It’s a headache few PMs have time for: digging on site reveals a bone, clay shard or midden that shuts down or stalls development. Critical paths come to a screeching halt as experts, and possibly government, traditional landowners and other stakeholders must be consulted.
Heritage and conservation may add risk, costs and complexity to an already complex project. By engaging an archaeologist early on, PMs ensure compliance and may find innovative ways to engage community and other stakeholders in preserving history that will settle a project into its place.
Tina King, Associate Director at Urbis, says clients sometimes see her as an obstruction when they should embrace her as an ally.
“Some project managers see heritage as a hindrance and I have had incidents where information has been held back or we find something is hidden and it ends up costing time and money unnecessarily,” King says.
Then it’s down tools for the construction crew, while the archaeologist records the find and deals with it. The best way to avoid a conflict between timelines and unearthing an artefact is to involve the archaeologist early in the project and set aside a contingency budget to find a flexible solution.