The Least Recognized Design Variable

Posted on by johnlwheaton1

As I stated in my last Blog, time constraints, those things such as schedule, ship date, move-in date, budget (which relates to time available to invest in the design) and other milestone deadlines are part of the design variable equation. What do I mean? I mean that the content, depth, elegance, or otherwise, of a design solution, is dictated by numerous boundary conditions, one of which is the required schedule, budget, and “done date.” However, in my experience, most often this is not viewed as such by the technical professional. “Hey, it takes whatever time it takes to get it done,” is often the attitude.

No. Not true. It takes the time we have allotted, the solution set, scope, and delivery we have sold to the client, and that they have purchased, to get it done. I dive a little deeper with some observations and comments below.

“Parkinson’s Law.” This is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” This is so true. I have seen it over and over. I don’t think any design, service, or product would ever be completed if it weren’t for deadlines, whether externally or internally imposed.

Do you need a solution in an hour, a day, a week, a year? We can provide that. You may not like the one-hour solution, and patience will wane with the one-year solution. Any good technical professional can tell you something that will work, sketch a solution, or provide a recommendation in a short period of time. It will likely be heavy, bulky, conservative, not elegant, but it will be a solution. If the client has $500 to purchase engineering vs. $50,000, the design will be impacted. If they have a day vs. a week, the design will be impacted. We can’t provide the same level of value and design in both contexts.

If we let design expand into “the void” until we think we’ve perfected it, we will reach the asymptotic stage where the curve flattens out, running almost parallel to the horizontal axis forever, never reaching the desired outcome (whatever criteria we have established.) Remember, there’s no perfect design, no perfect work product, no perfect solution. There’s complete, correct, finished, polished, specified, scheduled, completion of the work product, service, solution. Get it to the defined, specified, standard of care, and ship it.

How about an example from the building industry. Do you want quick turnkey delivery of your building for occupancy? How about a tilt-up precast or pre-engineered metal building? Not an elegant enough design solution? Better modify your timing. Do you want hand chiseled split-face stone, marble floors, custom bronze doors, glass from Europe, stone from Italy? If that’s the more elegant design solution, then get out the calendar and push the move-in date out a couple years.

What about modern tools of technology? Can’t they “hack” the time variable and do more work in less time? Sure, in theory. Those tools can enable a more elegant design in a short period of time. What I’ve found over the years though is that the tools of technology are often misplaced in the mind of the technical professional in this way; they become the thing we are serving rather than them serving us. If you’re my age, you’ll remember when the prediction was that things would go so much quicker the more advanced the tools became. Unfortunately, many lose site of this and use the tools to dive deeper and deeper to a point of diminishing returns, rather than using the tools to advance the design solution more quickly. Step back. Assess. Regroup. Do this often. Plus, there’s this thing called complexity. Simplicity is undervalued. Systems fundamentally create more complexity. The more capable an IT platform, computer, software, the more complexity can increase. Sometimes we need to step back, sketch and idea, assess “1st principles” and re-state the scope and deadline.

Schedule, time to perform, ship-dates, timing, all are part of the considerations in design. Schedule is a design variable. I recommend this be kept in mind when deep in the midst of “the work” and the scope and end goal is getting murky. Keep the end in mind.

Project Management

Posted on by johnlwheaton1

Project management is many things. The term project management is a broad category. It can be defined and manifested in different ways. There are key aspects and processes to the role of project management that need to be executed in order to achieve success. Project management in one company differs from that of another, yet there should be some common ground, some similarities, across all of project management in the AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) industry.

All companies bigger than the ability or availability of an individual owner, or group of owners, to manage at the project level, are dependent on project management to determine the success of their projects, their profits, quality, and ultimately, the success of failure of their client relationships. That’s right; everything intersects at the project manager level and in the project operational domain. The success of project management determines the future growth, size, scalability, and health of the organization.

Project managers are the gatekeepers of each company’s clients, values, projects, profits and quality. This should produce a sober reality on making clear their roles and responsibilities. This is easy to say, and difficult to do.

