Any developer or project manager worth their salt will tell you that team work makes the dream work. When undertaking a new townhouse or unit development project be sure to look out for these three things in your consultant team.
Undertaking a development is no small feat and involves the coordination of many moving parts. For your next townhouse development you might need a team that comprises of architects, engineers, town planners, lawyers, and real estate agents, just to name a few.
While each of these parts play an important and often specialised role, they are ultimately all small parts in a bigger moving machine. A specialist consultant should understand this, and strive to provide their advice within the appropriate wider context so that their project manager is best equipped to make judgement calls within that wider context.
Yet, many specialist consultants fail to realise their role and end up inadvertently becoming bottlenecks or impediments to successful project delivery. These are three things that you should look for in your next consultant team (engineering or otherwise).
#1: Proactive Communication
Does your consultant actively communicate with you regarding your project status or are you left constantly following up with them?
Your specialist consultant should realise that they are only one of many moving cogs, and that the project manager has the unenviable task of keeping all those cogs moving.
Those who do this well will make sure that they are actively communicating their progress with you, and discussing potential future road blocks well ahead of them becoming bottlenecks.
#2: Timely Project Delivery
Does your consultant deliver on the expectation that they have set regarding delivery or are do the goalposts seem to constantly be moving?
Nothing is harder to manage than the ever extending deadline. Or worse, a deadline that everybody knows is simply not achievable. As a developer of project manager, you should look for a consultant team that can provide you confidence that your project deadlines will be met.
You should look out for a consultant that has a systematic approach to their delivery with built in redundancies to ensure that they are able to deliver what they say they will deliver when they say they will deliver it.
#3: Contextualised Advice
Does your consultant frame their advice in the context of your development or are you left to figure out how their advice impacts you?
Even the best developers and project managers have blind spots, but having a consultant team that takes a wider perspective to their scope of work can help to identify and eliminate these blind spots before the become real issues.
You should look for a specialist consultant who understands that their value lies in more than their specialist contribution, but also in their understanding of the entire townhouse development process. These consultants are able to frame their specialist advice in a relevant context.
Making the Dream Work
When talking to a new potential client we will often ask if they have a consultant that they are happy with, and works well as part of their team. If the answer is yes, then our wholehearted advice is to stick with them. We know how hard it is and how important it is to find a consultant team that works.
Unfortunately, we find that more often than not, consulting specialists are more specialists than they are consultants. And while they may be technically sound, they lack the right perspective, and end up leaving substantial project value on the table as a result.
If you are looking for structural and drainage design engineers for your next unit, townhouse or multi-dwelling development, please get in contact with us so we can provide you with a comprehensive fee proposal for our services. We look forward to partnering with you on your next project.
