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Category: Projects £15-25m Name: Mike Fincham ACIOB Company: PCM Management Project: Ikea Lakeside, West Thurrock Contract: JCT Construction Management 2002 |
This major rebuild project in a live retail environment where the client would not tolerate any negative sales impact from the works needed a diplomat to keep the client onside and a motivator to maintain construction impetus in the face of an unnerving amount of client-driven change. In Mike Fincham, it had both.
Ikea wanted to roll out mezzanine floors in as many stores as possible before a change in planning law came into effect, so the programme for this project was aggressively fast-track. And early on the client asked for the programme to be pared down even further – from 75 to 60 weeks.
The biggest hurdle in programme acceleration was the customer tunnels that ran through the work areas to give customers access to the live store. They divided the site and greatly restricted access for plant and materials. Mike accordingly decided to use conveyors and pumps to move materials over the tunnels, to make each phase of the works bigger, and to erect hoardings-on-wheels.
Just as importantly Mike acted as a single conduit for the retail side, protecting the construction team as much as possible from issues that could frustrate and demotivate.
The vast amount of change was probably the biggest issue of all. There were constant alterations to racking layouts, with the result that areas has to be rephased while they were still being constructed.
Mike also ended up having to fit out an offsite warehouse to store stock from store areas temporarily lost to construction. What makes his achievement even more impressive – and installing a new floor across half the store while moving entire departments in a live environment is no mean feat – is how well he dealt with change.
He was always constructive when the retail side failed to deliver areas or elements, and was successful in setting and managing client expectations. He ran regular meetings, structured his communications and kept the documentation clear and simple so the retail team, which was new, could understand the schedule and work activities.
Mike delivered this extremely successful project a thumping 20 weeks ahead of the original schedule and £2.5m below budget, with no loss of business for the store. His leadership quality, superior communication skills, utter dedication, open management style and team-oriented approach made a triumph of what was his first ever project manager role.
