Building a Highly Collaborative Team

I've been learning about "lean construction" since around 2006. I sat in a presentation at the CSI convention given by Greg Howell, co-founder of the Lean Construction Institute. I was intrigued by the idea of building a collaborative team of design and construction professionals working together to create a building of higher value and higher quality, rather than one that is built faster and at the lowest cost. I quickly recognized that it would be some time before I could work in such an environment. At the time, the lean construction trend seemed to be isolated to the West Coast of the United States and I practice architecture on the East Coast. Moreover, most of the work I do is with public universities and the procurement laws of many states in our region preclude the creation of such a team during the design phases. Procurement laws, and the risk tolerance of most of our clients, trend toward traditional design-bid-build or some form of construction manager at risk delivery methods.

 

Fast forward six years and I found myself involved in a project that is trying to create a team with some of the tenants of lean construction. Our firm is part of a team working on a very large biomedical research building that is utilizing the design-assist delivery method for some of the major trades. For those who may be unfamiliar with design-assist, the idea is that trade contractors are brought to the project early in design to the assist the designers in various aspects of the design, including material and equipment selections and coordination among trades. The assistance continues through  the documentation phases and construction phase so they run more smoothly to deliver a building of higher quality and at lower costs. The theory behind the design-assist method is very sound and seeks to build a collaborative team that works together to provide the client with the best possible project given the funds available.

 

Theory and practice can differ widely. We are about 24 months into a nearly five year project and the practice of design-assist has not lived up to its promise at the onset of the project. I’ve been chronicling some of the project on the Baltimore CSI Chapter’s blog, Felt Tips. As I prepared several postings about various aspects of the project, I realized that a longer and more interaction presentation could be made which might be beneficial to all in our industry. I was focusing the blog postings on the “collaboration sessions” that the construction manager organizes quarterly but that was only a small part of the work that the team was undertaking. I began to realize that things were being said “in the room” during those sessions that weren’t being translated to outside of the room in our day to day interactions on the project.

 

I submitted an abstract to CONSTRUCT for a presentation titled “Building a Highly Collaborative Team.” My abstract was selected and I will be presenting this presentation as Session T14 on Tuesday September 9, 2014 at 1:30 PM. The title is taken directly from the title of the collaboration sessions on this project. When I initially submitted the abstract, I intentionally picked that name because I thought that is what our team was doing: building ourselves into a highly collaborative team. As time has gone on, the title is becoming tongue in cheek because we are not, in fact, a highly collaborative team because of the behaviors some of our members are undertaking. I hope you find the abstract and this blog enticing enough to cause you to attend my session!

 

While preparing for the presentation, I thought about the team and its members and began to realize that the behaviors we are undertaking are not always intentionally done so and if I can point them out to a larger audience, we could greatly benefit as an industry. To start, let's talk more about the project. I’ve given some clues above about it but I do not want to give too much information because our collaboration sessions have been confidential and I do not want to mention the client, project or team members by name. The project is a large, biomedical research facility at a public university. It is in excess of 400,000 GSF in size and has a construction budget in excess of $200M. There are currently three schools within the university involved in the design along with other stakeholders as you would expect: university project management groups, various review architects and engineers as well as operations and maintenance personnel. The A/E team is made up of three architecture firms, a laboratory planning firm, five engineering firms, and seven more specialty consulting firms. The construction manager now has a team of seven people working full time along with four design-assist contractors and is now procuring many other parts of the work, bringing in about a dozen other trade contractors, with more coming on in the coming months. Management of this team is a massive undertaking.

 

Idealistically, each of these parties brings something different to the table. The owners want the largest building possible with no additional financial outlay and a facilty that requires zero maintenance. The designers want to build the most beautiful building possible to assist with their own marketing efforts. The builders want to build the building as quickly as possible with no quality requirements and an unlimited checkbook for any changes they want to make. Obviously, I’m joking a bit about each of these statements, but with so many differing parties, building a collaborative team is of critical importance. Through the team building process of the last 18 months, I’ve learned two things that I will expand upon here.

 

Top Down Collaboration Does Not Work. With a team this large and diverse, these collaboration sessions could only accommodate the “project manager” level position in each firm. Even then, there were typically 20 to 25 people in each session. Each project manager then has three to five, if not more, people working with them to produce the work of their firm. From the owner's side, there were typically four to five individuals at the project manager and director level in attendance. In the initial session, one project executive said that this collaboration model must rely on “top down collaboration” meaning each person who attends the sessions is responsible for ensuring that those working with them understand the principles set forth so that the collaboration works. What I’ve found is very different. In some instances, those managers in attendance are not interested in being collaborative, so the top down model doesn’t work as there is no trickle down. But in other cases, the culture of the firm does not allow for true collaboration, so the workers outside of the sessions are unable to truly collaborate. In either situation, the “top down” theory falls apart.

