4 Ways to ‘Client’ your Professional Team Well

Appointment is the start…

Procuring the right consultant team in the right way is the start of the development cycle for client organisations, rather than the end. However, your new team doesn’t arrive in a magic box, work away quietly for a few years and give you exactly what you want at the end of the process. If only it was that simple!.

Instead, your team needs to be ‘cliented’ successfully with clear leadership, support and direction from the in-house ‘client’ team or others doing so on their behalf. That includes removing roadblocks, taking effective decisions and recognizing that projects require ongoing collaborative problem-solving from the client, consultant and contractor teams to be delivered successfully. Having the funding, finance and land for development really is the minimum price of entry.

So how do you start leading the team as a non-expert? This post offers 4 tips to ‘client’ your consultant team with success today.

1. Be Proactive

Don’t wait for your team to find the problems and their solutions. Instead, a good ‘client’ is highly proactive at removing road blocks and maintaining that momentum over the development cycle.

That means sorting our problems early so your team and project don’t have to pause while you sort it out later instead.

For example, if the site has a potential ransom strip, don’t wait for planning permission stage to resolve it given the opportunity for the adjoining owner to object and possibly injunct. Instead, have a surveyor approach them early to come to an arrangement (subject to planning permission) so you and your team can proceed with confidence instead.

It also means taking advice and commissioning information directly to avoid delay. Instead of requesting your team to procure all surveys and investigations after appointment, a proactive client team will commission mainstream surveys directly while the team is being procured. If highly specialist surveys and investigations are required later on, the professional team can then help define the scope while the project work continues unencumbered.

2. Minimise Conflict

While conflict cannot be avoided in some situations, it is exhausting and time consuming for everyone involved. Instead, a good client minimises it with good documentation, effective decision making and clear direction.

Appointment documentation should be clear on roles and responsibilities, outputs, programme and fees. Plus, a strategic project brief needs to be clear so the team have a clear direction of travel for design stage. Written well, a good brief is not only beginning with the end in mind, it also demonstrates how success will be measured in year 1, 5, 10 and so on.

Programmes also need to factor in client-side governance and decision making requirements as the project progresses. Some organisations make decisions at executive level (which takes time), before direction can be provided to the consultant team. Communicating this from the outset fosters greater collaboration between parties.

3. Confirm and Challenge as you Go

As the consultant team present design, cost and other technical information, the client-side team needs to review and engage with relevant internal stakeholders to obtain comment. Holistic feedback must be provided in a timely way, allowing the team to refine matters on an iterative basis while maintaining programme.

Raising queries and asking questions is a key part of exploring, confirming and challenging assumptions from a client perspective, particularly over the design stages (RIBA 1-4) when it is easiest and cheapest to make changes. Some client organisations may have experts in-house to provide technical review support as the development cycle advances, while others will appoint Client Advisors to do so instead.

Requesting documentation in advance of a session with your team is a great way to be more effective, as its gives you time to compose your feedback and discuss it in the live session instead. Plus, ensuring any Client Advisor review points are picked up on the programme helps everyone understand your process as a client.

4. Leadership

One of the biggest challenges when delivering projects in client-side environments is having no management remit over stakeholders, partner organisations and supply chain partners.

Instead, you need to foster a leadership approach where you influence, cooperate and engage with others to get things done and fall back on contract terms when all else fails.

That requires professionalism, collaboration and open-mindedness from everyone involved so that helpful solutions are found to the problems that emerge. When people begin to interact genuinely, they are open and gain insight which leads to new solutions because of their collaboration.

Valuing contributions from very different people drives great projects. Development projects are full of unknown challenges but when all contributions are valued, innovative solutions emerge. Sameness and uniformity leads to group-think, low inventiveness and a fear of pushing the envelope, so lead and collaborate instead.

The learning Never Stops

Successfully ‘clienting’ your professional team takes time, skill and experience. For a team to perform well, the client-side team needs to get ahead and stay ahead so they can steer, collaborate and support them effectively at every turn. Doing otherwise risks a difficult project journey with programme delays, non-performance issues, fee disputes and termination situations that may significantly delay your project or, even result in failure.

Alvy Projects provides Client Advisory and Development Consultancy services to client organisations from inception to completion. Expertise include project brief preparation, design team management, and client advisor services. Why not contact us today to discuss your requirements?