Along with safety, quality and quality control, are hot topics and top priorities with construction companies and construction pros on any workday that ends in “y.” Quality control impacts many aspects of my life and our lives whether we are fully aware of it at the time or not. Recently, quality control as it relates to medicine and medical treatment negatively impacted my wife and life. After my frustration subsided, I was amazed at how many similarities there were between that occurrence and day to day life in a trailer or in a construction office. If you want to save a couple minutes of your life and skip past the explanation and straight to the conclusions and lesson, check out the last paragraph.
The condensed version of what happened was that my wife was prescribed two medications by a doctor which was then sent directly to a local pharmacy. Because my wife wasn’t feeling well, I went to pick up the prescriptions. Unfortunately, only one was issued and when I asked it another was in the queue, I was told no. At home my wife verified via an app that the pharmacy had the prescription but it noted that it was already filled when it was not. I then returned to the pharmacy to talk with the pharmacist who stated that the note in the app occurs when the prescribing medical professional calls to cancel and that it was likely cancelled because of concern about incompatibility between that prescription and another my wife had taken previously. It made sense except the dates were WAY off and did not overlap. In addition, my wife was not notified. After I returned and informed her of what the pharmacist said, she then called the doctor and left a message. Without letting my wife know, they apparently called the pharmacy at some point to straighten the issue out because my wife received an angry call from the pharmacist complaining that she called the doctor, inadvertently creating conflict, because it was actually them (the pharmacist) who had actually cancelled the doctor’s orders (without notifying my wife and lying to me when I tried to pick up the medication). In the end, the client (my wife) did not get the service or deliverables that were expected and the changes were not communicated appropriately with them or the rest of the team.
Does this sound a bit like the chaos of a construction project when contractual requirements or a work plan isn’t followed? To me, it does. Situations like this happen all the time on the job. A last minute change before a concrete pour, change in piping layout or adjustment to traffic control are just a few examples of modifications that can occur. While these changes might make sense in the moment, they likely don’t fall in line with the activity work plan that should’ve been developed and approved prior to the task. Like the pharmacist who changed the plan on my wife, someone involved with the work might see something they believe warrants and adjustment or change. When this occurs, they can make the change within the scope and tolerance noted in the work plan. Anything outside of predefined tolerances and allowances need to be communicated with people up and down the chain, as well as, people doing the work. In a GC role, changing a work plan may require notifying and getting approval from subs, vendors, the client, the A/E and even our own management team. Requesting deviation and adjusting expectations requires the understanding and buy-in from all project stakeholders. With my recent situation, this communication loop would have included my wife, the doctor and the pharmacist but the pharmacist made the change unilaterally without getting approval from everyone else, let alone providing basic notification.
If you skipped through the long story and went straight to the conclusion, the main point of this article is this: plan your work and work your plan. If changes are required, follow the change procedures as required by the contract and work plan. Making solo changes to work plans almost never works out right and undermines trust within the project team. Make the right decisions and manage expectations to build trust and build a better world.
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