Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT, an occasional contributor to this blog. Ralph's weekly per-SPEC-tives email newsletter was welcomed reading in my inbox each Wednesday morning.

Ralph died on February 9, 2014, leaving behind a wife, a daughter, a son and a granddaughter.

Tom Hellmann, AIA, Senior Vice President and Director of Architecture and Interior Design at Hixson Architecture, Engineering and Interiors said, "He was a great associate and even better man." Hear, hear. Ralph's intelligence, humor and home-spun wisdom will be missed by all who knew him. There is a giant hole in construction knowledge left by his passing.

Here is a link to his obituary and final arrangements. http://www.boltonandlunsford.com/obituaries

Submittals and The Client

by Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT
 
This post was borrowed from Ralph's weekly per-SPEC-tives email column. If you don't get this weekly writing on all things CSI and specifications, contact Ralph. I'm sure he'll be happy to add you to the distribution!
 

The title seems to indicate a rather strange and innocuous discussion. How many clients really care about submittals on their construction projects? Some will be quite interested; others will take little if any interest.

Many clients still see the submittal as the verification of what they will receive on their project—a “checks and balances” ensuring the true value received for dollar spent. Some see the submittal as the record of what is placed, for future reference, maintenance and replacement or trouble shooting. This of course, really is part and parcel of the Operating and Maintenance Manuals required on most projects.

Well, a big part of the answer may lie in the adverse impact of submittals when they disrupt the project schedule, and completion of the project. Yet there are other considerations. Some people has professed that submittals are useless, needless and obsolete. Is that true? Or is there a valid and proper place for submittals—properly requested, produced, processed, and utilized?

There is need to address several issues with the Owner, so there is full understanding of all circumstances surrounding submittals;

- Submittals will be requested ONLY to ensure that the Contractor[s] understand the requirements of the contract;

- Only a minimum number of submittals will be required;

- Requests will only be required for those submittals containing crucial information;

- The Contractor is responsible for the “means and methods of construction”  and is therefore the primary reviewer of submittals and their  compliance with the contract documents; erroneous, incomplete, and non-compliant submittals are to be returned to the preparer by the CONTRACTOR [all in accord with AIA A201, General Conditions of the Construction Contract];

- The Contractor is to review all submittals, check for errors, and stamp them with an approval stamp, PRIOR to submitting them to the design professionals [complies with A201];

- The design professionals ARE NOT responsible for an extensive review, not  for any information other than pointing out errors-- NOT correcting them [in accord with A201];

- Reviewed submittals will be returned in a prompt manner;

- Submittals sent to the design professionals without proper Contractor review and approval, will be DISCARDED/Returned with no further action [complies with A201];

- Any schedule disruption[s] attributable to faulty processing of submittals accrue to the Contractor [NOT the design professionals].

A conversation, with the client, on this topic is most important--and strongly urged and advised. It lays the groundwork for the procedures to be followed on the project that will ensure compliance with the project requirements and will give the full value of the work to the client. That context and conversation falls within the purview of the design professionals.

The Contractor may well have a very different “take” on submittals and the whole of the process. AIA Document A201, however, makes the submittals program and process quite clear and directed. It delineates the responsibilities of the various parties, and denotes a very specific progression of preparation, processing, review and approval—by several parties and with certain specific guidelines.

It is most important that the client be aware of these provisions so the work of the process will not be a surprise or an irritant to the client. Being made fully aware of the reason for, the background of, and the inner-working of the process is important, not so much in the minute details, as in the overall value and correct operation.

The submittals program is in place for good reason, and is time tested in the results it produces. Obviously, it is wrong to obviate or ignore this program for any reason or changed condition in a project. Of course, the client does have the right to pursue the project as seen fit-- hopefully this determination does not involve elimination of this clearly directed and helpful process.

Its value directly contributes not only to project success, but to value given to the client!

Building a Highly Collaborative Team, Part 2

by Marvin Kemp, AIA, CSI, CDT

This is Part 2 of a blog about a collaborative team-building event I attended on October 8, 2013. Please read this post for the opening thoughts and action that occurred in the morning on the day of the event. This post will continue with what occurred following lunch.

