The kick off meeting for an engineering consultancy

I am a fan of the English Premier league. For those of you that delight in a game of soccer you can relate with that moment when your team and a fierce opponent are on either side of the pitch.

Recently I chaired a kick off meeting intended to flag off an assignment which will involve the development of a water and sewerage system for two towns a distance of 50 kilometers apart. This is an eight month lump sum consulting assignment. The contract for this assignment (a feasibility and pre-design study) had been signed 45 days earlier, and a clause in the contract stated that work shall commence as soon as the consultant has received an advance payment or at the elapse of 45 days from the date of contract signature; whichever came earlier. In this particular case the meeting was convened because the 45 day period had elapsed without a formal request for an advance payment from the consultant.

In the past I have been part of the client’s team at a number of kick off meetings and this in my own experience is what to expect and how to conduct a successful kick off meeting. 

1. Power of attorney

Prior to the start of the meeting, take keen interest in who is representing either party. From the client’s or consultant’s end, there should be someone with power of attorney otherwise whatever is discussed will not be binding. During this meeting both parties were represented by duly authorised people from both parties.

2. Record keeping

As the meeting progressed, the minutes of the proceedings was taken. It is very good practice to have these minutes signed on the same day of the meeting because the content that has been discussed is usually fresh in the minds of all the members present. Prior to signing the minutes it is important for all the parties to the contract to proof read the draft minutes. The minutes of this particular meeting were signed off by both parties a few days later.

One of my superiors once told me that very few people have the time to keep records but everyone has time to look for information such as “what was discussed at a certain meeting”. Records provide you with objective evidence to an event. You just never know when a record you kept could prevent you from being sucked.

3. Confirmation of the availability of key experts

At these kind of meetings, the consultant might suggest a change/replacement of staff “claiming” that they have since become unavailable. The reasons that will most likely be presented to the client are;

1. The expert has fallen ill.
2. Mr. X or Mrs. Y is currently engaged on another assignment which is due to be finalized soon or more politely put he/she will be available at a later date.

Why does this happen? At times the date for contract signing is delayed on the client’s end. Noticing this, the consultant will most likely opt to re-deploy his experts to an alternative assignment. On the other hand it is the intention of some consulting agencies to front a strong team of experts at the tender stage and later on deploy others to the project once the contract has been signed.
In such a scenario, if the alternative experts being proposed are equivalent or better than those proposed at the tender stage they are usually accepted. At this particular kick off meeting the consultant confirmed that all the key experts proposed at the tender stage were available for the assignment.

4. Mobilisation and deployment of key experts.

As the meeting progressed an issue that came up from the client was an inquiry into the strategy that the consultant planned to adopt to capture sufficient information to inform his feasibility and pre – design study. Of particular interest to the client was the fact that since the consultant was required to propose amendments to an already existing water and sewerage system, his experts would have to spend considerable time in the field (project area) in order to get intimate with the infrastructure on ground. This determines what quality of product you will get.

From my experience working with a number of consultant’s, it is possible to detect from a consultant’s feasibility study and subsequently their design report that his team of experts have actually visited the project area, or they have forged a design behind closed doors and finalized their submission to the client using photographic imaging software.

After the discussion an agreement was reached between both parties on how the key experts would be deployed to the project area.

5. Guidance from the client

Prior to commencement of work, the consultant was given general guidance on how to proceed with the assignment. Quite often consultants get side tracked and go off tangent from the start putting the entire project in jeopardy. This problem is further compounded when key experts have been replaced by others who are not as competent. In this case, the consultant was guided on the type, format and quality of reporting that was expected of them and the lines of communication to follow for all future project related correspondences. The client also introduced the staff who had been assigned to work with the consultant.

It was also agreed by both parties that the date of the kick off meeting (commencement date) would be the date from which the timelines for all the key deliverables expected from this assignment would be pegged.

6. The schedule of deliverables

As the meeting reached a climax, a schedule of deliverables was drafted and agreed upon by both parties. This clearly spelt out the outputs required from the consultant and the client’s financial obligation on receipt and acceptance of the same. This was represented in a tabular form as indicated in Table 1 below

Table 1 : Schedule of deliverables and payments due on acceptance of the deliverables

Conclusion

Unlike the meeting of two opponents at a football ground whose intention is to dominate and eventually triumph over the other, this meeting  set the tone for the assignment and ensured that each of the parties to the contract clearly understood their obligations. In my opinion this was a successful meeting.

Copyright 2015 The Builders’ Garage. Permission to use this article or quotations from it is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to thebuildersgarage.com as the source.