Creating a building; 4/5ths gobbledygook!

You decide to commission someone to write a book.

A novel, a biography, gardening book.

There are 5 stages to the process:

1.       Collecting ideas

2.       Drafting, clarifying;

3.       Revising, defining, detailing;

4.       Editing, proofreading;

5.       Publishing

The process unfolds as expected, with ups-and-downs....

At the end, you have the book.

A bit later than expected, a bit more expensive than expected, nevertheless, a book.

In a similar situation:

You decide to commission someone to create a building.

A house, a school, a town hall.

There are 5 stages to this process, named differently but not too dissimilar to creating a novel.

This process turns out to be quite different...

Stages one to four: gobbledygook, finishing stage: finger pointing, hand-wringing and anguish.

At the end, most of the time, you end up with a building.

A bit later than expected, a bit more expensive than expected, nevertheless, a building.

So, anything to worry about?

You fund parties to produce waffle through 4/5ths of the process.

In the past, rising building ‘values’ made this process tolerable.

The bubble burst, the figures no longer work;

Not convinced? Have a look at the sample reports I linked in; 2 projects, a stage 5 and a stage 2;

Both are woefully under documented, full of gibberish.

Why did the clients tolerate this? Were there fully aware of this happening?

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DAOTVmMTljODAtZjk1Zi00OTU1LWI5ODEtNjU2OGZiNGJhNzEz&hl=en_GB&authkey=CKrgyv4C

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4GF8MRLb0DAZjU5MTNhMDYtOGI0OC00ZGRiLWJkNzAtZTIxNzgxNjdlYTI5&hl=en_GB&authkey=CIvLqfQD