In part two of our 'Road to Recovery' podcast series, Ann Bentley, Global Board Director at Rider Levett Bucknall and member of the UK Government’s Construction Leadership Council, joins us to share her take on surviving and thriving out of the current crisis. Topics include coming out of a recession and learning's from previous recessions, value creation in the construction industry, what the industry can do to ensure this isn't an entirely negative chapter, where firms should look for pipeline in the future, and has everyone forgotten about Brexit?

In part one of our 'Road to Recovery' podcast series, Matt Bennion, Chairman at Reds10, joins us to discuss thriving through the pandemic and the tipping point for acceleration for the construction industry. We cover Matt's personal experiences with Reds10, as well as topics such as modular construction, how well the industry was equipped to deal with the current situation, the inevitability of disputes and more.

Syndey-based Jeames Hanley, a Digital Business Strategist & Technologist, joins us to chat about the importance of a strategy in a pandemic. Jeames goes through his experience of the pandemic and how moving his whole team to work remotely enabled them to still accelerate and bid for projects. We also chat about how the pandemic was accelerating the speed of change, rather than being a barrier, and how this can be underpinned by having a digital strategy, which helps businesses prepare for when something like this happens.  

Najma Dunnet, Senior Associate Legal Counsel at Hoare Lea, joins us to discuss best practice tips on managing contracts and disputes throughout this uncertain time. We cover the changing workforce and the impact on sites, what happens when terms on the contract are made impossible to meet by the current global situation, how understanding clients are being, the role of email in contracts and projects, what PI insurers want to see, and who the biggest offenders are when it comes to contracts. 

Paul Johnstone, the founder of 4S Bid Limited, a full-service tender bid consultancy headquartered in Glasgow, joins us to chat about the steps you can take to build a pipeline and a repeatable system so you can successfully bid for contracts again and again. In order to grow, businesses need to win new clients and contracts. We cover the key challenges and frustrations around bidding today, as well as the top tips for ensuring bidding success.

Oslo-based senior lawyer Kjersti Lerkerod joins Mario Christophides to discuss the challenges with handling disputes in these uncertain times, as well as her best tips for managing contract disputes in general and the impact the coronavirus pandemic is having on the industry.

Here are Kjersti's five top tips for handling dispute challenges relating to coronavirus in a construction project:

Make sure to notify claims according to the contract

Take reasonable efforts to try to overcome the obstacles

Produce and transmit documentation identifying the negative impact of the coronavirus, for example, daily or weekly reports

Initiate a constructive dialogue with your contract parties

Be careful to distinguish between corona related challenges and other obstacles in a project. The latter should be notified and documented separately

Employee engagement and personal productivity consultant Jo Dodds joins us for episode 10. We discuss how businesses can better engage a dispersed workforce and how an employee can work more productively remotely - both particularly relevant topics considering the current rise in remote working.

Dame Judith Hackitt chats with Jacob about all things building safety, including managing and maintaining building safety, moving the focus from making buildings for the least amount of money to creating buildings that have safety at its core, regulatory changes, and the need for the 'Golden Thread of Information' throughout a buildings lifecycle and what it means in pragmatic terms.

Paul Shillcock, MD at Operam and the co-author of ISO standards, joins us to discuss ISO 19650 and the enablers and barriers for adopting good information management.

Podcast co-hosts Jacob and Chris discuss the death of document management, covering topics on how to get rid of a legacy system, why document management systems have low user adoption, the challenges associated with where data resides, and the barriers to change.