 

When Faced with Adversity, Teams Either Come Together or Fall Apart. This is sort of an obvious notion, but is actually very complicated. I can illustrate this in one example: the possibly unforeseen condition. I use the word “possibly” because there can be disagreement among the team members as to whether or not the condition is truly unforeseen. When a situation arises and the team chooses to come together, several things can occur. A meeting can be held with all relevant players where the situation is reviewed and brainstorming occurs for potential solutions. No one points fingers or worries about getting paid for their efforts. First and foremost, the situation must be resolved so the project can move forward. At the end of brainstorming, a direction is decided through the consensus and the players act accordingly. This coming together can occur whether or not there is agreement on the condition being foreseen or unforeseen.

 

The above scenario happened and I left the meeting happy with the outcomes. The team agreed on the outcome which was shouldered by two firms and the work quickly began as discussed. However, shortly after that meeting, as the schedule delays and costs became more apparent, players came together not collectively but by ones and twos and the team began to fall apart. Site visits were held with only certain players present to review the conditions. Two of the contractors active on site began to worry about schedule and cost and so the CM began to work outside of the framework of the project team to mitigate those concerns. The owner was contacted independent of the design team and then the design team was expected to react based on innuendo and rumor, not hard facts. Time slipped away based on lack of communication and clarity.

 

As I post this blog, the situation above has not reached its conclusion. To date, there is at least a three week delay in the project. I became aware of the situation about one month ago. Activity on resolving the situation did not reach a fever pitch until a meeting was held 16 days later. Yes, 16 days later on a situation that was holding up the progress of a $220M project! There are a number of reasons for this delay, many of which I’ll cover in more detail in my presentation, Session T14 on Tuesday September 9, 2014 at 1:30 PM. There are also many more real world situations that have come out of this project and others I've worked on. I hope to see you all at my session and at CONSTRUCT 2014 in beautiful downtown Baltimore! There are many, many learning opportunities on topics that are intimately relevant to your work every day. Come see us!

 





Its Not What You Know, but Who You Know

Driving to work in the mornings, I listen to CBS Radio's TBD in the Morning, a sports talk show hosted by Tiki Barber, Brandon Tierney and Dana Jacobsen. While they typically stick to hard sports news and analysis, the conversation sometimes splits off into popular culture items that interest them: usually music and movies. They also occasionally use Tiki's status as a retired NFL running back and the wealth that generated as a launching pad for various topics. One such conversation took place today.

While discussing Justin Timberlake's acceptance speech as Top Artist from the Billboard Music Awards the previous night, the trio quickly began discussing the less popular members of N'Sync and other boy bands from the 1980's. A web site was consulted that estimates various celebrity's net worth which led to a discussion of what happens when you have enough money to not work any more, regardless of age. I presume Tiki is in this situation and simply chooses to work in radio to fill the days and any emotional needs that he has related to his work ethic and sense of self worth.

Tiki is a 1997 graduate of the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce where he concentrated in management information systems and earned ACC Honor Roll recognition. He likes to point out on air that he was also valedictorian of his high school graduating class. This is no dumb jock and today he confirmed my presumption about his financial net worth. But, Tiki took it a step further but saying life is not as much about what you know or what you do, but about who you know. He believes that much of his post-playing career success is related to some of the people he met while playing in New York for the Giants. I got the sense listening today, that he feels he may not have had the same opportunities after football had he been playing in a smaller market. 

I sometimes feel the same way. For the past 15 years, I've practiced architecture in Baltimore, MD, a reasonably large city but one that has close proximity to Washington, DC and Philadelphia. Through my business activities, I've become acquainted with many professionals in Baltimore and in both Washington and Philadelphia. Just by doing my job day and day out, I'm amassed a reasonable network of professionals who know me, know my skills and could help me in my career.

The recent recession of 2007 through 2009 caused me to take a harder look at my professional network. I've been an active member of CSI since 2000. I attended my first national convention in Dallas in 2001 and I have attended every convention since Las Vegas in 2006. I can probably count the number of Baltimore Chapter meetings that I've missed in the last 14 years on the fingers of less than two hands. My involvement in CSI has caused my "reasonable" professional network to balloon into a great network of construction professionals from Burlington, VT to Dallas, TX to Portland, OR and many spots in between. When I looked at my professional network, I realized that it had little to do with the size market and I work in and everything to do with my involvement in CSI. From that moment on, I never feared being out of work because I know too many people to remain out of work for more than a few weeks. 

