Monday, February 7, 2011

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



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