BYTNAR - TALKS
EPISODE: 002 - STAGE 0 - STRATEGIC DEFINITION
This episode is for people who want to know more about the process of project design and delivery.
If you ask yourself questions:
Where should I start?
What aspects are critical to my project?
What would be the most feasible and viable way of delivering my project?
Am I sure the budget is enough?
This episode should give you a broad idea of where you are at the start of your Architecture Engineering or Construction project. It may transpire that your project is not the best way to spend or invest your money but if it is it will give you a strategy on how to make the most of it.
This is Bytner Talks the engineer takes on construction episode two hi I'm Piotr Bytnar each day I help my clients plan and design building projects through Bytnar limited a Consulting Charter Structural Engineers practice my biggest passion and the Corner Stone on which I've built my business is find finding clever solutions for construction projects I am a chartered structural engineer and a bing software developer so you can rest assured that I will strive to talk about the best practices and the use of new technologies in the industry and if you're embarking on a construction project or are involved in planning designing and building the world around us you'll find this podcast useful this episode is about the first stage in the Reba plan of work to 2020 stage zero the strategic definition welcome back to all the listeners of the first episode released last week where I talked about the process of building project development aka the plan of work thank you for listening to the premiere of this podcast and I'm glad you found my rumbling useful at least useful enough to come back for more also welcome to all the new listeners if you have not yet had a chance to listen to The First episode I would love to invite you to it it starts the conversation on what is the process of building project development by giving you a broad brush overview of it and is an introduction to the next episode episodes in which I'll talk about each particular stage in more detail I must admit that preparing this episode was so much easier after going through it all a week ago for the first time I admit it becomes a little bit of a hidden joy for me going through the process and sitting down with you on a Sunday evening you in the form of a microphone each week to talk about the topics close to my everyday life that is architecture engineering and construction I strive to deliver each and every next episode with Improvement on the quality of the delivery so you can enjoy ever so more engaging material I'd love to say now that the podcast is a smashing hit topping up the podcast charts suppressing Joe r experience and Steven Bartlet the diary of the CEO but it is not I'm proud though that it is being listened to hopefully not only by my relatives and Friends by the way thank you for all of the supports you give me but by The Wider public and Professionals in the aec fields if I were to talk statistics the podcast received an infinite percentage growth in the audience easy to accomplish if it only takes listeners to change from zero to one but since then the increase is in thousands of percent I was told by the industry experts that perhaps going on for over an hour is a little bit too long so I'll try to make it more concise for this one and perhaps break the topics further down if I cannot most of the material is free talking so may go on for a bit longer than necessary but I would not otherwise be able to deliver this to you as it is not for profit and I do it in my per time scripted material sounds great and sharp but I want you to experience me as I am and as you would if you ever picked up the phone to talk with me why do I do it the industry is superbly fragmented with not many experts capable of joining all the aspects together so I hope this podcast will become the glue or at least the information pack if you will for other professionals and clients who embark on the perilous path of the building project delivery I like to keep on repeating that many construction teams are assembled for the first and the last time on any given project and that most investors embark on the construction projects for the first and only time in their lives if listening to my podcast will make any of these groups better informed or at least leads to reflection I'm happy to carry on doing it so without further Ado let me talk about the start of the process stage zero strategic definition [Music] all right so here we go let's get on with it shall we okay well the last week I gave you the broad brush overview of the plan of work the plan of work generally consise of seven stages from 0 to 7 going through strategic definition that's stage zero preparation of brief that's stage one then that's two stages that are pre-design then they are three stages design related which are stage two concept design three spatial coordination four technical design and then we go into the construction which is stage five manufacturing construction and six Handover and it ends up into use and very often demolition or reuse of the structure I like to say that the process isn't really seven stages but eight which usually starts at zero and ends at zero because if we if we do not take all of the lessons learned throughout the process of seven stages and implement it again in this stage zero we we wasting our time we're wasting the we're wasting the breaths on this planet we need to learn on our on our mistakes we need to capitalize on our successes and take it with us for the next projects so today we'll talk about stage zero stage zero in a defines the project objectives including your as a client employer needs what's the business case what will be the Strategic brief for it what are the initial feasibilities feasibility studies for the project we need to establish what you want to achieve what are the constraints and the aspirations of your project or of your business more broadly or your need if you're just a person who needs to build a house for his family or extend a house for his family it is important to direct you to the vast plethora of material available freely online on Royal Institute of British Architects websites which deals with Reba plan of work you can download an a free page showing the whole map of the process with core tasks clearly shown as the platform and the scope of such guidances is very generic and can be applied to many different myriads of projects and there are so many different projects out there that you can be involved in that it is genuinely impossible to put they all in one in one like guidance in one