Building Beyond Resilience: How Antifragile Strategies Revolutionize Construction Project Management

Increasingly I've been thinking about antifragility as it applies to major construction projects and programmes.

💔 Today, most projects are 'fragile', they break when risks occur and as a result the end milestones are pushed out.

⛓ The industry noticed this and started to create more 'resilient' projects, ones building in contingency/time risk allowance/float to try absorb risks. However this approach still falls short.

🤸 Over the last 6 months I've been helping ALICE Technologies' clients to build 'antifragile' projects, projects which thrive under risk and uncertainty, often times improving performance.

An antifragile project only holds onto 'hard constraints' that have to be obeyed regardless of the situation (I must build the foundation before I put the structure on top) and leave all the other project variables to be flexible (sequence, resourcing, calendars etc). This way, when a risk occurs we can quickly simulate all the different ways to still meet the key milestones while always obeying the hard constraints. It's incredible - no longer is the plan useless once things change on site, it actually becomes a valuable wayfinding resource. 🔀

Original graphic concept credit: Tatiana Barletta

This approach, which I termed 'generative risk mitigation' or 'generative project recovery' was published in Construction Executive this week.

If you interested in learning more about this concept and how to make you projects antifragile, reach out to us here