Tag Archives: PQQ

Three reasons to give your PQQ and Bids an independent Health Check

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One: Many PQQ’s and Bids ‘deselect’ themselves through errors and omissions. It is obviously far better for errors, omissions, questions not (fully) answered or formatting issues to be picked up by independent review rather than your client. Don’t throw away valuable points…

 

Two: Make your bid content the best it can be. Make sure your PQQ response is a killer, with compelling evidence, sparkling innovation and best practice awareness.

 

Three: Learning gained with one independent health check can be transferred to future bids, ensuring increased success potential

 

Independent reviews of your PQQ and Bids can be conducted through Fairsnape

 

Simply forward your responses prior to submitting to your client, giving enough time for review and your updating of the bid. In addition to Health Checks, other bid services are available, for example reviews of failed bids, PQQ training and coaching, bid writing and support, along with interview and presentation skills support. Get in touch to discuss more.

 

 


#PQQplus Tips: No 3: Innovative Responses

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In addition to including innovative content and experience in bids, be sure to make use of freely available social media that can demonstrate how innovative and forward thinking your organisation is. 

For example:
  • link to innovative products, processes and or awards for example
  • link to your staff linkedin profiles, in particular your proposed project manager!
  • link to any relevant presentations or slides on slideshare
  • and of course make use of URL shorteners (such as http://bit.ly/) to allow links to be used when the document is printed
Not only will such use of social media show innovative flair, it is for the time being a real differentiator, and makes maximum use of word limits.

However, as with all submissions ensure that content and any links are independently checked, either in house or externally, allowing good time to make amendments and improvements before submitting to your client.

on integrated, clustered project management …

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There have been a good number of conversations on twitter recently in discussing collaborative procurement and collaborative contract management. It is amazing that such a dialogue can take place in just 140 characters at a time, reinforcing the potential of twitter and why there should be more adoption within the built environment for knowledge and improvement share.

 Su Butcher over at Just Practicing blogged on the design and build conversation, and to pick up on that (and to complete a few promises for more information to those in the twitter conversations) here is my contribution, that links together D+B, PQQ,s Clustering and Integrated Project Management

 

opps v costs

 

Early engagement in a project is essential for all parties and stakeholders, to ensure best possible outcomes for meeting client / end users needs, value, quality, time, sustainability, and community impact.  The classic chart opposite that shows opportunities for change (read improvement, or adding value) mapped against cost of doing the same demonstrates the potential of early involvement.

Typically – (I would say historically but I know it is current, and even the term historically adds some kind of respectability to poor practice) the contracting team is not appointed until the brief and design are ready for build. Even worst the project build team is not assembled until after the main contractor and then progressively throughout the construction programme. 

Design Build moves the engagement of the project design and build main players to earlier in the process, often following brief or concept design. This is good yet still leaves these parties out of the brief and out of any value management exercise, where undoubtedly they can add real value. 

Bringing the project design and build teams in on day or week zero can be achieved through mature frameworks and or relationships, along with mature cost and contract arrangements. End users and FM should likewise be part of the early engagement, or ideally there first , engaging the others as the project process drivers.

 

clusters

This leads to an Integrated Project Team, which looks, feels and acts very differently from a traditional project organisational structure. Issues such as co location in one office, shared and seconded staff across the project all add to an effective delivery of value.  But as has been commented in the twitter conversations this approach is rarely practiced to its full potential, and arguably not since Building Down Barriers.

(But see the Highways Agency ECI, Early Contractor Involvement approach)

In addition, whilst the contractor may be engaged at an earlier stage, to add value they really need to engage with their supply chains, ideally adopting clusters around elements of construction. This allows specialist and build-ability knowledge into design, but necessitating. again mature, supplier relationships or ready-to-go (RTG) clusters.

Appointment of the players in this collaborative and integrated model requires careful selection, and arguably cost should not feature at all. Ideally trusted players from previous contracts, ie supply chains or clusters would be assembled, as happens elsewhere in other sectors.  

Such integrated approaches are essential in achieving improvement to predictability of time and cost, adding value and meeting the project objectives.

