The people who can stop your project: stakeholders beyond the owner
The excavation for the new electrical service is open and shored when the utility's planner calls: the earliest date to take the overhead line out of service is seven weeks away. Your contract with the owner gave you the site. It did not give you the utility's calendar.
Besides the owner, the authorities that issue permits, the utilities, the neighbours and their tenants, and anyone using the building or the street around it can delay or stop the job. Before work starts, list them, note what each controls and needs from you by when, name one person on your team to speak to each, and put their dates and limits into the schedule. None of them signed the owner's contract, and each works to its own calendar and rules; ask one of them late, and the job waits on their timetable.
Map them, then plan
- List everyone outside the contract who can affect the work: authorities, utilities, neighbours and their tenants, building occupants, and nearby schools, businesses and transit.
- Note how each could stop or delay you: a permit, an inspection, an outage date, the air space over their roof, a complaint to the city.
- Note what each needs from you, and by when. Lead times can be long: in Toronto, a tower crane swinging its boom over a street needs a street occupation permit, which requires written aviation approvals, including Transport Canada's, and the City quotes about 12 weeks to process a complete application.
- Name one person on your team for each, so promises stay consistent.
- Put their dates and limits into the schedule, and track permits in a permits and inspections tracker.
- Review the list monthly and at each new phase, such as a crane going up or a lane closure.
Common mistakes
- Leaving the neighbours to the superintendent until the first complaint.
- Treating the permit as the owner's problem because the owner applied for it.
- Assuming a utility will work to your schedule.
- Letting several people talk to the same stakeholder, each promising something different.
Checklist
Questions that start the list
- Who issues a permit, approval or inspection we need?
- Whose line or service must we cut, move or connect?
- Whose property will our crane, tiebacks or scaffold cross?
- Who lives, works or studies within sight or sound of the site?
- Who uses the building while we work?
Check your understanding
The city announces it will replace the water main on your street next month. What changes on your stakeholder list?
