High Performance Outcomes

Risk is never eliminated, at best it is managed and at worst it negatively impacts the project outcome. Our industry talks a lot about Risk Allocation , but allocating risk does not, in and of itself, manage the impact of risk. To manage risk is to mitigate its impact on (among other things) the project cost. Stated differently: risk is never eliminated, it's impact can only be mitigated through proper management. I believe the first step toward its proper management is "communication". YouTube Video "Risk Profiles" Reducing the cost impact from risk through "communication" is a simple concept. If I understand exactly what you need as a consumer, I'm in a better position to know what to delivery, know its delivery will satisfy you, I can deliver it at a lower cost, and I can possibly exceed your base-line expectations. To directly relate this to Project Delivery, let's consider what "communicate", "need", "satisfy...

O nce upon a time, in a land far far away, people always believed that the lowest price yielded the best value. They took solace in this fact while they rode their white unicorns under bright rainbows that had pots of gold at either end. One day their "Master Keeper of Building Projects" (MKBP) got a headache explaining the process of "Best Value" to his students while they feasted on bacon sandwiches and ice cream (as these, of course, were the best prevention for heart disease and diabetes) . The Master began … "Design-Bid-Build awards the contract to the lowest Price, why? Since the 'plans & specifications' (the solution) are exactly the same for every Priced Proposal submitted (bids), the lowest bid provides the best value. The end."

Name something you never want to get and if you get it, you never want to loose: a contract dispute. In my experience, resolving unexpected and latent conditions that impact the project scope are the most common disputes we face as owners, designers, and builders. And they are not always "physical conditions"; often they are "procedural" in nature...what one entity thought the other would do during the long process of designing and building a project. YouTube: "Eliminate Change-Orders" When it comes to design-build delivery, changes and change-orders seem to often come as a shock; more so than design-bid-build. Why? For several reasons I think. We've grown use to change-orders in design-bid-build delivery. So much so that it seems the most important DBB contract language concerns what everyone does when things go wrong: dispute resolution and change-order clauses. Most owners carry a "change-order" contingency in their budgets based on ...

Q&A Just for Fun Q: What establishes the (hard) cost of a project? A: The scope. Q: What establishes the scope of a project? A: The plans & specs. Q: What establishes the plans & specs? A: The design. Q: Who establishes the design? A: The Designer (with a dose of Owner). Q: Who selects the Designer? A: The Owner. Q: What establishes the price of a project? A: Competition among builders. Q: Who sets the price of a project? A: The Owner (via their selection of the Builder) Q: Who does the Designer and Builder "work for"? A: The Owner. So, in effect, the Owner sets the cost, the scope, the plans & specs, the Designer, the Builder, and the price...what could possibly go wrong? Where is the flaw in this process? Why is the first price and the final price often different? Q: Who or what guarantees that the first price and final price will be the same? Stated differently, the question should be; Q: Who or wh...

There are two sides to this coin. The first, and obvious, is in reference to their copyright ownership. Architects do indeed 'own' their designs placed on 'paper'; the tangible medium. I've noticed, for the past several years, that when owners use design-build delivery (or other alternative deliveries) they want to 'own' the designs of competing design-build teams included with their proposals. The owners explanation usually goes something like this: "in consideration of a stipend we want to have rights to, or own, the designs submitted by various teams short-listed in the competition. Sounds logical, but in a deeper analysis one sees that this transaction really doesn't move the owner to the "end game"; the creation and occupancy of a building project. Designs have intrinsic value. They are a prescribed 'solution' to the owners stated 'problem'. Granted, there are likely many solutions to any given problem, but each un...

Using a Performance-Based Statement-of-Work instead of the traditional drawings & specifications has one distinct advantage, at least for  project   users ...it is written in their 'language'; proper sentences, grammatically correct, specific in nature, and complete with punctuation.  Traditional drawings & specifications, which define the 'contractual' scope of a project, are created in a 'language' of lines, symbols, abbreviations, tables, and notes; fashioned for use by designers and builders, but certainly not for project owners and users. Often users review and 'sign off' on the 'design' (documented in traditional drawing & specification format) without really understanding the design's resolution of their expectations, or the impact the design's details have on their occupancy, operation, and use of the resulting building. Drawings & specifications are traditional tools to communicate the design  (solution) to t...

What's on the last sheet in a set of plans? A: electrical drawings. What's on the third or fourth sheet? A: Site Plan, maybe the landscape plan. How about opening up the set of plans to the center...wall sections and details? If one provides Division 6 services, they are a carpenter. If they provide Division 9, they install 'sheet rock' or lay-in ceilings. The point is that the traditional set of A&E Plans and Specifications have become such a convention that everyone in the Design & Construction Industry knows the answers to these questions, almost without hesitation. Conventions are a wonderful thing. They improve communication since everyone knows where to look. They save time due to their predictable nature. They allow designers and builders to form a basis of understanding as to the prescriptive scope of a project, even if the designer and builder have never met. At their core, conventional "Plans & Specs" are the glue that holds the commu...