In the first newsletter, we talked about the problems of our sector. In this episode we will talk about what we are seeking for, what is the description of sustainable success and what we mean with “agility” and “agile construction”.

What is Agile or Agility?

According to Cambridge Dictionary, Agility means:

“The ability to move quickly and easily. And also, the ability to think quickly and in an intelligent way.”

According to Einstein,

“the measure of intelligence is the ability to change”.

So, if we combine these descriptions, we can say, agility means intelligence.

The common description of agility as a management approach refers to:

“the capacity, flexibility, and ability to adapt to change quickly and efficiently.”

Using all these descriptions together, I’d like to describe agility as follows:

“Agility is thriving the business creating opportunities in change and uncertainty.”

And there are two basic elements in it, one is external, and the other is internal:

• The external pillar is tracking the changes in customer demands and all other external conditions influencing the business and developing the business accordingly, and
• The internal pillar is creating a smart, constantly improving, self-organizing structure within the organisation, to ensure reaction rapidly in an intelligent way.

So, when we say “agile” in this series of articles kindly refer to this description. All values, principles, tools and practices will be evaluated for their contribution for true agility of an organization.

By the acceleration of change and developments, the traditional way of working, which had evolved by the Industrial Revolution for mass production of simple products by former slaves, became an impediment for surviving of companies. So, pioneer industries and companies started to seek a way to survive and thrive amid change engaging their new employees. They started to learn from the successful startups and new generation entrepreneurs’ which have fast reacting attitude in change.

Agile Management:

When we are talking about agility, we must separate the topic in two basis:

• Agile Companies and
• Agile Project Organizations.

Though the mindset is the same, the practices differ in somehow especially for the construction industry. In this series we’ll be mostly talking about “Agile Project Organizations” and “Agile Project Management”. Because once you trigger agile transformation in one of your projects, you’ll start to think how your organization can become entirely agile like a network of self-organized teams even companies and leap to other relevant industries.

Agile, as a project management approach has started at the late 1990’s and early 2000s where the Information Technology Projects started to evolve, but it was impossible to manage them with old-school management mindset and tools. Some of the pioneer project managers stared testing some management attitudes more proper for the situation. In 2001they came together and  agreed on four basic values and 12 principles: “Agile Management and mindset” gained a formal status with publishment of this Agile Manifesto and 12 principles. (www.agilemanifesto.org )

AGILE MANIFESTO

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software/product over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on
the right, we value the items on the left more.

You may find the 12 principles from the website (www.agilemanifesto.org), but please, keep calm before objection or support, just keep informed and try to grasp the spirit of that time. Because we are trying to understand agile management with our traditional standpoint, our grasping about Agile Manifesto and principles will change as we evolve on the path of agile transformation or agile maturity. In the end you may have still objections, also that is part of being agile, because it was the description of those times and conditions, of course it may need reconsideration. But it is still worth to be considered and well understood because every letter has been written with deep consideration.

On the other hand, there are some companies though they are not aware of “Agile Manifesto” they developed their own agile way instinctively.

Agile Construction:

Let’s start with the definition of success. Most of us define success of project management as realizing a construction project scope, meeting predefined budged, time and quality requirements. So, how can you define plenty of buildings don’t fulfil the requirements of residents, users, facility managers or sustainability in all means. So, when we are talking about success of a construction project; we mean lifelong success and sustainability in means of environment, social and cost; ensuring happiness and satisfaction in common basis.

So that’s why agile management is incremental, to test if the solution is satisfying the client, other shareholders, people and meeting other requirements.

In construction industry we have Schematic Design, Design Development, Construction Documents, Bidding Documents, and Construction Administration. We assume that the designers, especially the Architects, can predict everything in the beginning and prepare the design documents meeting all required knowledge.

A Construction Project Organization has a sharp hierarchy, the investor is at the top and the main contractor, sub-contractors, suppliers and mini subcontractors follow downside. How about designers? The position of the designers is not well defined in this sharp hierarchy, people think that design is something that must be completed and frozen before execution, but this is the main misunderstanding, and under estimating. Design never ends in our VUCA World. So, we will start accepting this and stop blaming designers for everything. We define the cost, time, scope and quality requirements during design. Design process deserves more interest. By this means design is not only a designer team’s task, but also a collective effort to gather all kind of knowhow and continues until the end of delivery even still leaving some room for adaptation after delivery for residents. For a construction project lasting 3-4 years from ideation to delivery the conditions, regulations and requirements change. So, we need to welcome all these changing conditions to deliver a successful project.

In this context, Collaborative Contracts and Integrated Project Delivery methods become more common day by day as well as design and build contracts. This is the harbinger of that the investors of global landmark projects demand collaboration for collective design because they don’t pay for waste, and they want really successful buildings. The main issue is that we must find a way to prevent conflict of interest between increasing profit and benefit the project during design and construction.

We are in an era where we have to learn new things and develop new solutions and innovate to adopt and survive. Command and control style management, and trapping knowhow in departments and contract parties don’t help us to innovate. When we say agile we mean continuous improvement and trying new solutions using the collective intelligence for breakthrough innovation.

Now we need a new way of project management to enhance collaboration and unleash and benefit from the knowhow of all shareholders and innovate together. Whatever practices and methods we use, the most important issue for agility is cultural transformation. That’s why it is not a “one size fits all” method. We must digest the values and mindset and implement throughout the whole project organization otherwise; it is a dead investment. If we can ensure trust and transparency and other values of agility, then we can benefit from digital tools and achieve our goals eliminating waste, attracting people to work with us, decrease cost, enhance quality, and meet sustainability goals.