Posts Tagged ‘PM’
« Older Entries |The Project Manager’s Role as Client Educator/Mentor
Thursday, December 29th, 2011
By Phillip Infelise, Chairman
In this 15th edition (have we really been tuning in for two years now?) I want to discuss a critical and expanding role of the Project Manager that is rarely articulated – that of Educator and Mentor to our clients (and other project team members) while steering them through the project processes.
In many cases the client is engaging an outside Project Manager very simply because there is no internal expertise or practical experience to execute such a project. Consequently, we are relied upon to articulate, explain, educate, mentor and provide additional perspective to the client throughout the process. In a very circuitous way our intent is to elevate the game of our principal client contact to the point that they could manage any subsequent projects without our day-to-day assistance (but may still rely upon us for item-specific expertise). Yes, I know that can mean educating ourselves out of future work, but that is our way of “doing the right thing.” Examples of this result abound among our clients new and old.
It is always important to start the education process off on the right foot, and we can do so by assuring that everyone around the project table speaks in a common vernacular. To that end, we make our Project Management Lexicon available to all of our clients, prospects, and team members. The Lexicon covers more than 20 pages of industry definitions and acronyms, some conventional and some rather eclectic or irreverent—even including fun additions from our clients themselves. Believe me, it is an interesting read.
We may also have an expanding role in educating our project team members and collaborators about our client’s specific needs and wants: how they want to operate, their style of decision making and, yes, even their specific vocabulary. Every client has unique internal processes and politics (whether they know it or not or admit it or not) and we need to tune the Project Team into those nuances if we are going to have a successful project team dynamic. One large client, for whom we are currently developing a build-to-suit headquarters, has such a specific brand of internal communication and team-wide approach that we have developed a Client Lexicon to distribute to project team members so that they everyone knows what we are talking about.
Opportunities for education and mentoring abound throughout the course of a normal project. We make a point of trying to understand what the client knows and doesn’t know from day one, so that we can adapt our style of communication to meet their needs. Likewise some of the documentation is presented very differently, depending on the client’s prior experiences. Certainly, during Project Team meetings, we make it a point to sit next to our client contact, so that we can answer questions and discuss options whenever serious issues are presented to them. Often it is trying to explain a very technical issue in non-technical terms. Or simply letting them know what something costs before they commit to loving it as a solution.
Walking the space together at various stages of development is also an opportunity to educate: not only about how the construction is progressing, but also about facilities management issues and approaches that are more understandable when looking at the raw, unfinished space. Another fun education is to provide the client with insight into the “games our vendors play” and how to control those games to work in our project’s favor.
Many clients have no idea what trauma they may be facing during the relocation phase of the project. We often educate the entire staff on what to expect during the relocation and how to cope with the issues that will arise during general staff orientations and specific move captain training.
The expanding role of the Project Manager as educator/mentor brings a new welcome dynamic to our perspective. This is simply because we too, as enlightened, new day Project Managers, are in the business of always educating ourselves and applying new learning and approaches to our client’s benefit.
In our next edition, stay tuned for a discussion about resolving internal project team conflicts and issues.
Tags: corporate real estate, educator, PM, project manager, vendor
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Debunking the Myths of the Workstation
Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
By Phillip Infelise, Chairman
In this blog entry I want to reflect on the current state of office workstation furniture since the procuring of it has been occupying so much of my time recently. Through the combination of a few large headquarters projects we are currently executing, we are directing two very different clients through the process of procuring more than $10 million worth of office furnishings. That volume of work exposes one to everything the office furniture industry has to offer.
Part of our responsibility is to educate our clients about what is out there that may be outside of their wheelhouse. From the time workstations were introduced in the 1960s, as long, monotonous rows of 6×6 standard sizes to tomorrow’s “panel free systems” with a myriad of storage options and teaming and collaborative stations, workstations have evolved substantially in the last half century.
The resistance from some people to accept where this evolution of office furniture has taken us is embedded in some myths about workstations. Those myths, realities (at least my take on them), and solutions follow:
-Myth: Employees need privacy that the workstation doesn’t provide.
Reality: On average, they may need that privacy 2% of their work day while the rest of the time could/should be spent collaborating and interacting with their colleagues.
Solution: The evolved workplace provides huddle rooms for those private times.
-Myth: Higher panels create the impression of visual and acoustic privacy.
Reality: Yes, but they also restrict collaboration and management oversight.
Solution: Moderate panel height with glass panels above achieves both.
-Myth: Lower panels create noisier workplace.
Reality: Just the opposite—research shows an incredible natural adaptation of workers to lower their sound volume when in a more open environment.
Solution: A modern sound-masking system and cultural adaption create a workplace that is actually quieter with low panels than without.
-Myth: Size is everything: more size equals more productivity.
