The old developer and founder was always eavesdropping on the interviews. He died at the beginning of the project but at least then we knew exactly where he was… in the conference room in an urn.
His son succeeded him. Have you ever kept working for a client because you didn’t have the energy to commit suicide?
I would be a great for me if I could treat my contractor like my doctor treats me, “I’m busy. Go back to that small room, take your pants off and I’ll be there.”
1) If an architect can make one developer happy , if you can make one project great, if you can make one project in a career…
2) An architect prides himself on living within his income even if he has to borrow in order to do so.
3) An architectural triumph in his own words: Success is when we celebrate this office building’s finish in an old fashioned way. We invite the whole team including the new owners. We have a great feast of lobsters and steaks…
and then we killed them and occupy the building.
My company did 4,000 - 6000 third party client satisfaction interviews per year for our clients -which was very dangerous. You see… almost weekly, I had to tell a client that one of their clients had “shish-kebabered” them. One client’s client said” that, “It was hard to believe that YOUR client had beaten out 1 million other sperm.” I personally felt it was my duty to deliver the client’s clients messages as softly as I could to avoid the effect-embolisms, coronaries. After all… I had not been paid yet. Otherwise, you can imagine this scene: “Your client told us that you were the biggest poophead he has ever seen.” You owe me - $2500.”
OH! During this time my staff created the terms SPORE which stood for “SOOO p*ssed off retention eliminated”
My perspective is that it is good thing to do post -project interviews but a vastly better thing to have a real time AND quarterly formal feedback mechanism in place. Empowering your client and critical team members with simple to use feedback systems is critical if your firm is going to claim excellent client and team success. Most other methods are fraught with risk and hot air. Roger Pickar
Regarding Meeting success:
If you want to be seen – please keep standing.
If you want to be heard – please speak up.
If you want to be successful – please shut up
What else makes a great meeting?
Wouldn’t it be great if the Ten Commandments were extended to Project Management? We would still have the Ten Commandments, but any six would be passing. My question is what are the six that would remain?
My agent sells building insurance. It was a really weird concept. You really don’t get anything for it. It works like this: You pay him money. And when you sell the building years later, he thanks you for sending him all those checks. Neat, huh?
We need more kinds of creative insurance and business concepts like this…I’m thinking..
Everything in this industry is going to be automated in the future = like Emergency 911… But for the industry 1011.”Thank you for calling 1011. If there has been a violent argument with blood dial 1. If you’re team member is late and missing more than a two hours, dial 2. If the owner is being an obstinate jerk and you want him removed, dial 3. If you have fallen more than 30 ft. and are totally immobilized, dial 4 and somebody will probably be with you within a short period of time.
I must be leaving out categories…I’m thinking. I’m thinking…
Engineers – Recently, a table full of male engineers was sharing platefuls of hard and soft tacos for the first time and getting it all over themselves- shirts, slacks and pocket protectors all confirmed the fact that taco meat had wings. At a nearby table, some woman watched the debacle with wry smiles and then outright guffaws. One remarks that her nursing baby could had more finesse.
After a few minutes, the engineers are engrossed in a discussion on how to engineer taco eating to a neat science followed by a discussion on materials needed, best design and best manufacturer type. There were no discussions on who could use it, who could market it or how many could be sold? As they stood up and the non-sticking meat fell to the floor, the discussions switched to the materials necessary for a new napkin, best design, manufacturer.etc. They had already designed THE next great invention - taco holders so the world was waiting breathlessly for their design of THEE NAPKIN.
Everyone used the back office entrance. There was no point in calling attention to their stains until the new taco holders hit the market.
Is this typical engineering thinking?If so, why don’t engineers laughs at themselves more?
Here is this weeks ugliest
