The Project that started Statslog
Jul 17/19
by Michael Copas
The birth of Statslog in 1984 was born out of a response to an out of control project at an Art Gallery in Kleinburg—and the need to solve a problem. As most businesses do. To borrow a line from Disney’s movie Robots—“See a need; fill a need”.
The birth of Statslog in 1984 was born out of a response to an out of control project at an Art Gallery in Kleinburg—and the need to solve a problem. As most businesses do. To borrow a line from Disney’s movie Robots—“See a need; fill a need”.
The project’s problem lay in:
The chosen procurement #methodology.
The onsite staffing approach and #responsibility.
The inability of the project managers to organize, identify, list, and act on, rapidly developing changes to the project contracts. Which allowed the project to proceed to the point where the number of approved changes were outnumbered but the unapproved changes 1 to 1,000, and the unapproved change, being executed were valued nearly 70% above the contract(s) signed.
This is a classic example of a design team that did their best to document changes in a timely fashion; but project manager not managing the flow of information, or getting document signed; and an Owner, hesitant to not making critical decisions in a timely fashion. All had the best of intentions; however in hindsight, demands were too high for delivery which caused dire consequences for several firms involved, and actions too slow as a remedy.
This is why—contract administration matters.
Michael Copas is a co-founder of Statslog Software Corporation, which has been providing continuing service to contract administrators in the offices of design professionals since 1984.