The underlying cause of most project failure lies in the hands of clients themselves. Clients don’t know what they don’t know and because they pay everyone’s bill, nobody on the team is incentivised to tell the client that they are letting their own scheme down.

We shouldn’t be surprised at this because, like parenthood, very few people are trained to be clients. It is hard to conceive of the sheer number of decisions a client needs to take. As we’ve all witnessed on Grand Designs, even domestic clients have literally thousands of decisions to take.

The biggest cause of failure on projects is the inability of clients to describe in a detailed and timely manner what they want to achieve from their projects resulting in failed projects which arrive late, over-budget and unfit for purpose.  Astonishingly, even the largest developers in London are guilty of this - and they know it - but still don’t do anything about it.

Much of this pain in projects can be removed by the early creation of a detailed, costed brief which eliminates late changes and extra, unforseen costs

Early decisions are crucial in establishing the fundamental costs of schemes and the opportunities for value engineering fall away rapidly before becoming negative as the design develops.

Without a detailed brief it is impossible to drive innovation - particularly important for repeat clients. A detailed brief shows commitment to process/improvement and heralds the opportunity to implement supply chain reforms which disproportionately benefit the client.

Giving a project the best possible start is the single best way we know to set your project up for success. Contractors know when the Design Team has created a poor set of information and price accordingly for the associated additional risk and prepare themselves for conflict.

Being a professional construction client creates lasting competitive advantage in your core business.  The more professional you are the bigger the advantage.

Providence can help you to be a ‘Good Client’ by guiding you through part or all of the process from project definition to handover, highlighting key risks and avoiding the mistakes that can jeopardise your project.

We only improve by looking honestly at our performance and acknowledging our failings.

As humans, we are all fallible but, in the words of Elon Musk, we should strive to, “Be less wrong”.