Projects are the essence of human collaboration to accomplish great things for the benefit of society. It is not possible for one individual to build really big things, without it taking a very long time. Everyone’s individual contribution adds to the greater good of projects for the greater good of society. 

As projects progress, they form their own culture and environment based on the people that are involved, almost like separate living, breathing things. In a lot of ways, projects need to be nurtured and grown so that they survive and thrive. Projects become like a small society for a short period of time where a bunch of wicked-smart people come together to add their collective wisdom to accomplish huge tasks.

SpaceX is a great example of human collaboration to achieve great things. Rocket science is not easy, as the saying goes. Imagine if the propulsion group didn’t get along with the attitude determination and control group, with one group thinking they are the most important part of the project, their way was the right and the only way to make things work. There is no way SpaceX would ever get a rocket to fly. Instead, all subsystems (and all project groups) need to efficiently work together to get the rocket off the ground.

However, there are a lot of divisions within the construction and commissioning industry – there does not seem to be a lot of compassion. The industry is largely made of tough individuals with many years of hard-earned experience on-site with battle scars to prove it. These are tough people that have survived a lot of hardship and have developed a tough shell to withstand such a harsh environment. We need these individuals with hard-earned experience as the experts with hands-on knowledge, but we also need individuals to open up a bit and allow others in so that we can have a collaborative discussion and gather everyone’s collective wisdom to contribute to the best possible project outcomes.

Contracts naturally define this fracture between groups right from the start. Contracts draw the line between each group and define how the project is split up between design, construction, and commissioning (or often contracts don’t define these lines very well, with everyone having their own interpretation/misunderstanding of what their role is). Regardless, through all stages of the project, and particularly during commissioning, the project team can only act as one team. During commissioning, all the pieces of the project must work together as one functional system. And this is only possible when the project groups are also working together as one project team. The reality of this becomes glaringly evident during commissioning. If project groups have not been working well together prior to on-site commissioning, they will certainly not work well when collaboration is even more critical during commissioning. And when the project groups are not working well together, then how can we expect the equipment to work well together as a system?

Projects can get lost along the way. People are what make projects successful. But bad behaviour on projects can also make them unsuccessful.

Below is a recent example I saw of bad behaviour from someone who works on projects.

Professor Bent Flyvbjerg’s recent book “How Big Things Get Done” has been receiving lots of positive feedback on the approach to projects and how we can achieve better outcomes on our next project challenges. Prof Flyvbjerg’s message is encouraging to help spread a positive message for better project outcomes.

However, I have seen negative comments online with regard to his message. The example I saw was “What projects has the professor actually worked on?”. These types of comments are discouraging to see, because these are from people that work on projects. Professor Flyvbjerg’s message is a positive one, providing knowledge and information to help people achieve better results on our projects. Everyone should want this on projects. But then to see comments like this trying to knock him down, this is frustrating.

These types of comments in the construction and commissioning industry are common online. I regularly get similar comments on the topics I have published online. Negative comments online are typical in all industries, but it is more disturbing to see in the construction and commissioning industry, because these comments are from people working on projects, people that are supposed to be working collaboratively within project teams, and people we need to be able to depend on in a team environment to accomplish great things. But these comments and behaviours indicate these people have other agendas than to work productively on a team to accomplish great things. 

It is not helpful when we point fingers at each other and blame other groups on projects. There is no place for egos on projects. When projects are the essence of collaboration to achieve great things, egos get in the way of working together to achieve amazing results. Instead of throwing stones at each other, we need to approach projects from a place of compassion to work together to accomplish great things together. It’s almost like projects need an ego-filter, and the individuals that only want to add negative comments and take others down need to be filtered out of projects. Human misbehaviour is often the root cause of issues on projects, when instead groups need to be helping each other be as successful as they can be, because this is the only way for the entire project to be successful.

For some reason, there are many big egos that permeate the construction and commissioning industry, with lots of strong personalities that are only interested in obtaining their gains, rather than also contributing to the project’s best interests. A past project I worked on always used the term “best-for-project” decisions, which I took to mean nurturing the “living-breathing” project and fostering its growth for successful completion. A best-for-project mindset is a great way to think about projects, to ensure that decisions being made on projects are truly in the best interests of the intended project outcome, rather than protecting individual interests or attempting to inflate egos.

