About You — Director or Manager

Putting together good fee proposals is an essential (and too often overlooked) aspect of the performance of a service. What do I mean by good?

• The time it will take to comple each task is properly estimated internally.
• The expertise required to perform the tasks in that time is also well understood.
• Client requirements and expectations are clarified and managed in the proposal.
• The scope of works of each element in the proposal is clearly determined.
• A good explanation of the service and (why not) of why your proposal could add more value than others can also be a great addition, which can lead to better opportunities in the future even if that proposal is not accepted.

The worst aspect of a poor fee proposal is… that it can be accepted!

Understanding and managing the clients’ or their project managers’ expectations throughout the whole process is also essential to the success and profitability of building performance assessment work. Inadequate, insufficient, or unclear, communication with them can very often lead to work having to be redone.

Similarly, poor communication with the wider design team often leads to poor project performance in several areas (including profitability).

Should my team begin modelling now or should wait to have more information?
Should we keep insisting on other disciplines to provide what we need or we can make sensible assumptions at the current stage?
What’s the risk of carrying out abortive work and having to re-do it at our own cost?

Good answers to these questions may very well determine the efficiency and profitability of building performance assessment services. Yet, they are often not properly answered (or even considered) when the team lacks the experience or strategic thinking.

Let’s be clear and honest, technical expertise and experience are not abundant in Building Performance. For various reasons, it’s very difficult to find people with the right skill set to perform the different tasks to the appropriate standards.

It requires technical knowledge across diverse areas such as architecture, construction techniques, heat and moisture physics, MEP engineering, energy, and sustainability. As well as some understanding of project management and communication within the construction context.

On the other hand, it’s very easy for people with those skills to move to another company or even switch to a different field if their role doesn’t meet their expectations.

I believe the organisational capacity of a company (or any group of people) is fundamental to achieving results in the long run. However, dedicating time to organisation and streamlining workflows can be challenging amid the day-to-day pressure to deliver fee-generating work. It’s also often easier to identify problems from an external point of view.

Organisational challenges can also be exacerbated by limited resource availability, especially these days. Having access to extra, flexible support in these aspects can be a real game-changer for many businesses.

Quality assurance IS important in building performance assessments. But too often I see teams disregarding or giving up on quality for different reasons, such as:

• Skills and training gaps.
• Lack of clarity on the standards to apply or loose regulation enforcement.
• Lack of an internal QA procedure (or lack of adherence to it).
• Being perceived as a waste of time.

However, ensuring quality can provide important benefits to your business:

• Reduces risks in projects with potential legal liability.
• It can actually reduce time waste by avoiding having to re-do work.
• It has a positive effect on how your company is perceived in the market.
• It can give you access to better clients, avoiding competing just for price.
• Improves the mood (and productivity) of your team, helping with talent retention.

Issues with the above aspects can have an impact on your team’s morale. Technical roles in Building Performance can often become frustrating when there isn’t sufficient support from more experienced professionals. Or simply someone who has been in their shoes, understands their challenges, and can suggest alternative approaches.

Low morale often leads to a loss of motivation, reduced productivity, and ultimately high employee turnover.

As a director or senior manager, delegating is not an option. But it might be difficult for you to find the time to supervise it. Or you might not have years of experience yourself on these specific areas to do it most effectively.

If you are outsourcing work, or considering this option, it can also be challenging to stay on top of the details and the quality. Or making sure that the most up-to-date standards and methods are being used. And you might not find someone suitable in your team to do it either.

Communication with the client or other design team members can also become even more complicated when outsourcing work or delegating it to unexperienced staff.

Building Performance (at least in my understanding of the term) is a rather broad field with multiple specialties within it. You might have opportunities with current or potential clients that remain untapped if your team lacks experience in a specific area.

However, with the right external support, these capabilities can be developed internally. Not only through one-off training, but also via continuous guidance and support.

I can provide specialised software training in IES Virtual Environment, including ApacheHVAC and the most commonly used modules.

I can also provide training on thermal bridge calculations, particularly using THERM (2D) and HEAT3 (3D) software. As well as on interstitial condensation analysis using the simplified method (BuildDeskU or similar) and, to a more limited extent, dynamic assessments with WUFI.

However, my offer of training is not limited to software skills, I can also provide training on how and when it’s better to use different modelling approaches, on project strategies, getting good inputs, quality checks, output reviews, communication of results, use of templates, etc.

Training sessions are great and are necessary. However, they’re only a starting point for developing any skill. In my view, ongoing support is even more important, as real doubts and questions arise once you start working on real-life projects.

And progress in developing new skills and gaining expertise can be much faster and more efficient with specialised, dedicated support than through self-learning or waiting for a senior colleague to have time for that. I can provide that technical coaching support.

The professional development of your staff depends not only on their technical skills. Developing strategic thinking tailored to their specific areas of work is equally important. As they also are personal growth, soft skills, and learning how to apply them effectively in their roles.

I imagine I don’t really need to explain to a director or senior manager how important mentoring is for making progress. But, do you have the time or structure to provide it to your junior staff effectively? I could probably help you with that as well.

It’s often the case that service performance issues aren’t really about technical skills or capacity, but about not having an efficient workflow in place. And struggling to find the time or drive to improve it internally.

It’s also often very helpful to have an external point of view when trying to improve processes, since we can become blind to inefficiencies or habits that have become part of our routine.

Quality assurance IS important in building performance. Did I say that already? I’ll insist in any occasion.

However, this is one of the main challenges I’ve found when working in the Building Performance area in any role. And it has always been one of my main areas of focus — improving the quality of my work and others’ through learning more and sharing what I’ve learned.

My understanding of QA does not only involve checking finished work and re-doing what is wrong. Actually that’s a very inefficienct way of doing QA in my view. My preferred approach to QA also involves the following:

• Reviewing the scope and specific approach to the project once a proposal is accepted.
• Identifying key information gaps and giving senior support on how to tackle them.
• Intermediate quality checks at key steps.
• Review of preliminary results.
• Review of final results and their communication (reports or emails).

Ignoring all these steps and hoping for work to be completed by the deadline without errors by an unexperienced team is often a recipe for quality disaster, and for its potential consequences.

The quality of energy models for predicting operational energy is intended to be enhanced in schemes like NABERS UK Design for Performance and the latest version of BREEAM UK (V7) by requiring or encouraging peer/third-party reviews of models.

This is due to the higher complexity and uncertainty inherent in operational energy models compared to standardised models, and the elevated likelihood of errors. However, any type of modelling, especially for large or important projects, can benefit from having an external, fresh pair of eyes reviewing it.

Are you and your team up to date with the latest standards, methodologies, technologies, and trends? If you needed to carry out some research, whether to confirm you are updated, to explore solutions for a specific project, or to explore a new area of work, would you have the resources to do it in house?

I’ll leave this question open, but I’d bet many companies don’t. And, as a result, they struggle to keep up in the fast-evolving Building Performance sector.

I imagine you weren’t expecting this service from me. But don’t you think that a senior professional with many years of experience across diverse areas, types of companies, and even countries, could provide valuable inputs for your business development?

I won’t promise the moon here, but it’s definitely something worth considering.