FMJ.CO.UK INTERVIEW FOCUS
MARCH 2021 37
standard ISO 44001(ii) around collaboration
and the usual contractual measures
such as KPIs and SLAs, but for me I think
collaboration is probably somewhere in
the middle. This reflects ways of working
together when things are going well, and
acknowledging that when there is issue
what that will look like. Good collaboration
requires open honest feedback, and
something we refer to as ‘a positive
challenge’.”
The survey also asked, ‘when people say
they work collaboratively, what partners did
they have in mind?’ According to the results,
a huge majority (94 per cent) said they
worked collaboratively with colleagues and
stakeholders within their own organisation,
with 74 per cent including customers and
end users in this equation.
Advises Farrell: “Collaboration is a much
wider piece and should concentrate on
the multitude of supplier’s organisations
in a particular project or environment.
Traditionally, if you think about partnering
with customers, it’s that dual party idea,
but when organisations sublet so much
work, into the supply chain or other delivery
partners alongside them, collaboration is
about looking at ways to get the best out
of that.”
MEASURING SUCCESS
There are a multitude of advantages to all
parties in working collaboratively, which
the white paper lists as:
Fewer mistakes
Improved e iciency
Improved morale
Improved customer satisfaction
Improved internal reputation
Improved external
reputation
The benefits are clear,
but how do you go
about measuring
success?
According to the
report, achieving
collaboration
begins by defining
key objectives - with
every contributor to
the supply chain sharing
values and working towards
a common goal, which helps
create a benchmark.
Explains Farrell: “You can use indicators
and check if you’re meeting all those hard
measures; including safety, compliance,
equality, customer satisfaction etc. But
unless we’re all agreed on what we’re
trying to achieve and collaborating for and
to what extent this could be done better
or di erently, how can collaboration move
beyond just those hard measures?”
“By way of example, I did a piece of work
with one of our customers’ as part of a team
managing the design and construction
of a blue light facility which was bringing
three services together into one new site.
We did a lesson learned session at the end
determining, ‘what was the objective, what
were we trying to achieve’?
“From the contractor’s point of
view, we were trying to create and
maintain a multiuse service.
When you asked the end user,
‘what was the objective?’ it
was ‘we want to deliver a
better service to the public’.
You could argue there was
actually a misalignment of
objectives as people didn’t
agree the overall objectives.
“That blue light project
was to simply enable three
organisations to work from the
begins by defi ning key objectives
- with every contributor to the
supply chain sharing values and
working towards a common
goal, which helps create a
same building, but what the end user
wanted was to deliver a better public
Achieving collaboration
service and to integrate those services not
just in a facility but in the way that they
work. Good collaboration means getting
under the skin of what the organisation is
about, what’s our part in it and how do we
deliver that? That’s hard to get to, but when
you’ve got it, all your decisions flow towards
that purpose rather than just contractual
obligation.
“For us we like to think the work we do
benchmark.”