Beyond Checklists: How Reham Fawaz Turns Everyday Project Friction into Better Ways of Working
Reham Fawaz is a Project Manager at U+A, bringing over a decade of experience across engineering, steel structures, and multidisciplinary consultancy environments. Trained as a civil engineer, she has built her career at the intersection of design, delivery, and strategy, leading projects in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and the wider MENA region. Known for her analytical mindset and structured approach, she moves comfortably between contractual requirements, technical coordination, and client expectations, ensuring that complex scopes are translated into clear, actionable plans. Reham’s strength lies in building disciplined yet collaborative project environments, where processes support creative work rather than constrain it, and where teams are equipped to deliver consistently against demanding timelines and standards.
What is one way you work today as a project manager at U+A that your younger self at the start of your career would never have expected?
Early in my career, I thought the role of a project manager was mainly about tracking tasks and making sure deadlines were met. Over time, I realized that a large part of the job is actually shaping how the team works together.
Today, I spend more time simplifying workflows than chasing deliverables. If a process creates friction between teams, it eventually affects quality and timelines. Instead of pushing people to work faster within a complicated structure, I try to remove unnecessary steps so the team can focus on the design itself.
That shift from managing tasks to managing the working environment is something I would not have expected when I first started..
Can you share a time when listening to a non-senior team member changed the way everyone worked on a project?
On one project, a junior architect pointed out that the coordination comments between disciplines were getting lost across different email threads and drawing markups. His suggestion was simple: create a shared issue log where every comment from architecture, structure, and MEP could be tracked in one place.
At first, it sounded like a small administrative change, but once we implemented it the effect was immediate. The team had visibility on who raised each issue, who owned it, and when it was resolved. Coordination meetings became shorter and more focused because everyone came prepared.
It was a good reminder that useful ideas often come from the people closest to the day-to-day work.
What part of project management do you consider your strongest area, and how did you develop it?
One area that has become a real strength for me is working with people and building strong relationships within the project team. In multidisciplinary projects, the technical challenges are often manageable, but alignment between people and disciplines can be more complex.
Over the years, I learned that trust and open communication make a significant difference in how a team performs. When people feel comfortable raising concerns early, coordination becomes much smoother, and issues are resolved before they grow into larger problems.
This skill developed naturally through experience. Working across different countries and project environments exposed me to a wide range of personalities and working styles. It taught me to listen carefully, understand what motivates different team members, and create a working atmosphere where people feel respected and supported.
When that environment exists, collaboration improves, and the entire project moves forward more efficiently.
When you take over a project midstream, what do you review first to understand its real status?
The first thing I look at is not the schedule but the alignment between three things: the contract scope, the current deliverables, and the communication history with the client.
Sometimes a project appears on track from a schedule perspective, but when you review the correspondence, you realize that expectations have shifted or additional requirements have been introduced.
Once I understand that alignment, I review the design progress with the discipline leads. This helps identify whether the team is working toward the correct priorities or simply following the original plan even though the project conditions have evolved.
In your view, what distinguishes a good project manager from an exceptional one in our industry today?
A good project manager keeps the project organized and ensures that deadlines are met.
An exceptional project manager goes a step further and actively improves how the team works. They recognize recurring patterns, where coordination slows down, where decisions take too long, or where responsibilities are unclear. Instead of accepting those issues as part of the process, they adjust the structure of the project to reduce them.
In multidisciplinary design environments, this makes a significant difference because better coordination often saves more time than simply working faster.
What is one practical practice you hope more project managers will adopt because it genuinely makes everyday work easier for everyone?
One practice I find very effective is documenting decisions immediately after coordination meetings.
Design teams often spend time discussing solutions, but if the outcome is not captured clearly, the same discussions repeat later. A short written summary of decisions and responsibilities after each meeting keeps everyone aligned.
It is a small habit, but it prevents confusion and helps the project maintain momentum.