like manual for construction every single office works out their own way of doing things and approaching the tasks every single office w't will never be exposed to all different types of projects but this is the case they don't have to be when you have a framewor of framework of work if you like if you have the plan of work you know what the steps are you can apply them to all different projects and as a Consulting engineer business as a as an owner of the Consulting Engineers business bu who deals with architectural building projects we we very often come across projects we never done before in our life and that's fine because all of the principles we have we have all of the knowledge that we need to we have a great great big library of technical documentation that can assist us in defining all the needs and expectations and risks of Any Given project and this way we can build on our expertise our experience is making our our our practice better and we never shy shy away from The Challenge there very there very many very many challenges even on the projects that that are or seems to come across being simple and something that we do day in and day out there are so many different aspects in any given project including people that are involved in it that can make the whole process more difficult or challenging so River plan of work shows stage she seees stage zero as sort of a question of rud as a rudimentary question if the project is to be a building what type of the building should it be it says that it should take in consideration the whole life cost maintenance everyday operation and even demolition the full life carbon involved in that project post occupancy evaluation for the business case and the client requirements is is also very important it ask you as I said before to review the feedbacks from the stage seven of similar projects so as I like to say the the stages are 0 to0 not 0 to7 because that that stage seven should and will in many good offices give input to Stage zero the one that we're talking about now state zero should identify project risk and opportunities that come from from the investment it should inform on sustainability including social value and its commercial value for the speculative investor as it may not be readily apparent that such can bring better returns you see generally in speculative Investments the return on the investment is the most important marker for for the stakeholders but having said that bringing buildings that are better for the planet better for the people around them make them more successful and command often better value and better return at the end of it it's very important at this stage also to think about procurement strategy how we going to approach it how we going to deliver the project if we don't think about it now we may be doubling doubling the efforts or or not doing enough in order to to satisfy the furest steps the the Reba plan of work shows on the templates several typical approaches to building projects which are traditional tenders one or two stage design and build or management or contractor Le whichever you choose it's good to settle on that matter at the get-go at stage zero as otherwise every every next stage will be misinformed and misaligned with the way you approach procurement I would like to direct you to seek the plan for use guide 2021 or 2020 Reba plan of work overview the both documents available or on on Reba websites the RBA plan of work as it stands with its version of 2020 has been enhanced by the institution of Structural Engineers with their plan of work it shows similar shows shows the process in similar fashion albate divides the stage four into two stages four technical design four and a half production information you'll get to know why once we got to this stage and it comes from and it comes from the business cases of of typical engineering engineering firm and the risk they like to avoid or the risk they like to delegate to someone else at stage zero the the I TR T plan of work calls that an engineer if involved in the definition at this stage he should inform the sustainability requirements of this project the engineer should understand the client's requirements and try to steer the solution into the most sustainable fashion into the most sustain stainable way of execution what I mean by that sometimes the buildings don't have to be demolished sometimes they can be refurbished and the layouts can be changed to accommodate the current need of the of the client sometimes if there is not enough space the building can be extended and there can be stories added to the top of the building or stories added below the ground there's plenty of different form of construction that can be used for the new build things too and there should be assessed for the suitability and that's where the engineer can help at the strategic definition but it's all good and dandy right how does it really work in life well I got several examples for you here which I'd like to talk about ranging from smaller clients to larger clients we start with the typical [Music] horona so whoever you are whether you are home owner landlord manufacturer foreign property investor or public good organization charity or local Council it's almost sure that you will go through the typical stages of the of the buying process which starts at the recognition of the needs or the wants whether it's going to be a need of repair of an Old Road or need to build a new house for the for the family or a manufacturing facility then you go from there to find information about it many of you will end up on Facebook groups maybe LinkedIn when maybe associate yourself with with Linkin professionals who talk about the subjects that you're interested in like my good self and try to educate yourself a little bit more you'll educate yourself about the ways in ways of construction and the way to go with your needs and problem For Better or Worse it may not be as good of an advice as you could get if you employed someone this this part of your process is basically stage zero which you can or may not require help with or seek help with if you feel confident and if you think that Google's got all of the answers and you found these answers and you can think more broadly and see all of the aspects of the projects you have on hand then it's prob fine but if it's not your best place and I must say in my professional career in my experience many many well-versed and experienced professionals do not have this approach do not have the idea of haven't approached the projects from all different avenues that they could so they won't have all of the answers and same with the strategic definition at