Inter­view with Jaak­ko Lin­no­lah­ti

11.7.2022

Kok­ko­la Sports Park Alliance began its work at the end of March 2022. The first pha­se will see the design of the con­tent and imple­men­ta­tion of the sports park complex. The tar­get cost and imple­men­ta­tion plan, inclu­ding sche­du­le, will also be deter­mi­ned. Based on this work, the deci­sion will be taken to proceed to the imple­men­ta­tion pha­se. Jaak­ko Lin­no­lah­ti, head of procu­re­ment, comes from YIT, Vaa­sa.

What is your role in the Kok­ko­la Sports Park Alliance?

I’m head of procu­re­ment in the team and also sup­port pro­ject mana­ge­ment, especial­ly in tasks rela­ted to infor­ma­tion mana­ge­ment and plan­ning cont­rol. On top of this, I’m also a mem­ber of the pro­ject team.

What makes up your wor­king days?

At this sta­ge of the pro­ject, the­re are rela­ti­ve­ly few procu­re­ments and so I par­tici­pa­te with the rest of the team in pro­ject deve­lop­ment, veri­fying pre­li­mi­na­ry data and com­men­ting on the various alter­na­ti­ves. I’ve also been acti­ve in deve­lo­ping the pro­ject infor­ma­tion mana­ge­ment process, which lar­ge­ly gui­des how we act in the pro­ject and how we process infor­ma­tion and various docu­ments. In pha­se 1 begin­ning in the autumn, we will put the finis­hing touc­hes to the pro­ject procu­re­ment stra­te­gy and draw up a procu­re­ment plan, which in turn will dri­ve the plan­ning sche­du­le among other things.

How do you like wor­king in the alliance?

I like the alliance way of wor­king, it’s a very col­la­bo­ra­ti­ve form of cont­rac­ting. We all sit around the same table and we sha­re the same goals. I like a model whe­re desig­ners and buil­ders are ten­de­red as one team and this means we also get to deter­mi­ne the way of wor­king from the very first day – part­ly alrea­dy at the ten­de­ring sta­ge. Because we do many things toget­her, it’s impor­tant to spend time on slight­ly sof­ter things such as the team spi­rit in order to fos­ter teamwork.

How does the alliance model dif­fer from your ear­lier pro­jects?

We ope­ra­te in the Big Room, whe­re all key per­sons are pre­sent at least weekly. We spend a bit more time on work in the deve­lop­ment pha­se of the pro­ject and aim to ensu­re that the rest of the pro­ject reac­hes the goal wit­hout any hitc­hes. In a tra­di­tio­nal con­struc­tion pro­ject, each cont­rac­tor focuses more on their own role and their own inte­rests are moni­to­red more. In the alliance model, eve­ry­one is on the same page and the focus is on taking the pro­ject forward. In alliance pro­jects, plans are also deve­lo­ped in sta­ges – we make plans accor­ding to the situa­tion at the time, which in turn sig­ni­ficant­ly shor­tens the enti­re pro­ject. In other pro­jects, whe­re for example the exact price has to be quo­ted, the cus­to­mer has to order all the plans from desig­ners befo­re put­ting the enti­re cont­ract out to ten­der. 

Have the­re been any chal­len­ges?

Of cour­se, but in the big pic­tu­re, work has got off to a great start and it has to be said that in the Big Room, we’ve had an amazing sen­se of get­ting things done. Deve­lop­ment pha­se 0 has now been ongoing, which means that we have had to catch up with the pro­ject goals set by the client in a rela­ti­ve­ly short time. This invol­ves the various requi­re­ments of dif­fe­rent users such as sports clubs and event orga­ni­sers, which means the­re has been qui­te a lot of infor­ma­tion and needs to con­si­der. We’ve had to put toget­her various alter­na­ti­ves to a tight sche­du­le, after which we’ve con­si­de­red which of them we want to sub­mit to deci­sion-makers. Of cour­se, the bud­get in the background also dri­ves what we do. Sig­ni­ficant recent rises in buil­ding costs also pose their own chal­len­ge.

How do you reco­ver from long wor­king weeks?

I reco­ver by doing all kinds of exerci­se and this is very impor­tant to me. I often go and exerci­se befo­re the wor­king day, with a wor­kout in the gym or some golf. I’ve also played bas­ket­ball my who­le life. In addi­tion, doing things at home with the children and eve­ry­day fami­ly life nice­ly help me to relax from the stres­ses of work.

And final­ly, tell us somet­hing about the com­pa­ny you repre­sent

I repre­sent YIT, which is the lar­gest con­struc­tion com­pa­ny in Fin­land and can in many ways be said to also be a lea­der. At the moment our stra­te­gy is very much about deve­lo­ping cities and living envi­ron­ments, and the envi­ron­ment and res­pon­si­bi­li­ty are also impor­tant parts of our stra­te­gy. I like wor­king for YIT and have been given much res­pon­si­bi­li­ty during my career. I want to con­ti­nue at YIT because it means I get to be invol­ved in inte­res­ting and sig­ni­ficant con­struc­tion pro­jects with the best pro­fes­sio­nals in the busi­ness. That’s what dri­ves me and makes me hap­py to go to work each mor­ning.

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