January 2010
Having had to cut back infrastructure expenditures for this year because of the continuing fiscal crisis, President Obama has selected an oddsmaker to give each American the odds on getting across the 225 bad bridges considered to be in the”kiss your butt good-bye”category. Also under consideration is taking book or odds on each crossing or survival insurance per crossing taken at the toll booths.
March 2116
In an effort to catch the other Big 3 banks, Citicorp today bought ParsonsHNTBKimleyStanley the last of the independent firms. “This will consolidate our presence in the infrastructure market and allow us to design,build,own and collect on 31% of the bridges and tollways in America.” said a spokeman.
Jack BocaLarga, the House Democratic minority leader, said 19 legislators have been working for the past 3 years on different legislation to stop this movement. Republican Yuri Move, Chairman of the new House Sub-committee on Monopoly Practices, said that “It sounds like good old fashioned capitalism to me.”
June 2017
The board of Parsons & ParsonsB Engineers and Constructors fired CEO Bob Fullashadt after only 3 days. A company spokesperson said,”Mr.Fullashadt had a misrepresentation on his resume. He claimed he was the Project Manager on the Gravina Island Bridge which we now know was the “Bridge to Nowhere.” The spokesperson also said a board member had suggested that,” Mr. Fullashadt should now take a drive in the same space.”
4/10/09 Rumors are circulating that Gov. Palin has fired Moose Ovadahill, her former junior high school sweetheart, from his state engineer’s job. The governor was overheard responding to Moose’s assertion that the “Link to Somewhere Project” would take as long as 40 years or longer if the Governor doesn’t specify where the bridge is suppose to end. The Governor is rumored to have said that Moose never could finish anything. That is why they broke up.
Statistics in 2008 show that contractors may be losing their edge in the race for client satisfaction. Many leading public and private clients are beginning to assume that projects will be on time, on budget, and completed with high quality. We are beginning to see amongst more sophisticated decision makers that the differentiators today are in the people skills of the firm and of the individual project manager. History has indicated that the advantage of newer construction software (with its better team communication) will be lost if the people skills are lacking or communication is after the fact.
Are you one of these companies? Real-time documented extensive feedback in a constructive and positive environment is one of the answers and one that is becoming an owner and leading edge AEC “best practices”. This would , in turn, mean that the client will need to be encouraged and pressured to give feedback preemptively and in real-time as a “best practice”. In order for this to happen, the feedback mechanism must be exceedingly user friendly, not intrusive and be web-based. Unfortunately, this also means taking project managers with excellent technical skills and making them open to constructive evaluation on a daily basis in order to achieve excellence in their people skills.
In order to accomplish this and to go from a very good company to an excellent one, it is time to focus on becoming more competitive in the measurement and improvement in the skills of communication, responsiveness, accessibility and likeability. How do you accomplish this without going backward first and still being able to deliver the “big three” of time, budget, and superb quality?
Frankly, it is now time to step forward and discover what the clients are REALLY thinking before traditional or CM firms capture the concept, and overcome the natural design-build communication lead.
Contractors need to reach for the real-time experience and emphasize the client’s real-time feedback in various ways:
1) Obtain irrefutable documentation of all past client opinions.
2) Receive actual feedback from the client regarding the performance of your firm, team members, and especially your project managers.
3) Establishment of a totally new, open and receptive relationship by empowering your clients to let you know when you may not be meeting THEIR expected standards of excellence.
4) Ask what specifically you must do to improve to achieve the highest scores. There is a clear need to establish well-documented performance, based on quantitative as well as qualitative measurements. The results will be a major marketing tool – actual irrefutable evidence that your firm is more committed to reaching excellence or has already achieved it.
Contractors can no longer wait on a quarterly basis and ask “How Am I Doing”? To receive feedback on a post project basis is to doom the company to mediocrity in the people skills. Remember in the future, it will not be enough to ask a quarterly or post project question, “How
am I doing”? Practically every design-builder or owner does that and it usually is too late. The owner’s is often reluctant to talk about it or, at least, until the next selection or referral request. Nor will it be acceptable that the PM is a little thin skinned, does not demand feedback, or feels that no news is good news. After all, it says your pursuit of excellence is only every few months and worse, it makes your documentation look second rate and after the fact.
In conclusion, the themes of today are real time feedback, documented excellence and an open user-friendly, positive environment where consistent feedback closes the door on all performance slippages. It is a means to meet new expectations, in a “best practice” and market-centered universe, where the results must meet what the client is coming to expect as a norm.
Everything in the design and construction industry is going to be automated in the future - like Emergency 911… But for the design and construction industry, 1011.
”Thank you for calling 1011. If there has been a violent project argument with blood between contractors dial 1. If your 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.”
There must be more categories! I’m thinking…..
Facility Managers Laugh at Improvement of Services Question
RESEARCH
In a 2007 research study involving private sector facilities managers buying behavior nationally, we identified the fact that 58% of the clients interviewed could not specifically describe what architects and engineers could do to improve their services over the next 3-5 years.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Many respondents considered the question a joke - a humorous question packed with irony.
Is the stress of trying to maintain internal productivity so great that the thinking about the future is a joke and that their laughing at it was stress relief - a way of not dealing with what they considered an ironic laughable matter? Are vendors laughing behind their backs? Is information overload beyond the joke stage? Is there a fundamental desire and will on the part of engineers and architects? The answer is probably a little bit of all the above.
Overcoming Skepticism
Historically, there has been significant success in getting clients to respond to sincere questions on long-term needs. In order to “mega leap” skepticism and not be laughed at, consider the following:
1. Ask about specific ideas that give the client clear and quantitative benefits.
2. Be ready to demonstrate very specific improvements to the client that relates to the above benefits. Then, research the acceptability of this approach carefully and with statistical accuracy.
3. Lead clients to their potential future by:
• Education - making certain the client understands that you understand the specifics of what they want and you can deliver.
• Partnering - joining the client as a team member to ensure “buy-in” and achieve “mega-leaps.”
• Visioning - begin working closely with the contact to develop a long-term vision that is exciting, motivational and promises significant rewards.
Your thoughts?
5/1/09 -President Obama announced today a freeze on his massive infrastructure program citing a worsening fiscal crisis. Simultaneously, he selected the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright to create appropriate prayers for all Americans to recite as they crossed over any of the 278 bridges that have been classified as “gone tomorrow if not today “
Gov. Palin has authorized the State Architect to create a 400′ wooden tower in Nome, Alaska. She claimed she would be able to much more clearly see Russia which in turn “will help me refine my foreign policy skills.”
Gov. Palin launched an effort to build a bridge from Anchorage to Seattle. The Governor authorized the State Engineer to do a feasibility study for a “link to somewhere.”Palin said, ” If we can build it high enough we can use it as a moose, deer and caribou hunting platform and pay for the bridge with hunting license fees. When told by a reporter this would mean 38 million hunters per year, the Governor responded that once people tasted Alaskan caribou and moose meat , the sky would be the limit.