5 Who leads the project and who is on the team?

5

Who leads the project and who is on the team?

1. Project Stages A project has a number of stages which need to be followed. These are covered by the complementary booklet to this one on “Your Guide to Church Growth Trust’s Architectural Services and the RIBA workstages”. Copies can be obtained from our office.

2. Momentum Progress has to be consistently forward to maintain momentum and with stages being closed out and recorded. Any attempt to reverse and review elements of the process does more than slow down the project. It increases costs through delay. This normally means an increased professional input and generally demoralises both those working on the project and those raising funds. Experience shows that delaying a project in this way is often due to an unwillingness to accept the direction of the project from its inception and is therefore counterproductive, unnecessary and brings no benefits. It is a bit like snakes and ladders! The snakes are avoidable events which drag the project down and backwards. Putting this right will nearly always incur more cost. Those involved in leading on building projects need to be disciplined and move forward on the agreed basis.

3. Church Growth Trust’s involvement The stages start with looking at the feasibility of the project. Church Growth Trust would expect to be involved

in the process for at least three reasons: firstly, because we own the building; secondly, because we have a lot of first-hand experience in managing projects and finally, because we want to see the Gospel go forward from buildings that are as fit as they can be for this purpose. We are normally prepared to provide the feasibility study free of charge to help get the project going.

4. Church Growth Trust’s involvement It is important to decide who is leading the project; whether this is you or us. It is likely that whoever has the majority financial commitment is more likely to want to lead and that is reasonable and practical. Cases where it would be better for you to lead the project may include situations where improvements to the property are for your specific needs, rather than for the property generally and/or where you already have substantial funds available and/or are likely to be able to raise grant funding. We are flexible and whether we or you are leading, we can help with our expertise and we would want to be involved and kept fully informed. If you are leading, then it will be important for whoever is identified as the person heading up the project to have a reasonable level of property competence or awareness, so as to be able to manage and challenge in a way that helps, not hinders, the project.

You also need to understand that if you lead on the project, you will be the client and therefore responsible for signing contracts with builders and paying for the work.