Overview
Established in 1950, Isaac Construction is a 450-person, Christchurch-based civil construction company that in recent years has quickly expanded. Along with the South Island, project work is now also being done in the North Island of New Zealand.
But this growth had outpaced the legacy H&S system that was tasked with logging incidents, accidents and near misses, and facilitating daily briefings and site audits. The system simply wasn’t fit for purpose. It was a bucket that data was poured into, but minimal information could be drawn from.
In the words of John McDonald, the Group Support Services Manager, “it was not fit for purpose anymore. They say ‘You can manage what you measure’. We couldn’t measure.”
Isaac Construction knew there was a better way and engaged a software house to craft a H&S solution that better aligned with their evolving needs. But development was only half the battle: the company also realised they lacked the necessary implementation skills.
They wanted outside help to drive the project forward, ensuring the new system would be properly implemented, used and benefited from. So they reached out to the team at Millpond.
Approach
The engagement got off on the right foot.
“We felt an instant connection,” McDonald explains. “Millpond demonstrated a genuine understanding of our business and what we were trying to achieve. They instilled a lot of confidence.”
Millpond were brought in to drive the project management, implementation and adoption of the new H&S system, with their expert team deliver:
- Business Analysis: Millpond clearly defined and documented Isaac Construction’s processes, including where they overlapped and interlinked. “Millpond has shown us what a good BA can do for a business,” says McDonald.
- Project Management: They brought structure, clarity and transparency to the project. They defined deadlines, tracked progress, and held parties accountable. They introduced Isaac Construction to the agile methodology, working in sprints.
- Testing: Prior to Millpond’s engagement Isaac Construction preferred to “just get software out there.” But Millpond introduced rigorous testing, which, along with identifying issues, also engaged internal stakeholders in the process and turned many into advocates for the new H&S system.
- Change management: They kept the entire organisation abreast of the project through the company’s intranet, describing exactly what was happening, and when to expect deliverables. This managed expectations and saved vast amounts of time.
According to McDonald, the approach was intentionally collaborative: a ‘we’ project. The aim was to drive more internal buy-in, and better customise the new system to meet the needs of those who would use it.
Results
Transparency and accountability
An H&S system fit for purpose – access to far more information
Expanded scope increased internal efficiency and saved money
15 months after being brought on board, the expert Millpond team had helped to implement a new health and safety system that ticked all of Isaac Construction’s boxes.
“We told Millpond what we wanted to do,” says McDonald, “and they’ve picked it up, understood it and brought it to life for us. The two things that we wanted to get out of it were transparency and accountability – and we have both.
“We can now look at any part of the business and see how many incidents they’ve had, how many audits have been carried out, whether things have been closed out, and what actions followed on from the investigations. If people don’t take necessary actions, things are automatically escalated. It’s given us access to far more information.”
This collaborative, inclusive approach ultimately expanded the scope of the project into areas that Isaac Construction didn’t realise were in any way related, driving outcomes that went far beyond H&S.
Summary
Isaac Construction delivers projects and has a reputation for doing so within deadline and under budget. But building public infrastructure is a very different prospect to implementing internal systems. By engaging Millpond, the company discovered the incredible value that can be drawn from a more specific form of project expertise.
And perhaps the best part, says McDonald, was that the process was enjoyable.
“Millpond have been great to work with. They’re technically really good, but they’re also people people. As a business it’s been a bit of a game changer for us, and a lot of that is down to how Millpond’s consultant’s work.
“They feel part of our team. They established a really good rapport and had lots of direct contact with our people. They can spin many plates at the same time. They’re honest and don’t sugar coat. We really respect the work that they do – Jeremy, our CEO, simply said ‘this is how a project should be run’.”
When asked to describe the experience, McDonald keeps returning to the same term: game changing. He describes the engagement with Millpond as an exercise in learning better ways of doing things.
The expanded scope of the project saw it become a catalyst for a wealth of other change. They’ve discovered ways to increase internal efficiency and save money. They’ve recognised the value in hiring their own IT staff. They’ve traded a culture of ‘they’, ‘I’ and ‘you’ for ‘we’.
But the final word is best left to McDonald.
“The work that Millpond have done and the support they’ve provided has been transformational for us. It has future-proofed our business for growth.”