Reality: Current 8×8 stations are huge, cost real estate, and wasteful; there are no more old monitors.
Solution: Try a 6×7 that with narrower surfaces offers just as much room as the old 8×8 with deep surfaces and corners.
-Myth: Managers can’t work in workstations; they must have offices.
Reality: The modern workstation can provide everything the Manager needs to do their job, 98% of the time.
Solution: Create adequate number of huddle rooms, quiet rooms, and collaborative areas.
-Myth: Managers can dictate workstation configuration, but they don’t sit in them?
Reality: Mangers tell us what their workers want, but it’s better to let them tell us themselves.
Solution: Educate management and let the younger generation occupying those workstations have a voice in their development.
-Myth: Workstations are impersonal and create an Orwellian group of workstation gnomes.
Reality: Actually, they can be 100% adaptable to individual needs and are often personalized with individual choices of layout, work tools, and accessories.
Solution: Drop the old workstation image and look at what is offered today—it’s a completely new world.
And it is not just about the workstation. Most of our clients are now warming to the notion that the most functional, flexible, and economic workplace is created when the same components are used in both the workstations and the private offices. Minimizing the kit-of-parts while maximizing the available configuration options is a huge win across the board.
The good news is that no matter what workplace style the client wants, we can navigate them to a solution that meets their needs. The great news is it can be done at price points that were unheard of a few years ago. Keeping our Project Managers educated about what the always innovating industry has to offer makes us better client educators about what is possible in the evolving workplace.
In my next edition, I will expand on our role as client educators.
Tags: corporate real estate, cubicle, office furniture, PM, project manager, workstation
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Engineering Value, Not Value Engineering
Wednesday, August 31st, 2011
By Phillip Infelise, Chairman
In this edition I want to explore the difference between Engineering Value and Value Engineering, or specific ways that the New Day Project Manager can bring value to the project and put dollars back in the client’s pockets.
Any client that has been around projects long enough understands the term Value Engineering. And, frankly, shudders when they hear it. In the vast majority of projects, value engineering is a reactive position. It usually means the following:
-We have listened carefully and incorporated everything you wanted into the design of your project.
-We forgot to mention that some things you asked for (and we agreed to include in your design) you simply can’t afford in the context of the budget we (the whole team presumably) agreed upon.
-Now we have to show you the ways we will take thing that you really want (and maybe even really need) out of the project so that we can all say we delivered it “on budget.”
-In most case this means you get something close to what you wanted, but not quite. It may perform at a level lower, but hey, it costs a little less, right? Wrong!
In other words, Value Engineering is rarely a good thing—it means we are taking something from you that we promised we could provide. (The “We” means everyone on the Project Team that should know better; the client isn’t expected to know unless they have been told in advance).
In a proactive world where we hope most New Day Project Managers live (at least I know the CresaPartners ones do), it is appropriate to reverse the process and begin Engineering Value from the outset of the project. Engineering Value is a proactive approach wherein the Project Manager encourages the Project Team to always explore more cost-effective solutions wherever they may be, whether or not the client can “afford it”—since many times the same aesthetic and performance can be achieved at a much lower price point. It should be our everyday mission to always find a value-creating solution, no matter how big or small the client (or their pocket books). To do so requires that the Project Manager has a very strong grasp of what everything (absolutely everything) on a project costs and the experience to draw solutions from a variety of projects and source.
There are a deep and wide variety of opportunities to Engineer Value and here are just a few of them an experienced Project Manager will offer:
-Set the right budget (not just a too tight budget) in the first place and do the client the favor of avoiding Value Engineering entirely. Dig deep to make sure all of their needs are covered in the budget and help them envision items they may not anticipate themselves.
-Save square footage and save huge dollars. Understanding their business needs, creating appropriate but tight requirements, and producing efficient space programming creates a value home run that will mitigate the need for the bad value engineering phase.
-Right Size everything—offices, workstations, file rooms, take periodic storage offsite, etc. Again, economizing on square footage creates the biggest value right up front and can create an enhanced workplace.
-Hire the right project team that wants to partner on value creation and is not paid on a percentage of costs, which creates a potential disincentive to engineering value as a team.
-Force the design team to attach a specific dollar amount to every design solution that they offer so that the client understands the price of what they are falling in love with.
-Question any procurement where the client suggests they have “great national purchasing agreements.” There is so much exposure here that we often offer to work for just the savings on that specific item, as value gaps on big ticket items like furniture can cover our PM fees many time over.
-Explore “pre-owned” furniture in this aggressive market so long as you understand the full costs involved—but be prepared to buy all new as manufacturers have adjusted pricing to compete head to head against that market.
-Specify carpet face weight based on the years the client will be in the space—use lower carpet face weight for a seven year term, higher for a ten, and highest for a twelve. Face Weight = Cost. Don’t pay for value you will never be able to access.
