Kick-Off Site Meeting

In today’s blog post I wanna share my experience on kick-off site/construction meeting since I have been to a few ranging from small to large scale projects. Currently I am working on a redevelopment hospital project in Hong Kong. There was a lot of preparatory work before foundation work and superstructure could begin, that included Ground investigation works, decanting and A&A works. I thought it would be useful for anyone working on a public project and about to prepare to go on a kick-off meeting.

Photo: Redevelopment of Grantham Hospital – Decanting Works Ceremony before kick-off site meeting

For me, I find it useful to prepare a short presentation ( kick-off checklist) to chair the meeting.

Contract Award Date/ Commencement Date
A big welcome to everyone with simply a screen-cap on a presentation slide of the contract and the award of contract date to begin with. It is also worth noting the contractor during the kick-off meeting when they will expect the First Architect’s Instruction to be issued to carry out work.

O Chart and Team Member Roles
The kick-off meeting is important for everyone to know each other’s roles including clients, end-users, project manager, consultant team and contractor team.

Scope of Work
An overall site plan highlighting the boundary of the works will be very helpful in the meeting and explain the scope of work. For example, if work involves Ground investigation (GI) works at the beginning, it is worth elaborating the types of GI works such as trial pits excavation, borehole drilling, horizontal corehole drilling, slope stripping works etc. Please note the kick-off meeting with different parties including end-users, it is important to let them understand the type of work at the very beginning.

For example, our contractor was carrying out their work next to an Eye Centre, and the end-users were very concerned about the noisy work and vibration and requested the Architect to issue an AI to stop the contractor’s work due to laser surgery being conducted in the Eye Centre. It is better to get a mutual understanding of the work schedule too.

Construction Programme
A construction programme clearly defines the scope of a project, providing information regarding the timescales, lead times, phases, and durations to complete each milestone. It is worth highlighting the key dates and pointing out the critical path in the programme during the kick-off meeting.

Project Reviews
Apart from looking at the construction programme, it is essential to set up a short term programme and review the project as a whole too. For example, any government submission, shop drawing or material submission coming? Or any government and stakeholder liaison required.

Project Budget
Construction projects are a balance between cost, time and quality. It is essential to be open about the project budget especially if you are on a public-funded project to avoid any VO items as far as possible. Also, to be prepared about any VO and the procedures if that happens.

Payment Issue
Most standard forms of building contracts state an entitlement on the part of the Contractor to receive interim payments. Agree with the Contractor the dates on which he will submit his applications with due allowance for the time required for Architect and Quantity Surveyor to process the application. It is worth highlighting when a contractor is required to deliver an interim statement and when to expect payment by the Employer according to the contract for the settlement of payment.

Location of all TCP files and safety files
In Hong Kong, Buildings Ordinance section 22(1)(c) empowers the Building Authority or his authorised public officer to enter upon any land to ascertain whether the Building Ordinance and its subsidiary regulations are being complied with. This also means they will make visits to the site from time to time and they will check the TCP files. It is good to agree on a location during the kick-off meeting to store this file.

House Rules
It is important to find out if there are any house rules before site commencement. This applies especially if your site area is inside or very close to an existing building in use. For example, our team is working on the site where the hospital is still in use with public transportation/ neats driving in and out, liaising the time for the trucks for material delivery loading/unloading time and route with the hospital management team is crucial to avoid any overloaded traffic. These house rules are bound to the contractor, but it is nothing better to discuss face to face during a kick-off meeting.

Setting Up an Emergency Contact Group
Since everyone is using different apps on mobile, it is good to set up an emergency group chat with the key member ( On-site manager, safety manager, project manager) in case there is an incident and an emergency happens so everyone is alerted. But of course, if an emergency happens, please call the police immediately!

AOB
It is also important to discuss all the upcoming submissions, for example, the upcoming Contractor Report and Resident Engineering Report and details to be resolved before the next site progress meeting to avoid any different expectations.

Last but not least, after the kick-off meeting, it is good to carry out a site walk with everyone.

My favourite site walk essentials (link below) :

Let me know if you find this post useful. Would love to hear from you and what project you are working on! Have an enjoyable site meeting.

Elaine

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View Comments

Timothy Ho says:

January 23, 2022 at 04:26

Very informative and detailing. Maybe add few other thing onto it will make the life of the architect(s) or project manager(s) much more easier:-
1. Global submission. It refers to a list of items require the contractor to submit including materials, shop drawings, sub-contractor and specialists contractor submission. The size of such list will reflect how much the main contractor know what to do in that particular project. For a large project like the hospital redevelopment project you have mentioned, a huge list of document submission enable the architects as well as other key working partner know what has/haven’t approved. The status will directly/indirectly reflect on to the master program.
2. Contractor and sub-contractor management plan. Main contractor can’t really do all sort of works even they are contractually binder to do so. Some may need to hire specialist to do the job for them and the client. Knowing which parties carry out the work is the key to the success. Sometime the architect or the project manager to reach the specialist directly to get the answer when trying to resolve the schedule or application issue (which happen all the time on site).
3. Discussion on standard form for submission(s) and request for information matter. Each company have their own style of form which may be used for years with any revision. As each project has its own characteristic, modify existing form is necessary. The main contractor may have varies set of form for the job to hit their need. The architects or the project manager need to review and consolidate the positive aspect of the form and create a new one for the job. It will be useful if the submission to be conducted on online basis.

That is a lot more elements can be added onto it but not necessary to create a complicated list which may take hours to go through at the kick of meeting. It can be covered in the management meeting or other brainstorming session if necessary especially bring the new idea on how to work thing out.

Good writing!

Elaine says:

January 23, 2022 at 12:57

Hi Tim! Thanks so much for your valualbe comment and totally agree, it is important to receive a management plan from the contractor and sub-contractor! And yes as mentioned in my post, discussion on the submission standard and format is important in day one to get a smooth project going. Once again thanks for dropping by.