The afternoon was spent in both small group discussions and large group discussion combined with reporting on the small group work and reaching consensus in the large group discussions. The afternoon opened with a large group discussion of the desired team working environment. The CM is hoping to build a true "co-location" environment where CM staff, design assist contractors and architects and engineers all work together in the same space. The problem is that the A/E contracts do not envision that level of effort until construction starts and I do not believe the CM has configured their co-location space with the infrastructure necessary to make that level of involvement available and efficient. Providing desks, wifi and coffee does not equal a successful co-location space. Moreover, contracts must be in place to ensure all parties understand their involvement, equally assess and accept risk and professional licensing concerns are eased.

At the collaboration event, we discussed behaviors that contribute to a healthy and collaborative working environment. The moderator was careful to call them "behaviors" to keep the conversation general enough to be useful and to differentiate immediate actions from long term behaviors. Things like bringing enthusiasm and cheerfulness, truthfulness, listening, consistency and accountability were discussed. Additionally, all parties must be respectful of each other but mindful of the delivery method to avoid honesty that is too brutal and might become hurtful. Team members should also come to discussions with solutions and not just problems.

The environment all would like to see has give and take in all situations. The "I win, you lose" type of attitude is not welcome nor healthy to the team. Members should be assertive with regards to their thoughts and ideas but not too aggressive. At the end of the day, the team should have fun and be "jocular not jugular:" all should watch out for sarcasm.

Confidentiality is also of critical importance. What is said in the room and among the team must stay in the room and among the team. That's why I'm being careful in authoring this blog. I want to describe the discussions, but not call people out or relay their attitudes or frames of mind. Twice, the moderator went around the room and asked if each team member, individually, accepted the idea of confidentiality. He waited for each member to verbally acknowledge their acceptance, similar to the flight attendant waiting for verbal acknowledgement from someone sitting in the exit row of a plane.  All of these behaviors were noted on flip charts and then pinned to the wall for all to review during the rest of the session and beyond.

Similarly, the team discussed behaviors that indicate regression or the team moving away from collaboration and returning to how things were in a non-collaborative environment. Team members not making meetings and missing deadlines indicate the metrics used to measure team success are trending in the wrong direction. If team members begin to suspend trust and poorly communicate or begin to point fingers, the team is regressing in their behaviors.  If there is an absence of fun and if team members avoid one another and frequently pull out contracts to review their scope, the team may be regressing. Understanding unhealthy behaviors is just as important as understanding the healthy behaviors teams should engage in so that all can embrace the healthy and avoid the unhealthy.

The first small group session was spent identifying current or anticipated issues the project team is facing or may face. The moderators split us into groups, making sure the groups were sufficiently diverse. For example, the first group I was in contained one engineer, two members of the owner's group, one member of the CM group and two design assist contractors but from different firms. There were three groups and three architects in the meeting, so we were split up in all groupings.

As our group discussion began, we tried to move beyond the usual issues of "budget," "schedule," and "quality" broad picture statements, although each of those ideas appeared in the overall discussion of the issues facing our project. We tried to get more specific to the nature of this project and the culture that has already begun to take form. Concern was expressed over the protracted funding schedule from the legislature, concern over the contractual arrangements of the design assist contractors and coordination of design and construction efforts by the A/E team, design assist team and CM staff.

Not so shocking, all three teams identified the same issues. Not shocking because the groups were painstakingly organized to maximize the interaction among all team members. Each team contained members of the A/E team, owner's team, CM staff and design assist contractors. Once you start to think beyond the usual or generic problems that all projects face and get into the nuts and bolts of the project at hand, I would expect all three teams to identify similar issues. Sure the wording was slightly different and they were in slightly different order but they were essentially the same issues.

Once we returned to the large group setting, each smaller group presented their thoughts and the rest of the team was allowed to ask questions.  As there was much consensus on the issues, the only questions were clarification of thought and terminology. The groups presented their thoughts on flip-chart pages that were pinned to the wall. This made locating commonalities easy: the moderators used red markers to circle or place asterisks next to common themes on the group pages.