Pre-Qualification Questions, PQQ’s, interviews, visits, collaborative workshops etc as part of the selection should focus on procuring the designers, contracting,  facilities management teams etc based on such issues as proven approaches to achieving requirements and reducing budget costs through tackling waste in the process. There is estimated to be 30% waste of time, material, effort, documentation management  etc in the overall project process – and so really tackling this can produce far greater savings than through selection on price to get lowest or best value prices.  (But the thread of Higher Costs from Lower Prices is another blog subject!, as is the poorly understood difference between cost and price) 

I guess I should point out that a far amount of my support time to clients, contracts and contractors is spent on facilitating this type of integrated working, or some of the individual components thereof.  

And the interest in this approach?  Well that would appear to be on the increase (at least on paper unfortunately), as, in current economic circumstances, contractors seek approaches that would offer improved value and reduce costs for their clients in an attempt to differentiate them from competition and win work.  

The culture of mistrust and baggage of the industry though really prevents real progress. But, as we cannot fix the problems of today’s industry with the thinking that created the problems – new thinking is required, new thinking in terms of early engagement, integrated, clustered project management.

_______________________

Twitter Conversationists in their own words (twitter profiles) included:

The_Architect : Manchester, UK. Chartered Architect, Music lover. Frank Lloyd Wright expert and a Romantic soul.

LizMale: Buckinghamshire. PR consultant specialising in UK construction and sustainability in the built environment

EEPaul: SE England, London SE3, Woking London-based blogger on IT, SaaS, construction, PR, marketing and Web 2.0 stuff (also a Crewe Alex FC fan, Wikipedian, cyclist)

Fairsnape: Forest of Bowland Lancs UK. Supporting, shaping and commenting on trends, web stuff, improvements and futures in the built environment

Melstarrs: London or Leeds, UK Green Building Design Engineer and Accreditation Professional (CIBSE, BREEAM & LEED)

ConstructingExc: London. Constructing Excellence is the single organisation charged with driving the change agenda in construction, housing and regeneration.

SuButcher: Essex, UK Practice Manager for No-nonsense Architects Barefoot & Gilles. Tweets on the UK Construction and Property Industry, blog at http://www.justpractising.com

Geoffwilkinson: UK Building Regulations Expert, Fire Engineer, Arsenal Fan, Partial to the odd Real Ale

PaulDohertyAIA: Shanghai. New York Architect, Living and Working in Shanghai, China

HotelDesigns: Croydon, Surrey. we are the online magEzine for the hotel interior design industry featuring directory, news, reviews and more!

local authority in peak oil tranisition

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Last week, Somerset County Council voted unanimously to endorse a motion that they become the UK’s first ‘Transition Local Authority’ reported the Transition Culture blog yesterday

What this means is that SCC will take a more integrated approach to its planning processes, putting peak oil, sustainable communities and climate change at the heart of its forward planning, which would/should/will include its construction and maintenance procurement and management.

Is this the start of local authorities adopting a wider and longer term view of sustainability?  It will be very interesting now to see the PQQ (preliminary qualification questionnaire) issues the county ask of its bidders, the selection criteria used in procurement and the performance indicators.  One big impact should be the real focus on local labour, local materials and construction miles.

Just as the built environment sector is (slowly) getting to grips with answering basic environmental questions with in bidding documents, this may not only move the goal posts but put them on a different playing field.  Try addressing a PQQ question along the lines  “What steps have you taken to address peak oil”

At last we may have some real effort in addressing the impact we in the built environment have on the environment and climate change.

As the Transition Culture blog states: Something Wonderful Just Happened in Somerset

The proposal put before the Council ran as follows;

That this Council

  1. Acknowledges the work done by communities in Somerset on Transition Towns and that the independence of the Transition Movement is key to its grass roots appeal.
  2. As demonstrated in its Climate Change Strategy, fully endorses the Transition Town Movement and subscribes to the principles and ethos of the organisation’s goals to reduce dependence on fuel oil and create more sustainable communities.
  3. Commits to providing support and assistance to all towns in Somerset that wish to join this initiative to help them achieve the goals they set for themselves as local communities, as demonstrated under the ‘Community Initiatives’ section of the Climate Change Strategy.
  4. Therefore, requests the Scrutiny and Executive Committees to consider through the council’s strategic planning process; allocating funds to assist in achieving the outcomes of the Transition Towns Movement in Somerset and requiring all directorates to engage with and provide support for Transition Initiatives in Somerset

Through the work outlined above, seeks to become the first Transition Authority in the UK. Agrees to undertake a review of its budgets and services to achieve a reduction in dependence on fuel oil and produce an energy descent action plan in line with the principles of the Transition Initiative.