Written by Jim Eisenhart, MIPI
What this ongoing dialogue will accomplish: Enable IPI members to develop both an understanding of – and a strategy and tactical means for – turning around challenged construction projects with velocity.
Your multimillion-dollar construction project started smoothly. Competent people, from highly credible organizations, began with good intentions. They’ve all read the book or attended seminars on how to execute, say, a design-build project. They know how teamwork on a successful construction project is supposed to work and the importance of trust. Your project may even have been one that was negotiated or using a collaborative Project Delivery Method (DB, CM@Risk, etc.).
Regardless, things soon stalled. People who were friendly are now wary; e-mailing has replaced talking. Their shields are up. You now find yourself facing delays, cost overruns, and unresolved disputes that can easily devolve into unresolved claims.
Stakeholders are spending more time letter writing, case-building and pointing fingers than making proactive plans for project success. The game now for every stakeholder is “playing not to lose”. This spreads like a wildfire and every stakeholder feels compelled to respond in kind. Distrust and the stress it generates are slowly burning out you and your colleagues. Everyone dislikes going to work.
Who started it? Who knows? Stakeholders can keep arguing hoping to win day-to-day individual battles. But who wins in the end? There’s a saying that if you ever want to have all stakeholders on an adversarial construction project agree on anything, ask them “what are the consequences of continuing to be adversarial?”. And it is an interesting phenomenon that virtually all problem projects – from a billion-dollar transit line to a 2-million-dollar curb and gutter repair -- share the same characteristics.
Paradoxically, this universal agreement on the results being a collective train wreck can be the basis for a full project reset or turnaround.
We all know what doesn’t work. That includes management mandating change or lecturing stakeholders on the importance of teamwork, working together or developing trust. And of course, forget slogans, or rah rah motivational talks which have a half-life of maybe two days.
Why? Most of us resent being told how to behave and besides, it is the other guy or gal that needs to change, not me. Also, each of us has a different interpretation of how good communication or teamwork is supposed to work on a construction project. There’s always the option of changing out key employees. This as most stakeholders know, is costly and all too often doesn’t work.
Dan Gilbert, a senior executive at Kaiser Permanente once told me,
“Jim, a big problem with these new alternative delivery methods is the assumption that because we’re using this collaborative PDM, we don’t need to discuss and align on goals; the change order process, or how we will expedite the resolution of disputes. This assumption can kill a project”.
There is no one best way to execute a construction project, let alone resolve a problem job. If there was everyone would read the book, attend the seminar or try to exactly replicate the way a team worked together on a previous successful job of theirs. Yes, your previous award-winning project is not a blueprint for future project success. It’s kind of like saying that your Super Bowl winning team can repeat by executing the exact same game plan in the following season. Yes, we can all learn from success, but now you have got some new players on your team with different abilities and skills. And what worked against your rivals last season is no guarantee to work in the upcoming season. Hubris can be fatal both in sports and on construction projects.
Provide your stakeholders with a choice – actually five choices:
#1. Argue about who is right or wrong about why this job is not going well. This is a fool’s errand. Everyone has a different assessment or opinion – backed up by concrete examples -- of why this job is not working. And, even if your assessment is the “right one” your fellow stakeholders will probably reject if only because it is coming from someone they do not trust.
#2. Focus on solving our current problems. This may work in the short term. But there are two problems. Number one: agreeing on what are the problems actually are. And, number two, even if we were to agree and come up with resolution, it offers no assurance that we will be able to solve tomorrow’s problems. It’s also a reactive process that can make stakeholders defensive. As in, “it’s not my problem, if you would just do your job”.
#3. Just execute the job per the plans and the specs. This of course is simplistic since each stakeholder can easily -- and honestly -- come up with their own interpretation of what the plans and specs call for. This at best produces grudging compliance while arguing over the minimum necessary “to get by”.
#4. Do nothing. We do not mean literally “do nothing” rather let this project play itself out the way it is currently going. What does the end game look like? And describe the day-to-day working environment? As noted above, this is easy for stakeholders to concur on.
#5. Do a complete project reset. Acknowledge the reality of where this job is today and that we are not advocating short cutting or compromising contractual commitments or the specifications. Rather, we will set aside our history — to include current conflicts and unresolved changes and claims (NOPC’s); We will take these off the table today and put them in, as Brian Cahill, semi retired SVP for Balfour Beatty once told me — "a lock box”. We will revisit them, if they still exist, only after we have developed and committed to an offensive game plan to win as a team. We will then create as a team “partnership goals” for the balance of this job (typically equating to schedule, budget, quality, dispute resolution, and 3rd party impact). These goals will not be contractually binding. Challenge your team to create what are called “moonshot” goals as exemplified by President Kennedy’s commitment in 1961 about us going to the moon before the end of the decade. High, but not impossible, goals can bring forth inspiration and real commitment.
Important: set your team goals before you talk about how we will achieve them. Only then identify key processes that we will need to expedite in the next 60 to 90 days to achieve the goals. Typically related to expediting submittals, RFI’s, change orders, quality, schedule, and dispute resolution. Taking each, then identify teams with names of individuals drawn from each stakeholder who can best contribute to the process. Then leave them in action with measurable personal commitments to deliverables. Finally establish a process for team accountability and recognition going forward.
Here is the “good news” about “problem projects” as described to me by a Senior VP at one of the top 10 largest GC’s: “Jim, when a project is just so-so, people may just reconcile themselves to slogging through it. But if the job is truly screwed up and you give them these choices, they will all jump on the last one”.
