Name: John Daltrey
Employer: Wates Interiors
Project: Telecity Powergate, Acton
Contract: JCT 2005
Technically challenging but presenting no major problems was a confident John Daltrey’s initial assessment of this project. By the end of day one that optimism had disintegrated.
Informed by the client on the day the project commenced that it had terminated the appointment of the M&E consultant, John faced the bleakest of prospects. Datacentres are about services; they directly affected 70% of the works packages of this project, and indirectly all the rest. With no M&E design, neither budget nor programme could be finalised, yet both were crucial for the client, undertaking its biggest ever project for a flagship building.
Determined to resolve these critical issues, John realised that unless he offered the clearest direction the project had no chance whatever of succeeding. He immediately set about developing a fast-track strategy and getting the professional team and supply chain to buy into it.
Programme was the biggest worry. John split the job into an initial enabling phase followed by fit-out. It allowed him to progress the demolition works, construct the external plant rooms and install a new mezzanine deck while the services were being redesigned. Even more importantly, he won the client’s agreement to awarding the fit-out to Wates, putting John in charge to manage the design to meet the requirements of the construction programme.
Having got the project off the ground, and progressing a build strategy that held out a realistic prospect of success, John then outdid those achievements by a masterly display of change management. The client altered the phased handover sequence, leaving John to find ways to procure the required steelwork to suit all parties and further accelerate an already challenging programme.
Revisions to the building fabric then pushed the start of the fit-out back by four weeks. And when the fit-out did begin, it was marked by 450 requests for information. John, though, proved equal to the challenge. He made the critical decisions that maintained a safe working environment on a tight site while increasing staff levels and working hours to accelerate the programme.
He released the first phase of the project a frankly miraculous six days later than originally planned. And despite many direct orders for further works, he completed the concluding phases as programmed.
Value: £34.9m