Workplace insight · Project decisions
The hidden risk?
Late decisions.
A small change can reach further than you think.
A meeting room gets bigger. A furniture choice stays open. A landlord condition arrives late. The pressure can reach site long after the decision should have been made.
The same meeting room?
- LayoutRoom size & circulation
- ServicesPower, data & ventilation
- SpecificationTable, AV & acoustics
- DeliveryCost, orders & sequence
01 · Follow one change
“Could we make that room a bit bigger?”
A six-person meeting room becomes a ten-person room. On a plan, that might look like a partition moving and a larger table. But the team also needs to check what happens to the space beside it, how people get around the room and whether the proposed services still suit its use.
The AV arrangement may change. So might power and data positions, ventilation demand and the acoustic brief. A furniture order based on the earlier room may no longer be right.
That is manageable while the design is being tested. It becomes a different conversation once drawings have been issued, products ordered or work started. The question then includes what has already been committed and what it will take to change it.
Explore the example
The same request.
A different point in the project.
Choose when the room requirement changes.
A requirement to test
The layout and room specification can be reviewed together before commitments are made. Compare the larger room with the other needs competing for space.
A change to commitments
Check what has been ordered, which drawings were used and whether the revised room needs different products or service positions. There may be changes to cost or lead times.
A change to work in progress
Confirm what is already installed, what needs alteration and whether the change affects other work. The response depends on the actual progress, approvals and supplier position.
Check the actual effect of a change before deciding how to proceed.
02 · Make the open items visible
A decision needs more than a date.
A programme can show when an order needs to be placed without showing what must be agreed first. The person preparing the order may still be waiting for a layout, a finish choice or approval of the cost.
Keep a short decision list alongside the programme. For each open item, record the information needed, the person who can approve it and the work or order it releases. Agree the deadline with the people who depend on the answer.
An owner should be able to get a decision made. Giving someone responsibility for chasing colleagues is not the same as giving them authority to approve the requirement or spend.
03 · Give people a workable route
Not every detail needs fixing on day one.
Some choices can remain open without holding anything up. Others affect room sizes, approvals, service routes or long-lead products. The useful distinction is which decision someone else needs in order to proceed.
Bring finance, operations, IT and the people using the space into the relevant conversations early enough to influence the brief. Then give them a defined question and enough information to answer it. A general request to “sign off the design” can hide several different decisions.
At POS, we help connect the brief, costs, programme and delivery requirements. Part of that work is making these dependencies clear, so the client team knows where its attention is needed.
04 · At the next project meeting
Start with the decisions that release work.
Take the open decision list into the meeting. Which items are holding up a drawing, approval or order? What is missing from each answer? Who will provide it, and when?
Record what has been agreed and pass it to the people affected. If a decision remains open, make the consequence visible rather than allowing the programme to carry an unspoken assumption.
Talk it through
A project with too many open questions?
We can help clarify the requirements, dependencies and next decisions before they become pressure on site.
