Kidron provides expert technical and professional solutions to clients in the built environment and water services sectors. Our expertise integrates the disciplines of mechanical engineering, project management and management consulting.

Registered as a competent person, qualified to ensure compliance with the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act (Act103 of 1997) Leslie van Zyl-Smit, a professional mechanical engineer, offers the following services:

Kidron offers professional expertise to the water services sector in the following areas:

Leslie is a certified Project Manager, with a wealth of experience in both conventional and agile project management disciplines. Equipped with significant engineering experience, Leslie has a deep appreciation of appropriate and effective project management methodologies for the initiation, planning, execution, monitoring and control, and close-out of projects.  Whilst his project management journey was born in the conventional PMBOK discipline, he has incorporated Agile project management tools into his project management toolkit over the years. The result is disciplined project management which is tailored to the needs of our clients working in complex and multi-stakeholder projects.

Kidron’s services are built on a solid understanding of both: 

• Conventional Project Management services aligned with Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and Waterfall; and
• Disciplined Agile Project Management, including DAD, Lean, SCRUM and Kanban best practice.

Contract Mediation

As a project manager, Leslie regularly acts as a Contracts Manager, either as the Owner’s Representative or Main Contractor.  With experience across various contracts, Kidron is equipped to administer GCC, FIDIC, NEC3 TSC and JBCC contracts.
Leslie’s experience and passion for providing ethical, professional services extends to ensuring that his clients know and understand the contents of contracts, as well as how to navigate them when situations become complex and pose a risk to the parties. Providing mentoring and advice to Contractors allows Leslie to bring his unique blend of expertise, experience and passion to benefit his clients. One such example occurred when a contractor was due to put in a high-risk bid. He sought the advice of Leslie and was able to pre-empt many of the risks and develop risk mitigation strategies which were included in the tender submission. When the risk situations did arise, the Contractor was prepared and adequately protected. Although the Contractor and his client eventually terminated the contract, through an arbitration process, Leslie’s guidance and advice ensured that the outcome was as favourable as possible.

Scheduled Maintenance Management

Infrastructure maintenance remains one of the greatest challenges in South Africa, with much of our public infrastructure currently crumbling beneath our feet. Scheduled maintenance, with a corresponding budget, which helps to mitigate against this situation. Organs of State, corporate businesses and other large enterprises benefit from Kidron’s scheduled maintenance management solutions, including:

• NEC4 Term Services Contract administration; 
• Procurement management of suitably qualified contractors;
• Maintenance tactics development;
• Data acquisition and data science to measure system performance; and
• Functional condition assessment of equipment and infrastructure.

Business Strategy Development

Drawing from his deep knowledge of project management and systems thinking, Leslie is also called upon to assist clients in reviewing or formulating their business strategy. The Cohesive Business, as modeled by Ravi Kathuria, is our go-to model which enables us to co-create business strategies which are clear and easy to explain to staff and clients.

Blended Agile Coaching

Leslie’s ICA coaching training blends with his intricate understanding of Agile project management and systems thinking. This makes him a valuable coach and mentor for clients on their journey towards implementing agile business processes.

Kidron offers the following blended Agile Coaching services: 
• Microsoft Office 365 System development, training and coaching
      - Sharepoint Structure Development
      - Microsoft Planner Development
      - Microsoft ToDo, Outlook, Planner and Teams integration
• Getting to "Done" Lifehack based on the work by David Allan and Tiago Forte
• Disciplined Agile employing Scrum and Kanban