-Purge. Force the client to energize a serious purge campaign so that they are not paying to relocate stuff they will never use.
Note that none of these suggestions sacrifice quality or performance; they simply suggest alternatives that cost less money. That’s Engineering Value. That’s what we do.
If you are following this blogger, you know we have followed an evolving pattern of subjects since day one. For the next edition in a few months, I am ready to take suggestions. Let me know what you want to hear about in this wonderful world of the New Day Project Management approach.
Tags: corporate real estate, cost savings, engineering value, PM, project manager, value engineering
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The Dreaded Change Order and Other Definitions for the CO
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
By Phillip Infelise, Chairman
Of the many topics we have covered in the last dozen editions of this blogger’s posts, this may be the most delicate to address because the root of all Change Orders may not be in the evil hands that many (most) clients think they are. Frankly, most assume that general contractors make more money on change orders and are therefore always on the lookout to find omissions in the construction documents so that changes can be justified. However, I suggest that the real culprits may be lurking in the wasteland between communication and indecision.
Full disclosure is required as there are a few prejudices at work here:
-I used to ply my trade as a general contractor doing both residential and commercial work under the moniker Planned Aesthetics, Inc.
-I then considered Change Orders a monumental pain, as I do now.
-We work with great general contractors on both build-to-suit and tenant improvement projects—I would trust these general contractors with my client’s dollars as if there were my own, and they hate Change Orders as much as all the rest of us, clients included.
-We typically work in a pre-negotiated environment on a partnership basis with the general contractors and not in a hard bid environment where Change Orders are much more common. This partnering relationship—including a committed cost-sensitive design team—mitigates the typical Change Order atmosphere.
Let’s redefine the Change Order—casting the CO in a different light may dim the conventional wisdom a bit. We call them Cash Opportunities when we discuss them with the client, emphasizing that agreeing on where client cash is most appropriately spent up front will avoid the need to spend extra cash later on in the project. If we don’t do that well, we then move to the next definition.
Or, the CO can become a Client Obstruction. If we miss our chances up front, then COs can become major obstructions to the client achieving their objectives on quality and cost as well as staying on schedule.
Why schedule you ask? Because they are also Contractor Obstructions, meaning obstructions to contractors’ success. Those who believe that contractors must love Change Orders have never tried to sequence a construction project in such a manner that the contractors and their subcontractors both perform well against the schedule, build at a high quality level, and make a reasonable profit for their efforts. Change Orders do nothing but destroy that sequence and any additional fees on those COs will never compensate for that loss.
The CO can also be a Communication Omission. This is a more typical scenario where the client (or at least someone on the client team) decides after the fact to include something that was never contemplated during the needs analysis phase. Rarely would I blame the client for that; in a high communication mode, it would be our responsibility to draw that information out, and we try our best to do so.
Communication does work—everyone should try it sometime. As a historical perspective, I once tracked the last 15 build-to-suits that I have managed, both in the Washington DC area and from Denver westward. In those projects with a total value far in excess of $150M, the total change order exposure was less than 2% and more than half of those were directly owner-generated. I attribute that performance to two major approaches: (1) extensive work up front with owner/clients to detail needs and wants and (2) involving the design and construction team right from the outset so that all partners share in the mission of cost control.
As in everything around projects, clear communication and a deep-dive into early needs assessment is the key to avoiding Change Orders. Follow these simple rules to avoid Change Orders:
-Work clients through a needs, wants, and spend discussion in excruciating detail as time spent doing so saves money and time later.
-Let the client know what everything they mention might cost at the end of the day and have them agree to that level of spend—if you don’t know the numbers, find someone who does.
-Engage your design and construction partners in this discussion from day one so that they join you in a shared mission to minimize, if not eliminate, Change Orders.
-Never allow your designer to suggest a design solution to the client unless they specifically describe its cost and whether or not it falls within or outside of our known allowances.
-Take charge of the project budget that you are charged with controlling—don’t even let the client suggest additional spending if there isn’t a line item to cover it. Make them wrestle you to make changes, and they will thank you for it later.
Tags: change order, corporate real estate, general contractor, PM
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Industry Speak or UNA?
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
By Phillip Infelise, Chairman
The Project Management side of this industry is no different than the real estate side in terms of (potentially) overwhelming clients with our industry speak. Sometimes it can be harmful to clear communication; sometimes it’s just plain comical.
For years now I have authored an annual Project Management Lexicon, meant to introduce our clients to the terminology that we use or that they will hear from others around the table. It has now grown to more than 23 pages, including three pages of nothing but acronyms. Often the best contributions are from clients themselves.
