ConstructionSkills challenges professionals to demonstrate their teamwork skills

The CIC’s ConstructionSkills team recently organised two Construction Challenge events for the professions in its North West and South West regions. The events were based on an original idea developed by the CIC North West Committee which has been running a similar event for a number of years. The ConstructionSkills team is currently introducing this event into a number of other areas and chose the South West for its first event outside of the North West with more regions to follow in 2007.

The Construction Challenge aims to promote communication and success through teamwork by demonstrating how construction professionals must work together to achieve a common objective. The exact nature of task selected for this year’s events was revealed to teams for the first time on arrival at the venues.

This year teams of 3-5 young professionals from across the two regions were asked to reconstruct a model against a strict time deadline. Only the team’s allocated Project Manager and Site Engineer were able to view the model and no notes could be taken during the visits to the model. These two team members then had to instruct the team’s Quantity Surveyor on the materials which they were required to purchase before the General Foreman could attempt to reconstruct the model under guidance from his team mates. Teams were judged on a variety of criteria including accuracy, cost and time.

The task led to an evening of intense and close competition at both venues. The Bristol event was held on the evening of 29 November 2006 in central Bristol with teams from as far away as Exeter taking part in what was an enjoyable evening for all. Meanwhile the Manchester event was held the following day at Urbis, a museum which investigates city life. CIC was very pleased to welcome a record 14 teams to the North West competition, which as well as being a competitive evening’s entertainment, also provided plenty of opportunity for networking with other regional professionals from a wide cross-section of disciplines.

After much deliberation, the judges finally announced Carillion plc as the winners of the South West Construction Challenge while Arup Manchester beat off tough competition to take the top place in the North West. Congratulations go to both teams who demonstrated good team, leadership and communication skills throughout the evening and were rewarded with annual subscriptions to Building magazine.

The ConstructionSkills team at CIC wishes to thank all teams who participated in the Construction Challenge and made both of these events so successful.

Further events will be held in other regions in 2007. For more information please contact Janette Welton at CIC (Tel 020 7399 7404, Email jwelton@cic.org.uk).