Regardless of the size of your professional network, you can always work on growing and strengthening it. CSI is a great venue to do just that. Compared to many professional organizations, CSI's dues are reasonable and our local, regional and national events provide excellent value in education and networking opportunities. We have over 140 chapters so no matter where you live and work, there should be one or more chapters nearby. From now until May 31, 2014, CSI is running a membership special: join CSI and pay only $192 for national dues -- a 20% savings. To take advantage of this offer:

Log onto www.csinet.org/join

Select "Join Now", and then click "Sign Up as a New Member"

Enter Promotion Code CSIsocial14 when prompted

Click the "Add Discount" button

Make sure to also join a local chapter, where you can attend local education sessions and networking opportunities. While chapter dues are not included in this promotional offer, chapters provide an incredible value to already low national dues. 

Get active and increase your knowledge and strengthen your network by Joining CSI today!

Do the Right Thing

I spent the better part of a recent Friday and the following Monday morning dealing with a problem that was not my doing. I have a client that has some particular contractual requirements. I can't name the requirements as it would give too much information away and is not germane to my points anyway. In December 2013, I was contacted by this client to prepare a fee for a renovation project similar to three other renovation projects we performed successfully with this client. For this new project, I was told to use the same consultant team we used on the previous three projects. Given these particular contractual requirements, we would not be able to entirely use the same team without a formal waiver from these requirements. Our client told me the waiver would be applied for and granted. It is now May 2014, I have submitted four different fee proposals based on changing scope from the end user and was told on that recent Friday that my original team has to be restructured to meet these particular requirements as there is now no time for the waiver process.

In the course of working with our client and their procurement officer, I found out that there is another way around these contractual requirements that could have been put in place in December 2013 which would have prevented me having to restructure our team. All that was required was the client's PM working more closely with the procurement officer and much of this could have been avoided. The process of altering the contractual requirements on the front end is remarkably simple: describe the project, list the design disciplines required, describe the client's desire for the same successful team and the procurement office can ease or eliminate some of the special contractual requirements. The "waiver" process has to be performed solely by the architect and is much more rigorous, time consuming and costly. In most cases, I have been told, the architect is not successful in gaining the waiver. The president of our firm, after looking at the waiver process, said it is doubtful our firm would ever willingly engage in that waiver process.

It appears to me that the PM and his immediate supervisor sought what they thought was an easier way to circumvent their organization's procedures and reach the same ends. For them, it might have been easier, but for me and our team, it was infinitely more difficult and the desired end was not met. The principal-in-charge from our firm, myself and members of at least six other firms have exerted countless hours in a pursuit that seems fruitless due to the imposition of these contractual requirements. I would conservatively say my firm alone has exerted nearly $5,000 worth of fee hours in the preparation of just this final round of fee proposals with the restructured team. I would estimate a similar effort or more for each of the previous four iterations of fee proposals.

I cannot fully fault the PM as he is new to the client's organization but his supervisor is a long-time employee who knows the procedures but willfully decided to not follow them. That decision alone has cost my firm and our consultant team thousands of dollars in effort spent correcting their mistakes. On the one hand, its all in a day's work and is the cost of doing business, but it does give me pause when such a simple procedure wasn't followed on their side and it cost my team money. This particular client is a government agency, so the concept of making money is somewhat foreign to them, but that is why we are in business. We love designing and helping build beautiful buildings, but we are not a non-profit. Continuously reworking proposals based on client whimsy directly affects our bottom line in negative ways.

In any business or endeavor, we should all do the right thing. Many rules, regulations and procedures are put in place for very good reasons. I'm not saying we should always blindly follow existing procedures without questioning them, but part of being a professional is knowing when to follow the procedures and when to question them and work to change them. For this client and project, some of these contractual requirements are mandated by State law while other requirements are goals or guidelines that the client has some leeway in reducing or eliminating. The procurement procedures were put in place to help the organization reach their legal requirements and their goals and guidelines. When the procedures are followed, the process can move very smoothly and fairly for all parties involved. In this case, when the procedures are circumvented, it caused all parties needless stress and caused our team to spend needless hours and financial resources to correct a situation that we did not cause.

I am a big proponent of mentoring. In this situation, the resolution wouldn't be strictly considered mentoring as the issue was more about education of a new employee rather than mentoring of an emerging professional. However, with a little mentoring on the part of the supervisor, the PM may have acted better. By doing the wrong thing, I believe the PM's supervisor has set the PM on the course of constantly doing things outside of the organization's procedures. The supervisor has potentially created a PM that provides disservice to the A/E teams they are seeking to hire and could potentially cause the organization to accept higher overall A/E fees to make up for the PM's actions. By simply doing the right thing, a new employee could learn the right way to handle his business and the A/E teams would be treated fairly and project initiation would go more smoothly.