On Tuesday, October 8, 2013, I spent all day
in a partnering or team building event for a large biomedical research project
I'm involved in. I wrote a few
quick paragraphs before the event started bemoaning the possibility of
wasting a day in "touchy-feely" type discussions with equally
uncomfortable construction professionals. As the event wore on, I was
pleasantly surprised by the quality of the program and the caliber of the
moderators. For those who follow me on Twitter (@BaltoCSI), you've seen many
tweets lately related to ideas that came out of this session and there are more
to come. However, I felt that I should expand beyond 140 characters and give a
more comprehensive description of the event and my thoughts on it. I wrote the
whole post at once, but will split it into two parts as it became quite
lengthy!
Construction projects of any size are not
easy. That is part of what appeals to me about my profession and our industry. I
focus primarily on projects at institutions of higher education and research or
teaching laboratories, at that. At any given time during the design phases on
projects I’m involved in, there may be six or more architects, 12 or more
engineers and other consultants and as many as 20 or more owners personnel
involved in the project. Once under construction, the project team can balloon
to 10 members of the contractor’s team, 50 or more workers on site and untold
numbers of people involved in the raw material extraction, product manufacture
and distribution of materials and equipment to the site. With all of those
people, each with a small part and each with their own agenda, the complexity
of even the smallest project can be enormous.
The particular project I'm currently involved
in is a 400,000 GSF, $218M behemoth. The A/E team features three different architecture
firms plus a laboratory design firm, five primary engineering firms and six
more specialty consulting firms with close to 50 design professionals engaged
in the design and production of contract documents. Our internal team
coordination meetings routinely feature 15 or more people in the room and
another six to eight on conference call. Right now, at design development, the
drawing set is four volumes of over 200 drawing sheets each and two volumes of
specifications at about 500 pages each. My firm is the associate architect,
working closely with the architect of record and the rest of the team. I am our
firm's project manager and assistant PM for the whole team.
The owner has retained the services of a
construction management firm to perform both pre-construction and construction
management services, including managing a design-assist process. For those
unfamiliar with that delivery method, the CM has contracted with
sub-contractors to assist in the design of the concrete structure, glazing and
metal panel systems and HVAC, plumbing and electrical systems. This is a new
process for me and my firm as well as for the owner, which is a long time
client of our firm. Please follow this blog as there will be more postings
related to that effort coming in the next few months. In the early stages of
the design-assist effort, I’m finding it to be a fascinating process, but one
where mistakes have already been made.
I'm going to try to keep the names of the
owner, A/E and contracting firms and individuals inside those firms confidential.
Their names are not germane to the discussion and provide unnecessary
information. I have not asked permission to use anyone’s name and we agreed to
confidentiality during the collaboration meeting, so I must respect that. With
that said, I'm sure anyone who follows design and construction in my area or
knows me personally will no doubt be able to figure out who some of these
players are, but my purpose is to relay my experiences and thoughts, not point
out the mistakes of others.
It took over a month to organize this
collaboration event. Given there were about 30 people invited from a dozen
different organizations, finding a suitable date was difficult. The owner and
CM finally agreed to hold it on a Tuesday and cancel the regularly scheduled
design meetings that would have normally occurred on that day. The owner has
given the CM shell space in a building near the construction site for staff
office space, so that was the venue for the event.
The moderators of the event were from the
home office of the construction manager. This CM is a large, nationally known
firm which is headquartered in a major midwest city. These two people
apparently run similar collaboration sessions for this CM all across the
country. They were incredibly friendly, highly organized and seemed comfortable
working with such a large and diverse group of professionals. They were also
incredibly focused on the project, the collective team and our needs. They were
not trying to make their firm look good but were incredibly focused on making
the team better. That was an important thing to happen: adults, especially
seasoned construction professionals can see phony a mile off!
The invited parties included several tiers
from the ownership team: an Assistant VP, several directors and the owner's
project manager and assistant project manager. In attendance from the A/E team
was the architect of record's PM and project architect, myself and the
principal's in charge for the structural engineer and HVAC, electrical and
plumbing engineers. The CM was represented by their project executive, PM and
assistant PM. There were also the four design assist contractors, each bringing
project executives and one or two other people. On the day of the event, there
were 26 people in the meeting plus the two moderators. It was a large group,
all from diverse backgrounds and all bringing something different to the table.
I have to question some from the ownership
group. The event was scheduled for 9:00A to 4:30P. At the beginning, the lead
moderator asked if there were time constraints for anyone in attendance. Due to
scheduling conflicts and miscommunication, there was a telecomm and audio-video
design meeting in the afternoon. The architect of record’s PM and I had
discussed who should attend and ultimately decided this event was too
important, so he sent a junior project architect to that meeting. The owner's
AVP said he had a conference call at 3:00P but would return for the conclusion
of the session. The architect of record’s PM asked to be excused at 4:00P to
beat the traffic back to the District of Columbia where his office is located.
The moderator said he would work with that. Two people from the owner's team
remained silent at this point but left after just one hour of the event. Two
others from the owner's team arrived late but did stay for the duration of the
event.
In his opening remarks, the owner’s AVP
discussed how important he feels this type of event is but was unable to garner
the same focus from some on his team. To be fair, many of us have had negative
experiences with these types of events which may cause some to be less than
interested in attending them. However, the other 22 participants were able to
give their attention for a full day, so I believe the entire ownership team
should have been able to do so as well. The two individuals who left after one
hour were directly involved in one of the issues the group identified and
discussed later on in the session.
The printed agenda was somewhat difficult to
understand, hence my trepidation before the event started. However, the agenda proved to be very simple.
We introduced ourselves and discussed our experiences with partnering sessions.
We then discussed personality or communication styles and took a quiz to help
determine our own communication styles. We discussed definitions of each of the
four styles and how best to communicate with persons of that style. After
lunch, we left the generalities and philosophies behind and focused firmly on
our project. I think that was the critical move that made a huge impact on the
team and the success of the event.
I have mixed experience with partnering type
events. The ones I have attended in the past were not terribly successful. They
seem to always start with participants sitting around tables filled with
Matchbox Car construction toys: bulldozers, dump trucks, road graders and the
like. They seem to focus on heady philosophy or touchy-feely discussions that
make professionals uncomfortable. As we began our session, I did not see any
construction toys around and we were sitting in a circle so already the mood seemed
different. When it came my turn to describe my partnering experiences, I said
that I find it insulting to put construction toys in front of construction
professionals. That elicited laughs from all and quick agreement from the
moderators.
I think I'll save the conversation of the
personality styles for a blog by itself, but essentially, this particular
personality style indicator focuses on four styles: Producer, Planner,
Promoter, Peacekeeper. In our room of 26, there was one Promoter (one of the
moderators), one Peacekeeper (HVAC engineer) and the rest of us split between
Planner and Producer. One of the characteristics of Planners and Producers is
that they sometimes have difficulty communicating with each other as the
Planners like to have all information required, in a high level of detail and
the Producers want to act quickly, based on just the most important facts. That
information by itself probably justified most of the day's expenditure!
As
we broke for lunch at this point, I think I’ll break the blog here. Please
return in a week or so to learn about the rest of the event. I found it highly
successful and I hope the benefits continue to be reaped as the project moves
forward.