stage zero there may not be one consultant that you'll need you may have one lead consultant that will help you define many aspects of it but then you may like to involve many of other more specialized Consultants that's good in high level definition give you give you advice and steer the projects into the right way so you see Google as good as it may be that we have the access to the anle Google wealth of knowledge now chat gbt can answers most of our burning questions there's still a lot that may not be freely available online and experiences and the lessons learned from previous projects these are very rarely existent in in the offices per se and offices which which guard this knowledge as this knowledge makes them expert in their fields so you're not you're not going to find it online but you will find it with consultants and once you go through that stage which is information search it's educational stage of your buying process you then can go out and start searching for Alternatives again this stage in the buying process can be helped with by the employment of consultants and then before you move on to to the actual buying decision and in this case it may mean building a building but it may well not as if you go through all of the other stages and use appropriate people they may steer you into completely different direction and show you the capabilities of your existing facilities your existing buildings that can actually accommodate your your problems and needs and from this stage in your buying process you can move on to the further definition and then start into finding people that will actually design and build it but that's that's all about the pr design stage that and that's all about the stage zero stage zero is a little bit Mumbo mumbo jumbo now when I talk about two processes in the same time process of the project definition and the buying process but that's what it is you know you wake up one day with a need and then you need to go through the three stages at least three stages in the buying process which are information search alter evaluation of Alternatives and the purchase the decision whether you want to go for one solution or the other and this three stages of the buying process they are involved within stage zero the strategic definition as understood by the plan of work 2020 I hope that makes sense in a way like looking at a homeowner who who needs to extend on his properties right well you got a growing family and now is a burning question we need that extra room what we going to do what and what can be achievable with your existing house do you need to change anything do you need to invest in a building project do you need to invest in that Artic expansion or a sides extension back extension whatever that may be is that required and if it is are the heights of the floors enough to accommodate your needs or regulations if it is an extension is it going to be considered within the permitted development rights or do you need to go through the planning process and planning application to gain the permission there's so many different aspects of it that may influence whether you you should build or not and if all of the planning issues are not a problem then you may find yourself a construction issues maybe and it may be more expensive to actually build an extension or an addition than to move somewhere else it is very often people's preference to stay where they are as they get accustomed to the way they live to their neighborhoods to their neighbors but that may not be the best solution if there are better better ways forward and if for example you building an extension and it transpires that your existing house has been built on engineered field Feld and it is based on the rough Foundation that's floating on the piles and you'll need the same for your extension which will inevitably costs in the excess of tens of th tens of thousands of pounds to to do is this something that's reasonable to do or is it actually better to move and and find a better place to live and relocate this sort of questions they can be very easily identified at the very very beginning and give you you and this way it can give you a very good start for like typical clients homeowners in B now we we curated a standard service that you can book online which is called the initial advice and it cares for all of this little aspects that you may not think about or struggle to find information about or struggle to find the information that is actually applicable to your house and your circumstance you see with with this service and I don't really like to treat this platform as a sale pitch but that's where we that's that that's what we do we found that very many homeowners as smart as they are and as Savvy they are going to Facebooks and Google beings of this world they still lack that information and the information isn't all in one place and there's plenty of misinformation so we so we prepared a service that can answer many of these questions and it can be easily accessed from us from bner you see when you're a landlord moving on from there and you think of maybe changing your house into flat and capitalize to convert your house into Flats but then very often is the case that once there is no other flats on the street or maybe the house isn't big enough to accommodate a minimum sized flats and you simply won't be able to do so and perhaps going into HMO would be a much better solution for you especially if it is under the permitted development rights and you don't need a license for it when you're a manufacturer trying to accommodate your growing your growing business whether that be trying to find more space for storage for made Goods or materials maybe you need some more production space or maybe office space whatever that space may be you need to consider where a control on a heat man need to be heated and insulated whether the materials that you need to store are light sensitive and temperature sensitive right whether you need the ventilation maybe in the refrigeration maybe a GRE Factory and you need to store a lot of cheese bakes and pasties or it is an office space that you require a little bit more of the work space whatever it may be it may not be straight away a simple answer of okay let's acquire more land or let's build us to the side of our Factory you know maybe extend it with few more Bas to one side of the other or maybe make it wider it may be the case that a meing would work quite well for your solution either accommodating some more office space work space or a walk-in refrigerator you see just so many different different ways of approaching these topics and if you don't look into that in detail well