(This is for my architect friends.) In Managing Project Risk: Best Practices for Architects and Related Professionals, James Atkins and Grant Simpson provide a great solution to a situation that many architects deal with. This is a longer quote from page 132 of the book, given Atkins and Simpson wrote it better than I ever […]
Share the Business Acumen
Share your knowledge of business acumen with your teams. Help grow your people into more than just executing project managers and superintendents. There’s a lot of great teams who can manage projects, but they don’t know how to make money and run the business at a higher level.
Seal the Ductwork
Next time you’re walking a job site, watch out for ductwork that isn’t sealed and protected. We’ve all been to the dentist or doctors offices and we notice dirt and dust collecting around the diffusers in the ceiling. That’s because the ductwork wasn’t sealed during construction. Once ductwork is dirty, it can never be truly […]
Think Long Term
Focus on the long term – 5 to 10 years from now. As a senior leader in the industry once told me, “to be a leader is to think long-term.” Think about where your business or quality program needs to be in 5 years, and what you should be doing now to get it there.
Remove Defensive Processes
I recently picked up Claire’s Hughes Johnson’s book, Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building. (I highly recommend it for anyone in a quality or business leadership role. I’m sure you’ll see more highlights from it in my own writing as I read it over the next few months.) Given we talk a lot […]
Slow Down
We’re always rushing to get to the next thing. “I need to get this done so I can get that done.” Hurry up. Push push push. “Get on to the next thing.” However, there’s a lot of new advice that runs contrary to how most of us were trained. If we slow down and do […]
Solve the Lessons Learned Problem
Everyone in the industry seems to have a database for “Lessons Learned.” I’m not sure how beneficial these databases are yet, as I have yet to see how they get around the industry’s knowledge management problem: Teams need to know the Lesson Learned at the right time in the project. With a database, the team […]
Know Your MEP
Learn and and expand your MEP and Low Voltage (Security, IT) knowledge. When it comes to project turnover, these systems are essential to a streamlined closeout and training process. Kyle Nitchen’s newsletter, The Influential Project Manager, has an awesome article to help anyone get familiar with MEP systems, even for those fluent in MEP, like […]
How to Focus on What’s Actually Important
It’s easy to succumb to the daily pressures and problems of the jobsite. To constantly feel like everything needs to get done today. No one ever told me that it would be okay if I didn’t get it all done. Here’s a tactic to learn where to focus your energy and understand what actually has […]
Centralized and Decentralized Systems
One of the main questions to answer when setting up a quality program is whether to centralize or decentralize the team, tools, and systems. J.L. Ashford’s book, The Management of Quality in Construction, clearly establishes the difference between each. Regarding centralized quality programs, from pages 55 to 56: “Under a centralized system, these operations [quality […]
Rephrase the Question
I want to expand on my note a few weeks ago on 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. (This is part of my ongoing quest to identify why quality is seen as something separate that many feel they don’t have time for.) The main ideas I’m taking away so far are: There’s a problem with […]
Treat Everyone With Kindness
In construction, it’s easy to become the difficult person to work with. In many cases, it’s in fact rewarded because there’s a perception that it “gets the job done.” Yes, there are times when we need to be firm and hold others (including ourselves) accountable, but we must also remain respectful and kind to one […]
Establish Actions for Your Business Case
This article is Part 4 of the framework for How to Build a Business Case for Quality. Business Case Framework Starter Questions Analyzing Conversational Feedback As you gather feedback across your organization, record the specific themes you hear: For each comment, develop a solution. For example, for the team member who was never trained, one […]
Improving Meeting Strategies
Earlier in my career, I wish I knew there could be a strategy to the flow of our meetings. In a semi-recent Elevate Construction podcast, Organize Your Meetings, Jason Schroeder talked about the flow of information through the series of project meetings. As we integrate quality tasks within our daily work, we could get a […]
Why Quality Programs Exist (and my conversation about it with ChatGPT)
I wrote a few weeks ago in the newsletter about how they achieved quality constructing the Empire State Building without the formal quality programs we have today. I’ve been trying to dig deeper on this topic for three years with no luck. (If anyone has any solid resources, please contact me.) Given my research struggles, […]