Collaboration in action
I MADE a promise to our members and the communities that we work with that during my time serving you, we will be working hard with all affected parties to address the big challenges facing our industry and profession.
I am encouraged by CICES members and the regions’ support for driving forward the theme of my presidency ‘Adding Value Through Collaboration’.
I had the privilege of attending a joint event between CICES, CIArb and RICS focusing on collaboration in the built environment organised by the regional chairs of these esteemed institutions in Leeds. Most institutions and CICES regions recognise the fact that we can deliver better people and project outcomes by working together.
Chair of our Yorkshire region, Bernice Cowton FCInstCES made the case that CICES operates within its specialist field to advance the art and science of civil engineering surveying and that we can achieve this aim by intensifying our work with other institutions such as CIArb and RICS by supporting the built and infrastructure industry.
CIArb supported Bernice’s call for deeper collaboration by emphasising the point that better collaboration within delivery teams can serve as a form of dispute resolution which compliments other forms of collaborative dispute resolution, such as mediation.
My takeaway statistic was that research has found that 85% of disputes result from human factors which can be greatly mitigated by better collaboration. It is clear to me that we must choose contract forms that allow collaboration to take hold and reduce damaging project delivery behaviours.
The seminar also heard from RICS speaking about the concept of reconnecting with its members, again one of my presidential themes pillars is all about serving our members in a seamless and digital way. It therefore makes sense to continue to drive this common message and make our members membership experience seamless and digital will play a huge part in this.
CICES members can show collaborative behaviour by engaging with value-based decisions in our work environment.Finally, it was great to hear from the chair of Project 13: A New Delivery Model for Infrastructure appeal to our members to support and champion delivery models that encourage alliancing and pooling of resources to deliver complex project outcomes.
CICES members can show collaborative behaviour by engaging with value-based decisions in our work environment and extoling the need for improved management of information (to be clear, information management must be much more than investing in IT packages but ensuring that information flows within teams and systems).
This is just one example of how we will be adding substance to adding value through collaboration theme over the next 12 months and in the future.
Batsetswe Motsumi FCInstCES, President