When we see negative comments online from people that work on projects, this is not a good reflection of the industry. These are the people working on projects that influence the project’s outcome and the people that we need to work with collaboratively. But when their approach is to take other people down, rather than empower all people to be successful, this is a very difficult environment to work in to make projects successful.

Now I get it, the industry isn’t going to all of a sudden open up and find a way to achieve better project outcomes, this will take time. We do need to keep working together to break down the barriers on projects and find better ways to have everyone contribute their best knowledge and skills to achieve great things together. Any fracture between the groups working on projects is not the best for the project.

Commissioning is a good representation of the project environment. When people work well together and everyone is focused on the end-goal of the project through all stages, this is reflected in how well the equipment works together during commissioning. If the instruments are not communicating with the automation controls, this can reflect systemic issues of miscommunication between design, installation, and commissioning groups. When everyone is making best-for-project decisions, system integration goes much smoother, it becomes effortless for all pieces of the project to communicate with each other, and much easier to achieve the project’s end-goal. When egos get in the way, fractures exist between project groups, then integration during commissioning becomes a nightmare.

Now, all this to say that projects are living, breathing things with their own temperament and their own personalities (project culture). Allow the project to become mean and hostile, with egos getting in the way, and you’ll see the results of this during commissioning. Foster a healthy and collaborative project environment where everyone is working well together and commissioning will be the most fun and exciting, almost magical experience, to see the great inspirational outcomes of human achievement.

What this all boils down to is strong leadership. When the project leaders set the tone of the project, and hold everyone accountable within the project culture that is being fostered, then the human race can achieve great things. When average or poor leadership is allowed to exist on projects, everyone on the project suffers, and the living/breathing project suffers as well. It takes a strong leader to check their ego at the door and lead large groups of people on projects to achieve great things. In fact, this is probably too much for any one individual to take on (except for the very few that come to mind, you can probably think of some of the big names in the media). Projects instead need a strong group of leaders to hold each other accountable, and to hold the project team accountable to maintain the project culture.

I’ve always approached projects from a point of collaboration. I learned a long time ago that the only way for the equipment to work well together is when the people are working well together.

When people don’t want to reciprocate that collaboration through, that is when projects get frustrating. And when it comes to commissioning, this is too often the case. The commissioning team has lots of great input that we want to share. But when we are excluded from talking to the design groups early in the project while design packages are being prepared, or when construction groups are allowed to be bullies on-site dictating what will and will not take place during commissioning, this minimizes the role of commissioning on projects, and we don’t feel heard. Our ideas to help improve projects are ignored and we are not given the opportunity to collaborate with other groups on the project. Again, a strong leader will foster a collaborative project environment. But if other groups are allowed to dominate and are the only voice heard on projects, the living/breathing project suffers in the end.

We’re not going to be able to stamp egos and bullies out of the projects industry. There are all types of people in all parts of society, including on large project teams. And despite everyone’s best efforts to screen out this behaviour to get the right people in the right project roles, people will still end up in a role that is maybe not the best fit for them. Don’t get me wrong, there is a role for everyone, but sometimes there is a misalignment between the person’s skillsets and the role they are assigned.

The next best thing is then strong project leaders that are able to address these situations to re-assign individuals to roles better suited to them and to minimize this misbehaviour. As well, better contracts are required that can be used to limit this misbehaviour, by any group on the project, as a tool to ensure everyone is working collaboratively.

A Quote from “How Big Things Get Done” is Projects need the right people on the bus – in the right seats – in order to be successful. This summarizes project team collaboration well. Too often though we see that the HR Managers have more authority on projects than the Project Managers do, and people remain in the wrong seat on the bus for too long. When this occurs, the living-breathing project suffers.

Commissioning can act as the barometer for how well your project team is working together – the success of commissioning reflects your project team dynamics. But because the success of commissioning isn’t realized until the end of the project, the barometer reading is too late. You, therefore, need to be proactively engaging in commissioning in all stages of projects, starting right from the beginning before contracts are awarded.  This ensures a healthy team collaboration through all stages of the project to be able to make best-for-project decisions in the best interests of the living-breathing things you are trying to create using the best of human collaboration you have established to create great things. Start with the end in mind and your project team can collaborate at the highest levels possible to create great things for society.