The Surprising Client Engagement Strategy That Transformed a Complex Alaska Project

So I, I'm gonna talk about uh one of the most complex project that I worked on, um. And it was a project, uh. Based out in Alaska in the North Slope, and this, uh, this project was something very important to my company because it was, uh, uh, because it had a strategic importance because we were trying to get into that region and also had a big financial impact to it. So, uh, earlier on in the project, uh, The client, uh, uh, let go the, the senior engineer on the project, and I was one of the team members at that point of time. And while the, while the, you know, while the company was looking out to hire, you know, someone to fill that, that position, you know, I wanted to, to take on that role. Now, it was, it was interesting because, uh, previously, I was working with the team and now I was also leading the team, uh, in some capacity. As well as manage a client. And what I found early on that this client was a lot more uh process-oriented rather than outcome-driven. So that was one of the reasons that, uh, you know, the, they let go the previous, uh, previous engineer, previous senior engineer. So, uh, just to explain the complexity of the project, like this project was actually build out, uh, we're talking about a six-story building which was built out in uh Louisiana. Put on a barge and this was shipped all the way to Alaska North Slope. Uh, so. And, you know, there's a lot of complexity of the project because like everything had to be constructed while the thing was in Louisiana because you could have really, you know, uh, it's almost impossible or very difficult to get manpower in Alaska. Uh, so, you know, uh, during this, during this whole, uh, project, like I collaborated with the client a lot more than, you know, what was happening previously. And, uh, you know, a lot of times I was seeking their guidance. Basically, you know, the part which really helped me through was engaging with the client, you know, and making them be part of the process rather than being just giving to the final outcome. Uh, on the team side, I had to put various, uh, different hats on because like I was mentioning, I was in a weird position. Previously, I was, you know, working with them and I was leading them. Uh, so, The other thing I also did was, uh, you know, uh, working with a client to figure out some of the vendors, you know, because in, in this situation, the, you know, um, You know, the temperature in that particular region goes to -50, so a lot of, uh, a lot of previous designs that we did was something that, you know, you know, that, that would not work. So I let a lot of vendor toes with the clients to make sure that we are taking all the right steps. And ultimately, you know, You know, uh, work hand in hand with my team and ultimately deliver this project to the client in time. And as, as a result of this project, you know, we subsequently got 3 more engagements with the client. And ultimately, all of this led us to establish additional office in that region to deliver a future on projects. So I, you know, I would, uh, I would definitely think that the success of this project was played a big role uh in, in getting those future contracts with the client in that region. Uh,

Yes, the complexity was something that, that I was mentioning earlier on that this project was completely built in a different location and everything had to be, you know, uh, installed in this particular facility while, while this was being constructed. And This required a lot of coordination with various different, uh, different teams early on. Like, you know, there was really no room for error. That was like one of the complexity and the other thing, the complexity that I just mentioned was that a lot of different vendors, you know, that who would normally, you know, you would use on a, on a particular project, construction project, they would not really work on this particular one because a lot of them. You know, uh, don't, you know, do not work at -50 °F. So we had to look at a number of different vendors, took tours to figure out like which vendors we could use. And so that, that added a complexity. And as well as, uh, there was another uh piece that the whole construction was happening in Louisiana, like I mentioned, so. You know, uh, working with the, working with the, you know, workforce there, making sure that they understand also the complexity of the picture was, was also something that's critical for this project.

So I think that the complexity, one of the complexities of, of this project was just dealing with the client itself, uh, because the client had a major um Just prior to this project, a client had a major accident, uh, uh, at one of their offshore facilities. So the the level of attention that they were, that they were paying to, to the details of this project was like something that had, we had never experienced. So that was one thing, like, you know, the continuous communication with the client and then checking through every single detail, uh, was something which, which was not something that we had, you know, previously experienced. So that required me to like, Like, you know, looking through all of the different uh solutions and making sure that like, you know, whatever we're presenting was something that the Uh, that the client would agree upon. Was

No, it was not related to some, something that we did. It was just a massive accident that was, which has a lot of media coverage to it, and that had just put the company, the client company in a bad position. So there was lot of oversight from their, their, their, their, you know, from their side, you know, on like, they were like going into every single detail, like, you know, how we were doing things like living every single calculation. So that is something which was not anticipated earlier on the project.

It's like you, the, you know that. Since this, the, the accident happened at like a different location, but this project was at a very different location and uh like the complexities working through, like finding the vendors, which would allow this, this particular project to go through because I was mentioning like, you know, This whole construction project was for a temperature -50 °F and, you know, it could go even lower than that. Plus, we were in the middle of a blast zone, you know, which presented a lot of complexities in the design part itself. So, you know, working through those details, like running a lot of these simulation models, you know, figuring through, for example, just to give you one idea, like one of the, one of the analysis that the client wanted to do was, you know, if a, if a blast happens, you know, how much time, you know, it takes for the temperature to rise in the building so that the people can escape from the facility, you know. So this was something again, which you would not do on a normal project, but all of those complexities, you know, came in and, you know, we had to work through a lot of these simulation models to, you know, get to a design point, you know, that, that it would work with, with this particular, you know, project. OK.