you may you you may make the wrong decision you may think that mezanine is the right way forward and you construct it and then it transpired that you have a under one of the columns which was heavily loaded you you have drainage and it caves in because you didn't take that in consideration you thought that the that the slab is actually going to hold it and it didn't so you see and there is a problem there and it's very easy to think this way when you have a space that can accommodate it's certain amount of load you may think that you know similar amount of load would be fine but without thinking that actually distributed load is different than the point load and if you have a point load on the edge of the slab well that's not the greatest place to be or if you have a point load over over sewer or over drainage that isn't that deep and doesn't have a lot of cover over it and that's that's another wmy right there you may have other problems when it comes to manufacturing Endeavors you may acquire it land but that land may not be suitable for the for the use and occupation you may need to invest in in a lot of Ground Engineering to make that ground much better or invest in piling to make make that slab viable for plethora of usages in such circumstances you know that the actual return on investment would be less or it would be more expensive to to do the to do the construction and it may not be the right choice for you it depends where in the world you are and whether that actually can pay off and return on investment similarly if you have foreign property invested or investment fund you see I'm having clients who sometimes approach me with the ideas of getting into the market with the standardized solution the the great standardized solutions that they already already invented in other countries and they see that you know there's a market growth over there and they'd like to come come to Britain and and do the same here with the you know beautiful pods a frame housing or Dutch barns you know the Glam pods whatever that is whatever that may be they fail to recognize that the planning system here is very often different than in their countries and they one of products the the products that are standardized may not suit well into any given scenario into any given plot or a master plan after all we don't want you know brutalists all look in the same neighborhoods do we we need to play with the understanding of local area local materials local housing and and adap to it rather than trying to impose solutions that are unnatural to the to the circumstance and you know those all ideas are very clever very often and and well suited for where they began with but very often not so well suited to the British market and if you try to go all monthy with it without having all of the right information about the whole process and and how to deliver projects in England or Great Britain it may be it may be difficult for you to to actually make money and it's more likely that you'll actually lose money peton invests hundred of million of pounds 100 million pounds in Kent this year building sheds left right and Center it is and it's a great investment for them and they're the biggest shed builders in Europe if not in the world the Investments are are great all over the place and they make a great return on their Investments but they get prepared for the local local market and they build sheds that that can be accommodated in pleora of different businesses you see when you go out there and you want to build one of these sheds you need to think about layout and how adaptable it needs to be so you can make a good yield on your investment and appeal to the broader range of businesses depending on whether you're a shortterm or long-term investor whether all you want to do is flip housing stock or invest in it in the long run perhaps into the rental sector it will change how you want to approach the market it is a long game to go through planning acquiring land planning and there's that having land and then going for the planning is not always the best case sometimes better to go for planning and then acquire land to make the whole Endeavor less risky but depends how risk a you are you may choose one way or the other there's all things about the nutrient neutrality and biodiversity net gain the green belt you know the and all different local areas of of scientifical importance or his Heritage importance or areas of outstanding natural beauty these all factors will influence what can you do and what sort of what sort of developments you can push for and how risky it will be and how long you'll have to wait until you get any anywhere sometimes it may take years before you before you manage to get planning on the site is that the time you can wait for is it not is it this this sort of questions you need to answer yourself before you move into British market so whether you want to realize the profits quickly or over a long period of time there'll be different strategies for you to approach the construction projects is your project a speculative investment or diversification of funds or just like to keep your securing the property then the approach will be different again are you going to invest in the local office who can deliver progress from concept to the last bolt like like the office that I run or would you rather deal with property development firms with proven record what are the pros and cons of of both approaches you see when you have your own office or the office that can can be your managers or can plan and build builds the housing stock you may command better Returns on your Investments whereas when you go to the property developer development firm well they they will like to have their cuts which which will be bigger than the management office and you'll have less control over what's happening recently I've been approached by well last week really by a public good organization that that were concerned with the foot Bridge apparently it's deteriorating you know it's the old steel slash Timber Bridge so it's rotten in and rusting and they decided that it it is the right time to to change it now and they found the idea of changing it into glass reinforc plastic solution and somehow they thought that foundations need to be changed as well and they approached me to design their foundations for them when I look at all of the all of the they had that they you know how they approach finding Engineers to to design the foundation I look at the whole thing and I I ne nowhere in their descriptions I could find that there's anything wrong with current foundations so I I picked up the phone and called the lovely engineer lady on the other