Project management involves both quantitative and qualitative skills and attributes. This includes what we define as “hard” skills and “soft” skills. The things we are trained for in school, the operational tools we learn to support project management tasks like scheduling, budgeting, accounting systems, CRM platforms, and more, ultimately do not determine its success. Tools help support and define the work. But the success of project management, any good fruit, is produced from a proper mindset, people skills, knowledge of the work, a solution orientation, discipline and accountability, along with the tools to support the work.

Here’s a high-level view of some key aspects to project management. This is not an exhaustive list, but a few basic areas of impact.

  • Communication:
    • This is the primary differentiator. Focus on communication. If there’s one thing to do, do this thing. Clear, concise, timely, polite, professional, appropriate communication. The means is contextual to the need or client preference; email, phone, letters, instant messaging, texting, DM’s, WebEx, Skype, Face to face, and other. All forms; and it must be timely; concurrent; “real time”. Tools and platforms used in our companies should support communication in the best manner possible.
  • Scope and Contract management:
    • We’ve got to remember the project scope and make sure to benchmark to it. Knowing when to shift and when to draw the line on scope creep is a key to maintaining profitability while building a strong client relationship. Trust is the key. Build trust.
  • Document management:
    • Keeping track of documents, timing, logging documents, updating our teams, etc.; this includes things like ASI’s, CSK’s, bulletins, addendums, BIM updates, owner changes, and on and on.
  • Earned Value Tracking (EVT):
    • EVT is about measuring the real progress of our work as it relates to the budget. The goal of EVT is to estimate as accurately as possible, the percent complete on the project (the spent amount) vs. the budget we must work with.
  • Schedule management, milestones, submittals:
    • If we don’t establish a schedule, we won’t succeed. The schedule typically drives everything. Creating benchmarks and milestones along the way, allows us to stay on track. Schedules rarely appear to be realistic by the time the project gets released, but we must start somewhere. I’ve yet to see a single schedule maintained exactly, except perhaps the “turnkey” moment when the owner will be handed the keys to open and occupy the building. We must constrain the work. In fact, time constraining is a design variable (more on that in another blog.) Also, look up “Parkinson’s Law.” This is the adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” Have a defined “ship it” date and stick to it.
  • Meetings
    • Project meetings, design-review meetings, huddles, post-project review meetings, kick-off meetings; all serve to create collaboration. We must share in each other’s reality (ours and our client’s) to drive awareness, stay aligned, and maintain milestones. We’ve got to be aware of business and people dynamics and manage them (B2B and H2H items.) Meetings should have a clear start and stop time. There should be an agenda, proposed outcome and solution orientation. Stick to the end time rigidly. I was not good at starting and stopping on time for many years. It sent a bad message. Stick to the end time, have a person designated as the timekeeper, stop 5 minutes before the end of the meeting time, and clarify all actions or “to-do’s”, who will handle it, by when, and then adjourn. We are following the EOS format for meetings more and more and I highly recommend it. I find virtual meetings via MS Teams, with the ability to screen share work products and collaborate on screen, to be highly effective for many meetings. I prefer face to face meetings in some contexts, but that’s another blog post on when is virtual vs. face-to-face better.
  • Process
    • In our company we created a project management process that’s taken about 6 months to define from the ground-up. My partner and I stayed out of this deliberately because both of us had defined and led a PM process effort in prior years, but without it ever being “owned” and accepted by everyone in our organization. We now have a “swim lane” process chart from which responsibilities have been defined and key scorecard metrics have been developed. The team of project managers, with insight from other “subject matter experts” within the company, developed the process with an outside facilitator who works with us. This is being implemented, can be a point of reference from which to manage change, and to improve upon. Define process and build consistency. Create specific scorecard metrics and drive clarity. Perhaps I’ll write another blog on process and how best to develop to achieve buy-in and accountability.

As we approach the end of the year, I am asking myself how we can improve project management in 2022 and beyond. It’s an ongoing process in perpetuity. How about you?

Note: A prior version of this blog was published in November of 2019 in the publication “US Glass Metal and Glazing” when I was blogging for them. The blog has been updated and modified here with more content and experiences in this new post.