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Every construction project comes with an element of risk - and, as in life, things don't always go to plan. But spotting the warning signs early and dealing with them in a collaborative way can minimise the detrimental impact on the project and help avoid time and cost penalties.

In the construction industry, the advent of the NEC family of contracts has helped to facilitate sound project management principles and practices while at the same time defining legal relationships. The contracts have resulted in major benefits for projects both nationally and internationally in terms of time, cost savings and improved quality.

A common theme to all the NEC contracts is the Early Warning process. The Early Warning process is designed to help parties involved proactively identify risk and facilitate a proactive outcome. The process is the same in every contract and can be broken down into four key stages:

1. Notify an Early Warning.
2. Set up a risk reduction meeting, if required.
3. Facilitate the optimum outcome and action plan.
4. Update the Risk Register.

However, while the process is straightforward people often struggle to implement it properly because it is such a cultural shift from the way we traditionally work in the construction industry. This article aims to help you overcome that cultural barrier by providing some advice on how to manage Early Warnings collaboratively and work with all stakeholders to deliver a successful project.

The Early Warning process is one of the three stimuli to good Project Management. The other two are Programme and Compensation Events. Managing the process collaboratively helps ensure problems are dealt with early and objectives are met.

It's a win-win for all parties whatever the contract. This is not light and fluffy collaborative working. This is a clear business/management process that needs to be followed and implemented. By following the steps highlighted below you can help ensure your project has a successful outcome.

At this point, it's worth bearing in mind that although Early Warnings are a standard process in all NEC contracts, the parties involved differ in each case. In the Engineering Construction Contract (ECC), the parties are the Project Manager and the Contractor, whereas in the Term Service Contract the Project Manager role is taken by the Service Manager. In the ECC, updating the Risk Register is the Project Manager's duty and they give a copy to the Contractor.

In my opinion, there are a number of key points you need to bear in mind in order to successfully manage the Early Warning process in the NEC suite of contracts.

First and foremost, you need to ensure there is a genuine awareness within the team before the project goes live. In other words, it's essential for all stakeholders in the project to have a good understanding of the Early Warning process from the outset. In my experience, the best way of achieving this is through a joint training or briefing session involving both the supply chain parties and the stakeholders from the employer's team. That's the first step and an essential one if the process is to work effectively once the project goes live.

Once you have established this genuine awareness, you should then work through some typical examples of what could occur to reinforce this understanding further. Just like exam revision, working through examples is great preparation for the real thing. This process helps raise awareness and generate healthy discussion about what is and what is not an Early Warning.

It's important to point out that an Early Warning is not necessarily a Compensation Event or a pre-empt to a claim. Working through a crib sheet of examples helps demonstrate this point and increase your team's understanding of the Early Warning process.

In order to work collaboratively, it's essential that you communicate in a structured way. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you agree on a system which all parties agree to follow. Communication can come in many forms - but choosing the right way to communicate is essential in construction. Relying on ad-hoc phone calls and texts is not a system I would recommend.

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