I am sat here in my office; it is late afternoon on Friday 3rd October and the working week is largely done. As I take 30 minutes or so to savour a freshly brewed coffee and listen to Storm Amy gathering pace, the first UK storm of the season, no less, I find myself reflecting on the week that has just passed.
The rapid shift from the calmness of late summer to the first true storm of autumn reminds me of the challenges businesses face when navigating an ever-changing landscape: employment, development, technology, politics, taxation, client relationships, and more. All can change in an instant, just like the seasons. The wind drives rain against my window and shakes the leaves from the trees, yet nature is prepared for this.
The seasons are predictable. What is not predictable is the severity of their changes, or at times, the resulting damage. Business feels the same. Growth is rarely linear. It may look neat and steady on a graph prepared for stakeholders, but those figures, percentages, and KPIs only tell part of the story. The lived reality is an alternative narrative.
That is certainly true for our own micro-business here at LCS Project Solutions Ltd. The plans we make and carefully detail do not always unfold the way we envisage. Over time, we have learned not to hold too tightly to those plans but to adapt and respond as required. Unlike the seasons, business cycles rarely come with predictability.
We seek instead to embrace the Plan-Do-Check-Act model in everything we do, for ourselves and in service to our clients. While data and metrics are important, they only form one strand of the story. What matters most to us are the people, the ones who carry out the work and create the services that, in turn, become the data points.
This past week has reminded us again of the value of conversation, of listening closely, and of finding practical solutions based on what we hear.
Monday
Leon and I had the pleasure of meeting a team about to embark on a heritage repair project right on our doorstep, followed by lunch and a good catch-up. Other tasks included the production of Safe System of Works documents for clients.
Tuesday
End-of-month invoicing, vital to business continuity and was followed by a HARP site compliance inspection, ensuring planning and delivery were aligned with project requirements. Gaps identified are always fed back to our clients for closing, demonstrating the drive for continuous improvement. This was Plan-Do-Check-Act in action. We also worked alongside a project team on compliance, covering Health & Safety, Environmental, and Quality matters.
Wednesday
A day largely dedicated to updating CDM Trackers for multiple projects on behalf of a client. We also assisted others in preparing site-specific operational control documents and finalised reports following gap analyses of existing management systems.
Thursday
The first Thursday of October, already month ten! The day was set aside for reflection: reviewing the past month, identifying opportunities to improve our business practice, and exploring how we can add meaningful value for our clients. Not a “crystal ball” exercise but a deliberate process of client reviews, diary planning, and strategy discussions.
Friday
With the storm building, no site activity tor us took place. Instead, we developed further site-specific documentation for clients and met with a prospective client to discuss supporting their current ISO accreditations. The conversation flowed naturally into wider themes: business challenges, training, competence, value and, unexpectedly but enjoyably, cycling! We probably spent as much time discussing our shared passion for the bike as we did business.
Reflections
Looking back, what ties this week together is not the documents, reports, or trackers, it is the conversations. Listening, sharing, and responding with practical solutions. These cannot be plotted neatly on a graph, nor reduced to percentages on a slide. Yet, for us at LCS Project Solutions, they are the true measure of progress.
One of the team also experimented with AI modelling! See the feature image 🤣
