects.

If the market is to have an impact, my sincere advice to the developers is to trust their team and see the results.

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