It has been pretty easy so far on the road to building a complete AWP program: the initial steps involved ramping up on AWP value and finding a passionate AWP evangelist in your organization. The third step, building an AWP team, is typically when companies get serious about actually INVESTING in AWP. It means tagging people to build, facilitate, measure, and grow AWP. It means putting your money where your mouth is.
Here is the good news: just like any new department or initiative, you need to start with the minimum number of resources, grab some quick wins, and then ramp-up staffing to support the consequential growth of the program. You do not need to build an army initially to run AWP successfully – AS LONG AS the right people are in the driver seat.
Let’s start with the minimal resources to support your organization’s AWP program or an AWP pilot effort:
Role: AWP Champion
Primary Responsibilities: The AWP Champion is responsible for driving adoption and continuous improvement within the AWP program. This individual is responsible for setting the direction of the AWP program and ensuring all participants and stakeholders perform their tasks and objectives.
Traits for Success: Likes to drive initiatives, enjoys educating team members, ability to see “the big picture,” familiar with change management and in a position with enough authority to drive change, Deep knowledge of construction processes.
Role: AWP Lead / Administrator
Primary Responsibilities: The AWP Lead is a single point of contact at the management level who will be required to assist in coordinating resources and efforts within the organization. Duties would include managing AWP processes, reviewing the Engineering, Procurement, and Construction Contractors’ performance to ensure AWP compliance, and assisting in mitigation strategies if a non-compliance issue arises. An AWP Lead will also act as a program administrator to ensure that communications within the cross-functional teams regarding the AWP program is ongoing. The administrator would be required to maintain all documentation as it relates to the AWP Program and would manage the schedule for the Education & Training program. This person would also ideally be the single point of contact for the selected AWP Software (such as O3) to ensure the software is being utilized properly and will work with the development team if any issues arise.
Traits for Success: High level of organization, Strong documentation & Project Management skills, Ability to interpret data trends.
Role: Cross-Functional Team Lead(s)
Primary Responsibilities: Each organization, such as Safety, Project Controls, Engineering, etc., will need to identify a team lead who will be responsible for representing the needs of their organization in the implementation of AWP.
Traits for Success: Vocal about risks and rewards of change, Ability to communicate benefits of change to immediate teammates.
Role: WorkFace Planner
Primary Responsibilities: The Workface Planner is responsible for the conversion of Construction Work Packages (CWPs) into Installation Work Packages (IWPs). They are also responsible for insuring that all necessary resources are available prior to releasing the IWP and monitoring and control of IWP. Coordinates Constraint Management efforts with the cross-functional team leads and the AWP Lead.
Traits for Success: Knows how to break-down and issue work, Ability to use AWP Management software (such as O3).
Once you have identified and assigned the right people to forge the AWP path, be sure to put some basic infrastructure in place. Do not assume that everyone will be able to just “start doing AWP” without consistent, weekly communication. This could mean a weekly WorkFace Planning meeting where both the Engineering Team and AWP Champion attend, or a Constraint Management call to review barriers and resolve them quickly. This may seem like a simple step, but organizations have failed launching AWP by ignoring the power of “getting the brain trust” together to work through new processes.
The AWP Org Chart can offer an exciting career advancements and opportunities for growth among innovators, leaders, and performers. So think about how becoming an AWP Team Member contributes to your organization’s career pathing. Craft the messaging behind each role about WHY and HOW this is a career advancement in your organization so the AWP Team Members are proud and excited to contribute.
Happy recruiting for your AWP roles! If you have any questions or would like to dive deeper into this topic, please feel free to reach out to us.