At this point, the groups were shuffled and the discussion continued with the idea of prioritizing the top three to five issues and beginning to think about how to address each of the top three issues. This session was not as successful as the first for several reasons. Many of us chose to take a break for rest rooms and phone calls so the sessions were a bit late starting. Next, the groups were interchanged, so their members had some ramp up time, same as in the first break out sessions. Lastly, the prioritization discussions required more discussion than the issue listing so the session was more about finesse and than brain-dumping, as the first session had been.

This time, each group had a slightly different priority listing but three rose to the top. Coordination between A/E and design assist contractors, the protracted funding schedule and the contractual arrangements of the design assist contractors were clearly on everyone's mind. The initial solutions offered were all over the board and not clearly defined. The questions were more numerous and generally focused on specific ideas related to proposed solutions.

My group for this second break out included two senior members of the owner's team, the project executive from the CM, one design engineer and several members from various design assist contractors. While the project exec from the CM was vocal, the senior owners were not. I think they were trying to listen and learn. I bring up the group make up because of what happened in the third break out session. 

The moderator wanted the third session to feature the same groups as the second session. However, the most senior members of the architect of record, CM and owners team broke out into a separate session to discuss a decision making matrix thus leaving my team short three members. The remaining members split up and joined the other two groups to discuss real solutions to the top three issues. This proved to be a good start which left several action items for the owner, CM and A/E. I don't think the moderators expected concrete decisions to come out of this session as they were not surprised that we left with action items.

The discussion of the decision making matrix was interesting on two levels. The matrix was set up with five levels. Many of the people listed on the matrix were in the room and did not seem to agree with their slotting in the levels, even though those slots were set by senior project staff and in some cases, the person’s employer. The Level I slot is for the most senior, executive level people in each organization. Level II is reserved for the project manager level people and Level III for one step below that. The second thing that made this discussion interesting is, to my way of thinking and considering my project and team knowledge, Levels IV and V have no decision making ability: they are too far down the chain and quite frankly, not given the authority by their respective firms. This is evidenced by the owner and CM groups leaving these levels blank in their columns. Only the A/E team firms and design assist contractors had names in these slots.

I’m not sure what will become of this decision making matrix. It was stated that all decisions should be made at Level II and Level III, but the culture has already been set that this will not occur. The folks listed in Level I are too powerful and too entrenched in the process. The culture has already been set that these folks are the ultimate decision makers and they frequently insert themselves into decisions that could be made at a lower level. I am a strong believer in the power of project or corporate culture. Once a cultural moray, whether positive or negative, has been set on a project, it is incredibly difficult to break it. An example is meeting culture: if the meetings are allowed to start late, few will arrive on time as they know the meeting will not start on time.

The session came to a close with a discussion of next steps. The dominate view of partnering sessions in the introductions of the morning was that the “one and done” events do not work. Either immediately or over time, the participants return to their unhealthy behaviors. All team members need to be reminded of the importance of team work and collaboration. It was agreed that for follow up meetings, monthly was too often and quarterly might be too infrequent. It was decided that the team will reconvene every two months across the next six months, which are critical months in the overall project schedule. After the first six months, the meetings will be held quarterly. The follow-up meetings will be shorter: probably three to four hours initially and then maybe only two hours as time goes on.

I took a couple of things away from this day. At some point, someone from the contracting team asked about integrating additional team members into the collaborative environment. This session included all key members of the A/E team, owner’s team and CM team but only four of the trade contractors who will actually be contracted to build the building. What happens when the masons and other skin contractors as well as the interior fit-out and finish contractors join the team? That was the parting shot of the whole event that was left unanswered. Some noted, and I agree with this, that the behavior model we created starts at top of each firm and filters down through all team members. If the leaders can maintain the collaborative spirit, the rest of the team will fall in line.

The quote of the day came from the PM for the architect of record. He said, “this is a large, complex project. You either run away from it or you run to it. Today, we all agreed to run to it.” I hope that is the case. Only time will tell.

Building a Highly Collaborative Team, Part 1

By Marvin Kemp, AIA, CSI, CDT

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.

