EVA27: Placing the 'idea' front and centre
As gold sponsors of this 27th EVA Conference alongside Oracle Construction and Engineering, RPC was proud to be a part of what proved to be another insightful event curated by Steve Wake.
The focus of this two-day event was Project Performance in Turbulent Times, acknowledging the challenges faced by project professionals – and all of us – in the wake of a global pandemic and the midst of time of great economic uncertainty.
“EVA27 proved once again that ‘live’ is best,” observed Steve Wake, the event organiser. “You get to hear, feel and converse with people– your peers – about topics and ideas. You hear things you would never see in print.” In fact, networking opportunities are always a crucial part of the event’s ethos, with generous breaks worked in between the presentations to allow delegates to discuss what they’ve heard, share their own ideas and make new connections.
“I attend a lot of events,” said RPC Sales Manager Chris Woodbridge, “and the line-up here was one of the best I've seen.”
Notwithstanding the high calibre of speakers present, Steve’s aim is to create an atmosphere that fosters lively peer-to-peer debate and exchange. He describes the event as “Two days of networking, listening and sharing with people who are not grand standing or virtue signalling. The doers. The practitioners.”
For RPC’s Alex Chewins, it was his first time at an EVA event. He reflected on what he had taken away from the two days: “It was very informative and well attended by some leading project controls specialists and speakers, so I found the two days invaluable. It was especially useful hearing about the day-to-day issues and challenges faced and the various solutions and different ways solutions were managed. The venue and history of the surroundings was an added bonus”
EVA set out never to be in hock to a particular body commercial or professional. Steve told us “It covered all the bases of the challenges of operating in very turbulent time and yet provided people with the feeling that they were not on their own and that there are many ways project people can contribute to surviving and thriving without waiting to be told what to do.”
This feeling of people not being on their own was reflected in a common theme running through the event of an evolving more integrated approach to project controls identified by both Chris and Alex. “One thing mentioned a number of times by speakers,” said Alex, “was the problem of siloed data and the negative effect this can have on a project. I personally thought this was really interesting given the talk by Dave Hurren covering this very issue with Unifier and Dublin Airport.”
“A particular highlight for me,” Chris told us, “was a very candid presentation from Mark Wild on his time as CEO of Crossrail and the lessons learned.” Steve would agree and was proud to hear speakers challenging the status quo. “Above all,” he says, “it was glaringly clear that a main duty is to ‘speak unto power’ fearlessly-informed. I was told repeatedly that there is no other event that places the ‘idea’ front and centre with the right people present, who can act upon what they learn.”
