PhD Final Thesis April 2013.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

Appendices to Thesis Keith Gale 2013company as a supplier, moreover its about the relationship between err my sitemanager A and your resident engineer B and that’s what the relationship is. Or myQS X and your QS Y, you know me as managing director of a company and one ofthe senior officers at Hampshire County Council. You know, that’s whatrelationships are, it isn’t just the relationship between parties.Q13 In your view, does the use of key performance indicators help the parties gainbetter performance with projects? Why do you think this is?Yes, is the answer. KPI’s concentrate minds and I think that’s quite a good termreally because there is a measurement issue and the way in which that measureaffects our future ability to secure work. And I also think err and I think the wayyou’ve set up the framework has been quite nice in that its been a carrot and stickapproach. I think you know, that’s the right approach. I think you achieve probably,the best outcome by that. So I think that err, you do definitely get better performance.I think there’s also a hard aspect if you like. You know, if you get in the red zonethen you’re less likely to get work and you’ll be looked upon less favourably. Thereverse is also true if you’re in the green zone. So those are the harder aspects of itand they work. I think there are also the softer aspects of it in that it becomes part ofyour day to day. So for example, we will give toolbox talks to our opted staff aboutthese issues. Now we would have never ever done that before. We’d have given thestaff a talk about our health and safety obviously or environmentalists but wewouldn’t give them toolbox talks about… ‘look guys, this is our first time with thisclient, not only is this financial but its going to affect our ability with this client’. Soyour driving those improvements right the way down to those guys that are doing thework. And as I’ve said before about quality of work and all the rest of it, the guysthat actually do the work are often forgotten in the management circles. But at theend of the day those are the guys that are actually going to do the work, those are theguys that are working on the shop and influencing what members of the public thinkabout the work that we do. So I think with the use of those KPI’s, those kinds ofsofter elements, which we probably haven’t got made very accurately, there’s a kindof gain. As I say they’re very raw terms but KPI’s concentrate minds and I thinkthat’s important.372