SDPW Board reviews project updates

His Excellency the Chairman of the Department opened the meeting by congratulating the winners of the "Irtaqi" Institutional Excellence Award, praising their efforts and initiatives that reflect a spirit of innovation and commitment. He emphasised the importance of the participation of all employees and urged directors to motivate their teams towards excellence and initiative, considering it a fundamental pillar for developing institutional performance.

Focusing on outputs quality

Al Suwaidi noted the increasing size of projects due to the development of technological programmes and the integration of enablers, which necessitates a greater focus on the quality of outputs. He called for expediting decision-making mechanisms and not hesitating to confront challenges, while reviewing work mechanisms within audit teams to ensure procedural flexibility. He stressed the need to balance project inputs with outputs, especially in light of major urban development projects currently overseen by the department with contracts exceeding one billion dirhams.

Improving the efficiency of monitoring and operation

The meeting also addressed the importance of projects. Al Suwaidi recommended generalising the Baad platform experience to all the department's buildings to improve the efficiency of monitoring and operation in the 430 buildings that the department supervises the maintenance of, which include 65,000 government assets.

Al Suwaidi also recommended completing the project management programme during the current year to include all projects under a unified umbrella, enhancing the use of the "Department Lens" by developing analytical tools and surveys directed at engineers to provide practical suggestions, and activating sustainability indicators after the handover of buildings by measuring energy consumption, lifespan, and the number of reports during the five years following handover, and conducting comparisons before and after the application of sustainability standards.

Reviewing results

Al Suwaidi also reviewed the outputs of the 365 initiative, which was at the level of each department, and stressed the importance of empowering first and second-tier work teams and linking them to the outputs through periodic surveys, assigning young staff to leadership tasks or knowledge transfer workshops, focusing on quality and operational efficiency in all outputs, and incorporating artificial intelligence into daily operations and utilising it in correspondence, research and development, and improving workflow.

Performance indicators were also presented within the strategic plan, and His Excellency directed that the low indicators be sent to the relevant departments with a request for practical proposals to address the shortcomings, and the absolute necessity of completing all initiatives during the current year without postponing them to the end of the plan, and developing a mechanism for evaluating consultants in contract management and linking the project management programme to the internal bidding platform through a joint working team, while stressing the importance of the supervising engineer communicating with beneficiaries during the implementation of projects to ensure that progress is in line with their needs and to benefit from applicable feedback within the strategic plan.

His Excellency the Chairman of the Department concluded the meeting by calling on all departments to work in the spirit of one team and integrate efforts to achieve the department’s strategic goals, stressing that the next stage requires a greater focus on innovation, efficiency and sustainability.