Can a Day Long, Formal Meeting Foster Better Collaboration?

By Marvin Kemp, AIA, CSI, CDT

In about one hour, I'll enter a day long meeting entitled "Building a Highly Collaborative Team." This meeting has been  organized by the construction manager for a large biomedical research building that I am involved in. The meeting will be attended by members of the design team, ownership team, construction management team and design-assist contractors. It will feature a moderator who I'm told is a psychologist. In one day, can this group of individuals build a "highly collaborative team" as the meeting title suggests?

I've attended similar "partnering" sessions before and in one word to answer my own question, no. Typically, these moderators come in with high energy and put construction toys on the tables, play ice breaker games and generally make highly skilled professionals feel childish and like they have wasted an entire day. I hope this one is different, but I'm not sure. The CM's project manager asked my advice and I warned him I against the usual moderator, toys and ice breakers. I think he heard me, but he has to answer to bosses just like I do, so we'll see.

In September of 2011, I posted an article on this blog entitled "A Decent Meal" where I described an end of project luncheon that might should have occurred at the beginning of the project. I suggested to the CM that maybe a long luncheon or barbecue type event might be a better way to foster collaboration. In my view, collaboration starts with familiarity and understanding. There is no better way to get to know people than to share a meal and each other's company. Talking about sports, children or other interests is great way to get to know people and better understand who they are and what they bring to the project team. When we better understand each other, our strengths and weaknesses, we can work better together.

Spending a day in a conference room, feeling like you should be somewhere else might foster resentment and force some to put up their defenses. Important things might be said that aren't heard because of a lack of attention being paid to the meeting. Childish, ice breaker type games are rarely taken seriously by professionals and provide little if  any true understanding of anyone or anything. In construction, we need to understand each other, understand where each of us is coming from, what our motivations are, and work together to reach a common goal.

I'll report back after the meeting with how it went, what we did and other thoughts on building collaboration. Wish me luck and follow me on Twitter @BaltoCSI.

The Angst with Codes and Documents

I know that I promised you the final post in the 3 part series on "The Golden Rule" but Ralph Liebing's weekly "PER-SPEC-TIVES" article spoke to me this week and I wanted to share it with you all. If you don't follow Ralph's work, you should! Feel free to email webmaster@csibaltimore.org and I'll put you in touch with Ralph.

 

THE ANGST WITH CODES AND DOCUMENTS

By Ralph Liebing, RA, CSI, CDT, CPCA, CBO [former]

 

In the face of what appears to be a growing expansion and to some an intrusion, of code officials into the process of documenting projects, there is need for open, free and collaborative discussion. Both sides must understand the other-- fully-- and be ready to discuss, accommodate, compromise and resolve the entire issue, with mutual respect and conclusive results.

 

Two primary issues have impacted the code situation. First, cuts in agency personnel have caused offices to require "easily reviewed" documents-- i.e., documents where the information is obvious, "pops out at you", and is complete in one place. Two electronic documents and code applications and forms often are not easy fits. Word processing is most common, but code personnel do not "wish" or have time to search for pertinent information in specifications—the very place where a trove of information is easily placed. These factors, [and perhaps the wide differences—many appearing as unreasonable or unnecessary-- in local code regulations and review procedures] serve to confound quick and accurate plan reviews and prompt permit issuance, and create unfortunate raw nerves between design and code personnel.

 

The adoption of the International Family of Code has given a tremendous boost to codes, relieved much of the parochial codes and provided a more dynamic code change process. Overall this status change has also empowered code agencies to increase their impact technically and has caused most to change administrative processes, requirements and fees. To alleviate economic troubles in local governments, fees have also risen while demands of "more" information, and easier access to information have taken quite a turn. Here angst and "raw nerves" have become more prevalent and problematic to both sides—the code side and the design side. The resulting angst, unwavering absolutes and "unilateral "demands cannot stand in a rapidly moving construction world.

 

Building codes and other regulations need to be turned into "positive" elements of practice, and reduced to a functionally minimal process; i.e., the importance and need for regulation is valid, but researching and resolving the issues within a project should be reduced to a minimum time frame. There may be too much time spent either avoiding the regulations entirely, or in efforts to circumvent, or obviate them.

