From experience I always felt project success was very much down to attitude, and by that I include values and behaviours of the team, the team including all major players; Client, Consultant, Contractor and Suppliers. Where success is evident, I often see evidence of Steven Covey’s ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ some of which are also demonstrated in the examples used in this book.

Presented in an easy to read way, using real projects to keep the attention of the reader, I would recommend this book to any manager or graduate seeking chartership in the construction field. It is a lot of common sense, but for success the right attitude must be demonstrated all the time.

The final statement in the book sums it up well; you can have the best processes available, but success will depend on having the right people in the right positions doing the right things at the right time. (Coincidently, this sounds very familiar to the key elements required in CDM15, hopefully if enough people say it and practice it we’ll change any negative culture!)

We all know that doing the right thing at the right time requires strength of character, which in turn is helped by good communication and good motivational management.

A good reminder to be proactive and have the strength of character to do the right thing at the right time.

Thank you Charles

Review by Claire Bursnoll CEng MICE, Senior Lecturer in Construction Management, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing, Kingston University, London