"We need to make sure we keep working effectively, and if things change dramatically with the reviews that are going on at the moment, we then need to resize the organisation and react appropriately," says Gibb. "We are already sending a number of people back to their parent organisations to get back on with life. It's quite a big change for us."
Making sure that the right people are in Scirt and continuing to produce at a high level is essential says Gibb. "It's now over three years into the rebuild and in my view, it's time in some instances to rotate people out and give them a change. That's been happening internally, the delivery team in particular have been consciously rotating people out, giving those people different opportunities while getting new people in, fresh blood, fresh focus."
"It gives people a chance to do different jobs, to grow and ultimately I think as a leader you should be developing your people to the point where they can take a new job over and go. That's success."
Gibb says his own role will also be affected. "Ultimately the time is coming for a couple of potential successors to step into my role. It won't happen for a little while, but that change will definitely be made before we finish in December, 2016.
"I've been in construction for 30 years; initially I approached this as a construction project, in reality there's a twist to it. This disaster recovery puts a whole new dimension to it, puts more focus on community and how you need to work with them because you're working for them.
"It's just an opportunity to do something meaningful, it's actually quite good for your soul to do something meaningful. Like rebuilding a city, we're all doing our best to do the best job we can for Christchurch. You leave a bit of a legacy, that's good -- it feels good."
The initial phase of Scirt's programme was an emergency response phase -- fixing pipes, fixing damage and getting key infrastructure back in operation.
"We started with the highest priority assets first -- sewerage, main transit lines and replacing pump stations which had been hanging on by a thread," says Gibb.
"These were the big gutsy, ballsy and high-cost projects. When those costly projects wrapped up in November of last year, we transitioned into the smaller projects. Once you've reestablished security of the bigger parts of the network, it enables work on the smaller parts to be carried out."
Vote makes no difference
Scirt is working in with central Government and council to ensure the national elections don't bring progress on the rebuild grinding to a halt.
"When you get to an election, there comes a point in time where there are no more decisions made throughout Government departments," says Duncan Gibb. "Those departments tend to come and go with ministers, so there's a strong mandate to set guidelines to see us through that period so we can continue to operate, because you do need to keep operating."
Gibb says that means identifying which work needs to be approved and getting that through in a timely fashion.
"In some instances, that has meant challenging and changing our design to make sure the correct solutions are identified and approved.
"Cera for example have been working with the minister to identify things they need to do to keep things running. A lot of what we're going through at the moment with these conversations is about what we and our clients need to be doing to make sure everything continues smoothly. I'm not expecting any bombshells."
Show of strength
The Stronger Christchurch Infrastructure Rebuild Team (Scirt) is an alliance formed by City Care, Downer, Fletcher, Fulton Hogan and McConnell Dowell.
Scirt is responsible for the $1.7 billion programme of new horizontal infrastructure being built in Christchurch after major earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 severely damaged the city's water supply, wastewater and sewerage systems.