 

Design professionals cannot directly control the code agencies and personnel, but they can make comment and influence the political entities that enact the codes, etc. Here is where we need to get over the threat of retribution and work in concert for the common goal of safe construction. To make the code and permit process a confounding, and needlessly convolute, messy and elongated process is no advantage to any of the parties.

 

Perhaps a proposal, or a solution, is to start at the highest levels and begin to engage the processes of documenting and code compliance as they "should" interface. Might look good for progress there, but the final arrangement may well still lie in overcoming local and personal attitudes, expertise and summary judgments

 

We need meaningful discussion and facts-- we don’t need venom, nastiness, knee-jerk solutions and flat out anger. We do need incisive notes, situation citations, examples, and other forms of questionable requests. Of course, universal adherence to the results is necessary to eliminate the localized differences and demands for added documents goes without saying.

 

Interested in talking and truly discussing?

Construction Contract Administration Via Email: The Recipe for Confusion

By Marvin Kemp, AIA, CSI, CDT

 

This is the second of several postings to The Felt Tips blog that deal with the umbrella topic of The Golden Rule: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. This post deals with the problems associated with conducting construction contract administration via email in the age of smart phones and other hand held digital emailing devices. The last post titled “The Message You’re Sending” dealt with the messages that you send in how you handle your business and more importantly the messages sent to employees of companies. In a couple of weeks, I'll present some thoughts on how attention to detail, or lack thereof, can affect your business dealings and the folks you hope to do business with.

 

Most of us involved in the construction industry have at some point received an email with the subject line “FW: (insert vague subject here)” and then the body of the email says “See below” with the sender’s signature line, probably followed by either “Sent from my iPhone,” “Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE Smartphone” or some similar signature. I seem to receive several of these a week if not several a day. I usually look at who the email was sent to in the “To:” line and am dismayed to see that it’s me, the engineers on our team, the client and several levels of the contracting team. Which one of us is to respond?

 

That’s always the $6M question: when 12 people are in the “To:” line, who is responsible for the eventual answer? If the question comes from the field, the superintendent or some other member of the contracting team, I usually assume that a member of the A/E team should provide the appropriate response. As I am the architect who usually holds the contract with the owner, at the onset of construction I always let the consulting engineers on the team know that I am to review any response prior to it going back to the contractor. This isn’t a control issue but a way for me to ensure that all issues are resolved and coordinated with other members of the A/E team. For example, a suggestion from the field to suspend the electrical transformer on Unistrut by drilling through the flanges of structural steel beams is easy for the electrical engineer to agree to, but I need to make sure the structural engineer accepts this damage to steel that he designed and specified.

 

The situation gets more complicated when one of three things happens. The first being the contractor forwards an email from the sub-contractor without fully reading or fully grasping the situation. I call this type of contractor either a “buck-passer” or a “paper-pusher.” That’s probably an unfair characterization because all general contractors are simply trying to finish their contracted work in the best and most judicious manner, but part of their duty to the owner is to fully understand all the issues circulating through the construction site and fully coordinate the work of all of their subcontractors. The example above with the electrical transformer and Unistrut actually happened to me recently. Unfortunately, this project was a tenant fit-out of an existing building and we do not have the services of a structural engineer on our team. If the contractor had taken a moment to look at the cover sheet of the drawings and see there is no structural engineer on our team or better yet call me, his response to the electrician might have been to consider a different attachment method. Instead, we had some back and forth through email and then finally we reached resolution only after I phoned the site superintendent to fully understand the electrician’s intentions.

 

The second complicating factor is when the body of the email below the “see below” comment is unclear. I recently became involved in a complicated issue surrounding a smoke damper. To be fair, I didn’t get involved early enough, choosing to let my engineer handle it, but all the team got from him was more questions. It was only when the owner phoned me to ask a very specific question about the building code and corridor walls, was I able to get to the bottom of the situation and answer the question for both the engineer and contractor.