side and asked her why would you like to change the the foundation well because because we do why well because there's nothing wrong with it is there so if there's nothing wrong with it what's the point of changing it right um yeah right so yeah that's that that was it I then went on to discuss with with her what are the pros and cons of it and you know why it it why it isn't sustainable to change things that work correctly and you know if they want to spend money there are better ways to spend money than then you know just just throw it into the ground it's better for environments and for for everyone's Pockets to to keep things that are working in place but I said that wasn't that that was that was rather uncomfortable for the for the lovely lady and we are yet to see whether they come back to me for further advice but it seems like the whole office got a s certain naivity in within the approach to to the project delivery to the project definition it seems like most of this places and I dealt with Charities and local councils they got this naive approach to it they have money they need to spend they they found a way to spend it and then they approach designers or Engineers or whoever that is surveyors with an ask to with a question do we need to change it we'd like to change it actually so even if we don't really need to change it maybe it would be better if we change it cuz we have money to spend and if we do how and as long as it seems right to them it has to be right wrong if you want have people on your side before you start making these decisions people that see no profit in going into the further steps people that want to judge on on the circumstance you are here now rather than trying to sell you their their expertise say you their Consulting s you their services in the next stages of the process then that's that you should have these people on your s to either inform on your decision at the get at the word go or to check whether the people who are approaching you are actually approaching and providing you an advice that's that resonates soundly with with what's in place and whether you know the directions that they give you are the direction that you should follow you see if you are not well-versed client a suggestion that something may need doing can resonate as something that needs need doing immediately but made doing it it means that it may take another 10 or 15 to 20 years for it to actually be required but not right now so don't be be shy and reach out to those advisers out there to those Consultants like like the like the office that I run or just give me a call you see it's it's important to have someone with a great knowledge great experience and maybe more than all of those two things someone with an open mind who will not push for the work that does not need doing and see the Alternatives that could actually Del better projects for [Music] you this type of the clients when they come to contact with me I love to disappoint them the clients that come to me with the expectation of delivery and I tell them sorry I don't want your business your project is il defined your project will cost the planet and you too much for for me to get involved with we can either start from the from the scratch and Define it better or you can go somewhere else and spend your money unwisely there at the end of the day everyone who ever stick to going back and redefining it from scratch usually saved a lot of money but it takes guts and humility to do and when you all the way out there splashing money left right and Center it may not seem as the most sensible thing to do which unfortunately very often is [Music] so as you can see or your ears here there is quite quite a few reason to involve professionals at this stage of the process I can think of at least 10 reasons why it is wol getting a consultant at this stage I'd say the first one is the decision at this stage is critical to the outcome it may be the case that your initial need can be accommodated without the necessity to build number two would be you may not have enough experience to judge what is the most realistic way to fulfill your expectations three you may not know exactly what needs to be taken into consideration to satisfy your needs and expectations four you may not know the ways how your needs can be fulfilled five your site may not be suitable for development six your budget may not be realistic seven your knowledge of the best practices may be non-existent eight your knowledge and expectations about the requirements and the process of the project development may be insufficient to judge if going into the investment is right for you nine you may not know how to identify and put your needs and their requirements together 10 you may not appreciate the risks involved in your investment project well some of them sound very similar but in the gist that's what it is stage zero strategic [Music] definition all right great you've made it to the end I hope you found something useful in the material and if you have your own Reflections on the disc matters or otherwise I would love to know comment under the podcast email me or direct message me on LinkedIn I would love to hear from you let us talk and make construction better for everyone in it the next episode will be about stage one of the plan of walks which deals with what it says on a tin preparation of the brief if you have suggestions or topics that you would like to hear me talking about I would like to know let's have the conversation that you carry about if you are an industry professional and would like to share your take on the industry or the expertise you're involved in I will gladly have a coffee with you and record our conversation for the listeners to benefit from for now this is it toodloo!
Piotr Bytnar BEng (Hons) MSc CEng MIStructE
Chartered Structural Engineer who deals with the Architecture of buildings. His Master's Studies led him to an in-depth understanding of risk and contract arrangements in construction as well as specialist knowledge in soil mechanics.
He and his team help homeowners and property developers to design and deliver construction projects reducing waste in time and the cost. He believes that the construction project is an iterative process that can be well managed and it is best managed if all the aspects of the project definition and management are dealt with in-house or coordinated by one organisation. His team works to all stages of RIBA and ISTRUCTE stages of work and enables contractors to deliver projects on-site providing risk evaluations, methodologies for execution of works and temporary works designs.
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