Take five – time out with #TeamISG: Mike Ward

For World Quality Week this year, I wanted to take the opportunity to discuss my first few months at ISG and how my new role as a senior technical quality manager is helping improve our approach to quality across our sites.

What’s my background?

I joined ISG in February 2023, having spent five-and-a-half years at Tesco, where I held roles as building surveyor and senior building surveyor, before moving into a project management role delivering capital refurbishment schemes. My days working in construction started at a younger than normal age, working initially on Saturdays and during the school holidays. I never really thought about a career in construction initially, but a joinery apprenticeship, higher national diploma and degree later – here I am!

Across my career, I’ve had the pleasure of working on luxury residential projects, structural steel projects, the Crossrail infrastructure projects in London, and various automotive projects for Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls Royce, Bentley and Volvo Group. I’m a chartered building surveyor, chartered building engineer and chartered builder, and I also hold other specialist qualifications, which I think make me a good match for my role at ISG.

Tell us more about your role. What is a senior technical quality manager?

The role is a new one for ISG. It’s very much a technical role that encompasses elements of coaching and development, as well as imparting knowledge across numerous projects at different levels.

I am responsible for guiding project teams on the day-to-day implementation of quality on site, and spending time working with them to identify and manage quality risk. I work with teams, design managers, project managers and construction managers to review quality risks in work packages, and together we agree the best ways to either eliminate or mitigate each risk.

But don’t the quality team just highlight the problems and raise non-conformances?

I think there is a general perception across the industry that when the quality team arrives on site we’re a little bit like the quality police. When in fact, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The technical quality manager and quality manager primarily offer project teams with support and guidance, and are certainly not there to catch them out!

As a team, we’re here to ensure that we do build it right first time and that the products, specifications and overall design are the best solution. Post-completion defects after handover can cost the business significant sums of money. All of which is unplanned expenditure, which not only costs the business financially, but also reputationally.

What do you get up on a typical working day?

It varies really, depending on what stage a project is at – and what packages are on site. In the early stages of a project, my main task is facilitating the completion of the quality risk assessment (QRA) with the project team. This involves identifying the likelihood of an issue and the potential problems it could cause, either further along the build process or after practical completion. The process often requires asking questions to provoke conversation and thought, which can sometimes lead to design changes or the appointment of different contractors.

Progressive inspections make up a large part of the job, and I work with site teams to carry these out, accompanying them on site, reviewing technical details, and ensuring everyone fully understands what it is we’re building.

What do you mean by progressive inspections?

A progressive inspection means inspecting the works every time you’re out on site, picking up and following through on any observations by raising the appropriate issue using the digital tools, and identifying a problem (or potential problem) before it’s too late.

How are you coaching and developing technical skills and competencies across our projects?

Some work packages may be completely new to the team, so this is discussed when we carry out the QRA. It’s an opportunity to speak frankly and have a discussion on the skills, knowledge and experience of the site team. And where required, I organise relevant training in conjunction with the manufacturers, subcontractors and sometimes our clients.

Have you got any examples of this you can share?

I’ve done this on two of my projects with notable outcomes. Project Borealis in Billingham, Stockton-on-Tees, UK, was the first on-site workshop I instigated that saw the product supplier team from Sika visit the site and create a small-scale mock-up of the details specified on the main project.

This was attended by the ISG team and the client, offering the perfect opportunity for questions and an open discussion around work methods, common problems, identifying defects and, more importantly, what was required to rectify them. The QRA process around this led to subtle design detail changes at the roof and cladding interface.

The second was at our Jaguar Land Rover project in Speke, Liverpool, where we identified that the project team would benefit from some specific training from Kingspan on the exterior wall and roof system. I took the team to Kingspan’s training facility, where members from the construction, design and commercial teams attended to understand the system in greater detail and get their hands dirty in a practical way, assembling and installing a small-scale mock-up.

What other things do you do to share knowledge among the teams?

There’s a wide variety of things, really. I’m currently updating our technical quality offering on the performance and learning area of our internal personal development platform. As well as updating the interactive CPD modules, I’ve been working with supply chain partners like Saint-Gobain, British Gypsum and Schüco to get bespoke ISG training days arranged at their training facilities. These will provide the right learning environment for everybody, from preconstruction designers in the office to the package management teams on site.

So, what does this all ultimately mean?

Hopefully, my role will support a shift in approach that will drive improvement across the board. The more we plan, identify and manage quality risk, and then progressively inspect the works, the less likely we’ll encounter problems. Or when we do, we’ll know how to resolve them quickly and efficiently.

Through my early engagement with the project teams, I’m hoping to drive an environment where the concept of zero defects becomes a reality one day. Or if not, we come pretty close.

How are you getting involved in World Quality Week?

I’ve been out and about this week, as usual. I started the week at Project Borealis, where I went for a site walk with Jake Maughan MCIOB and Graham Harrison , and then carried out a QRA workshop session around curtain walling and cladding with the commercial and construction teams.

I’m then heading over to the UK Construction project leaders forum to speak about the quality strategy, before heading off on my regular trip to Belgium to meet with one of our project teams.

I’ve organised a number of technical quality-related webinars and online sessions, and will be sending out quality shares to project teams, as well as launching some new technical training sessions on our online learning and development portal.