 

Shame on me for not acting earlier, but I tend to be a creature of culture. This particular owner has severely limited our CA scope. They are seasoned professionals who choose to handle most issues in the field themselves. We are only contracted to review submittals, address RFI’s and perform a punch list at the end of the project. That has set the culture that at some point, the owner steps into the email fray and says, “this is what needs to happen” and the issue is resolved. I’m sure several nationally known bloggers are alternately cringing and spewing coffee over their screens as they read this. I do not like these sorts of contractual arrangements, but certain business decisions are made from time to time that I have to live with. I don’t like having our fee reduced or our influence during construction diminished, but it’s not always my call.

 

That is the third complicating factor: owner influence or obfuscation. Most of the work I do is for institutions of higher learning. Nearly all of them have architects, engineers and other construction professionals on their staffs which handle a wide range of issues and have opinions just as strong as mine in how the projects should progress and how situations should be resolved. The complication comes in when either standard AIA contracts or a reasonable facsimile of the same are used. The standard AIA contract assumes an unsophisticated owner who requires the advice and services of an architect to help negotiate the murky waters of design and construction. When an owner who is more sophisticated breaches their duties as prescribed in the AIA contract, a culture may be set that allows the contractor can circumvent the architect to suit his own needs.

 

That has happened to me on a recent renovation project. I received a change notification for an exorbitant amount of money to move sprinkler heads. As I eschewed email and spoke directly with the contractor I learned that as the ceiling grid was going in, the owner’s representative visited the site and directed the ceiling grid installation to move forward and the sprinkler heads would be moved later. This owner’s rep is very young and did not realize the ramifications of selecting the most expensive course of action. In most cases, shifting the grid less than 6” would have eliminated the conflicts. As I spoke with the contractor and portrayed my displeasure with being eliminated from the discussions, he realized an alternative solution. A minor change from 2’ by 2’ ceiling to 2’ by 4’ ceiling tile in certain locations would alleviate relocation of all but one or two heads. Unfortunately, it took an irate architect holding a “Come to Jesus” phone call with the contractor for the right decision to be made.

 

A worse situation is when the architect is excluded on purpose by a sub-contractor who has a prior relationship with an owner. On a different project but with the same owner and same young owner’s rep described above, I was pulled into a dispute between the general contractor and a sub-contractor who knew which buttons to push with the owner. The sub-contractor had exclusions in his bid that the general contractor did not catch on bid day. Rather than working it out one-on-one, contractor to sub-contractor, they both dug in their heels and the sub-contractor ordered a meeting on-site with the owner, the maintenance shop and the general contractor. The architect was excluded from this meeting and summarily blamed for the problem. The documents were clear but the inexperienced owner’s rep did not know this and the general contractor chose to avoid conflict and blame the person who was not in attendance. It took me several phone calls with the owner’s rep and the general contractor to solve the problem by pointing out the correctness of the documents.

 

These are a few examples that I’ve encountered recently. There are many, many others. Many of these problems can be avoided with a few simple ideas:

 

1.    Use the telephone whenever possible. Email and an RFI attachment can always be used to finalize the answer to all parties.

2.    Use email only for clear and concise communication.

3.    When email is used, make sure you completely read the entire message and understand the question before responding.

4.    When forwarding an email, make sure you have completely read the entire message for acceptability for all parties to read. It will save you or other team members embarrassment later.

5.    When email is the best solution, only include those who need to be party to the question and answer. The email blast and “reply all” is the scourge of humanity and tends to only create more confusion.

6.    When the architect and engineer are on-site, review every possible condition and question the contracting team has at the time. Make sure when you leave the site, you completely understand all conditions that affect the question and ultimately the answer.

7.    When a contractor knows the architect or engineer will be on-site, be judicious with their time. Make sure all sub-contractors are available to ask their questions or make sure you understand them well enough to discuss them with the architect or engineer.

 

Construction is confusing enough without adding to it via email. Design intent, incomplete documents, inaccurate bids and other items all add to that confusion. By adhering to these suggestions, many of the problems created by email can be avoided and the work allowed to move forward to everyone’s satisfaction.