A Constructive Strategy, in my words.
Constructive and Co are a bespoke cabinet making firm working from East London. They focus on creating lasting woodwork that is designed and made well. Homeowners, architects and designers come to them for their steady, calm and collaborative process.
Or, read about our work together in their own words.
We met a little over a decade ago while they were sharing a workshop with a friend of mine. At the time, Tim, Dom and Sam were working independently, but when one of them won a significantly large project they decided to formally join forces. Since then, they’ve grown into a skilled team of around ten makers, designers and installers.
At some point as the company was developing, the director’s sought out external perspectives to address issues around sustainable working hours, profitability and their general satisfaction within their livelihood. They worked with a few people, and at some point I was recommended to them by another cabinet maker. The four of us met for coffee in July 2018 and we’ve continued ever since.
There have been some enduring themes across the work we’ve done together. These are not particularly unique to Constructive, but rather they highlight what we’ve worked on.
Building consensus
Every business with more than one person has to ensure everyone is ‘on board’ and agrees on plans and actions. Constructive has three equal partners and a team of employed staff. At a strategic level, the directors have to define what they’d like before then moving into how to achieve that. The nuance within this matters and is detailed through how roles, responsibilities and processes are defined and, perhaps more importantly, how they evolve.
A tangible example is that we have found certain critical points during a project that need to pass through peer review. Prior to any proposals (quotes) going out to clients, a draft is shared for comment via email, and we all have 24 working hours to respond with comments or questions. This helps to keep everyone informed, but it also ensures that we've reached consensus with that project's plan.
Phased approach
An issue prevalent with many designer-makers is that they respond to enquiries with fixed price quotes. The problem here is one of rigidity (price and specification), and of presumption (of what the future holds). Bespoke projects require design development and fixed prices require a fixed specification – there’s an inherent tension here. The solution is to isolate the design (detailing, scoping & specification) away from the delivery (making and installing) as a separate piece of work. This is already common in many design sectors – most pertinently with the RIBA Plan of Work as used by architects.
This benefits clients, suppliers and collaborators in allowing the project to evolve naturally with respect to design, budgets and timescales with the client ultimately being in control throughout. A client’s desires and requirements are explored and costed in tandem so that they can make informed decisions in good time. Once a set of drawings and details are agreed and fully ‘makeable’, a manufacturing proposal can be created by Constructive to move into the next phase. Constructive are now clear on exactly what needs to be done and in control of that process without any further input. In reality the process is slightly more nuanced as things inevitably come up, but delivering in phases dramatically derisks projects for everyone involved.
Internal projects
Delivering work for clients tends to take priority over internal improvements. This is natural as clients pay directly while internal efforts are an investment that may or may not pay off. Working ‘on’ the business not only costs time and money, but it also reduces the amount of billable time you have available (or eats into family life). Paying a consultant to join you in doing that increases the cost even further.
To address some frustrations around momentum, we started structuring internal endeavours in the same way that client work is done. It is proposed, budgeted, agreed (or dismissed), and run with the same processes as any other piece of work. This includes scheduling and time tracking the work.
Data and analysis
Profit comes as a result of good processes. And healthy decisions come from good data. But it isn’t quite as simple as that. What are these good processes? And how do we identify good data?
My response is: iteration. Try things, review them and then try again. Identify what you’d like to learn, figure what can or could be measured to help you learn that, and then show up to do the work.
Any business pricing their work based on time estimations must take time tracking seriously. The feedback loop between timesheets and pricing is what ensures prices are sustainable. It’s incredibly valuable, though rather tricky, to monitor projects in-progress (how much work has been done) against the running totals (how much time has been spent) and what's still to be done. Time tracking must be done with enough granularity to be useful and enough ease to be practical.
Within Constructive we also: track the progress towards year-end targets, monitor the percentage of hours that are billable, the amounts of prospective and confirmed income, and whether some trivial (but important) things are being done.
Website
In the Spring of 2019 we also remade Constructive and Co’s website. This too was very much a collaboration and you can read more about that here.
Ongoing results
Broadly, Constructive is doing well for their clients when they deliver projects on-time, on-budget and on-spec. Doing this calmly, enjoyably, sustainably and profitably means their business is working well for them.
The trajectory has been positive for Constructive across all their key goals since we started working together. This includes remaining resilient and profitable during the various challenges brought on by the Covid pandemic.