Projects that include electrical maintenance, repairs, upgrades, or expansion activities typically have a significant vendor piece. You may need to coordinate critical tasks with outside electricians or other contractors to conduct work onsite. Many projects that disrupt power—whether they affect only a portion of one building or extend across a larger area—also involve a variety of public or private utilities, including their field personnel and sometimes administrative staff representatives. Managing multiple vendors during a project with a tight timeline and a high degree of visibility can be challenging, but a few key strategies will help you streamline the outside work and keep things moving forward.
Share your expectations with your vendors and other external partners early and often. The expectations driving the initiative will evolve once the activities begin, with some expectations dropping off and others entering the picture as the project progresses. Don’t assume that your vendor teams know how your expectations have changed from one project stage to the next. Instead, develop a communication strategy with a vigorous information-sharing component with particular emphasis on discussing assumptions and expectations for each leg of the project journey. For example, if your project team expects notification two weeks before any new equipment arrives onsite, state that early and reiterate it as the forecasted delivery date approaches.
Ask questions at every step of the initiative’s lifecycle. The nuances of power disruption projects are probably unfamiliar to your internal teams, such as the orchestration of staffing within the local utility’s dispatch office or a supplier’s work to secure high-demand vehicles for transporting large equipment. In addition to what could be a significant labor outlay, the utility may also need to coordinate a rigid task sequence while minimizing disruption to other customers and maintaining a safe work environment for employees. Your team will be better positioned to support your internal stakeholders and users if you understand, at least at a high level, what’s happening behind the scenes. By asking questions along the way, you can capture any available efficiencies and monitor milestones that are key to timely project completion.
Understand what your vendors expect of your team and your stakeholders. Electrical maintenance projects tend to disrupt employees’ normal activities. Your staff may need to park at a different building, or you might need to set up an offsite lot for them. Pathways between buildings could be blocked by equipment. Software systems and other technology resources may be unavailable once the electrical work begins. Ask each vendor in your project what they expect from you. Do you need to grant them off-hours access to your buildings? Should you clear space in the parking lot to set up equipment or bring in delivery trucks? Do safety regulations require that your employees vacate the space while work is ongoing? Will your organization be responsible for providing equipment, materials, or labor so the vendors can complete their tasks? Do vendors need the capabilities of any internal technology solutions that will likely be affected by the power disruption, such as card key readers and door access systems, and have you coordinated an alternate power source to ensure uninterrupted access? At each step, it’s essential to know exactly what your vendors need from you to ensure the project doesn’t experience delays or create potential safety hazards for workers. On the administrative side, there may be payment date cutoffs for permit applications and other services or materials associated with the initiative. Confirm (and reconfirm) those critical dates with your vendors and share them with your internal collaborators so everyone can work toward executing their tasks at the right time.
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