We often believe that the simplest or more complex terms are understood, when our clients continually remind us that they are not. And, of course, even our most basic terminology varies from region to region across North America, irrespective of the languages spoken. At the most basic level, we expect our client to know what simple terms like “TI” means (let alone TIA – tenant improvement allowance) with little understanding that our project meetings may be the first time such terms have been heard by that individual.
Some of the best examples of misunderstood terms or acronyms are:
Base Building or Core & Shell. What does it describe in your region? Likely it means exactly the same thing but the use varies from region to region across the country.
Dry Wall or Rock. Some places it may even be called plasterboard, but that is technically a misnomer. Again, it is the same thing, but varies in description across the country. What do you think your client is thinking the first time they hear you refer to a “drywall mechanic?”
RFP – Request for Proposal. But virtually everyone says they have completed or submitted an RFP. No, they completed/submitted a “Proposal” in response to an RFP.
SCIF. On many projects, everyone around the table refers to the acronym SCIF. When asked (and I do it sometimes just to test the waters) perhaps 2 in 10 actually know what it stands for. By the way, it’s a Secured Compartmented Information Facility.
IDF. Similar to SCIF, I am often surprised that folks know you should have one or two on every large floor plate and know what IT gear is usually found inside of one, but really don’t know what it stands for. It means Intermediate Distribution Facility.
FFE. A classic that is often misstated. Should be Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment. Often misstated as Furniture, Finishes, and Equipment. At least the equipment is always right!
Straight out of the Lexicon comes the best story, with all due respect to my old client and forever friend, Mary Anne Ward in Phoenix. Working on her build-to-suit laboratory headquarters, she frequently heard us refer to “Core and Shell”. However, when spoken quickly and without enunciation, Mary Anne heard “corn shell.” She thought we were referring to some very evolved, indigenous wall section that incorporated natural insulation in the form of corn husks. When she finally asked and got clarification the team was in stitches. True story.
But the best was another client so frustrated with the constant flow of acronyms that he coined one of his own, which is forever embedded now in the Lexicon. UNA. Use no Acronyms.
At the end of the day, we should all be more diligent about using industry speakology until it is obvious that our client has evolved in their understanding of those terms. Best hint: when they start using them in everyday conversations. At that point we may have created a monster – but at least we are all speaking with a common voice. UNA.
Next entry, as previously promised, we will dig into the dreaded C.O. Change Order, that is. Or is it Certificate of Occupancy?
Tags: acronym, corporate real estate, PM, tenant
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Tenants Start with Project Management, Finish with Big Savings
Thursday, March 24th, 2011
By Dwight Patten, Director of Project Management
While the recovery slowly continues, it continues to be a tenant’s market, and cost-conscious companies are finding opportunities to save that go beyond reduced rental rates. Whether companies are upgrading or renovating existing space or building out new space, many are discovering that they can realize significant additional savings—in some cases more than $1 million. How? By adapting upfront, value-added Project Management.
Project Management—often overlooked and misunderstood—is a process that oversees all components of commercial real estate projects following strategic and portfolio planning. It involves managing all the elements that help you optimize your space needs, align your real estate with your business plan, and improve your bottom line.
To maximize savings, you should engage a Project Manager before the lease signing. Typically, the Project Management sequence includes the following steps:
-Lease negotiation (right-sizing space, maximizing tenant improvements, ensuring on-time project completion)
-Needs analysis and project objectives
-Vendor selection (architects, engineers, general contractor, IT, furniture)
-Design planning and space programming
-Construction control
-Move-in coordination
The right Project Manager orchestrates the whole process (including measures to “green up” your office, as needed), ensuring that your project comes in on time and on budget.
What Are the Benefits?
As far as cost savings, we have found that tenants will save at least the cost of the Project Manager by the project’s completion. One way Project Managers can guarantee savings is by leveraging relationships with vendors who want to work with them. For instance, they can drive 70% price reductions from furniture manufacturers alone.
Beyond cost savings, they will help you mitigate risks and minimize your time and stress. And additional benefits continue long term as space upgrades often lead to improved employee productivity and morale. For instance, through space reconfiguration, you can avoid empty pockets of vacant space, bring employees closer together, and establish a more collaborative environment. Sustainable practices will also produce a healthier workplace—and they are proving to help companies be more competitive, enhance recruitment efforts, and not necessarily cost additional “green.”
Overall, alternative work optimization strategies such as space restacking are now particularly timely as a new generation of younger employees are benefiting from new technologies, working in virtual areas, and sharing space at the office.
How to Proceed?
Meet with a project manager and real estate advisor who can integrate all your real estate needs, objectively arrive at a consensus, and represent your best interests. And remember to put project management to work before the deal is done.
Think of project management as an insurance policy that gives you peace-of-mind. The right team will provide a single source of accountability with professionals who will navigate around potential pitfalls and squeeze savings every step of the way.
Whatever the economic climate you should consider engaging an experienced, knowledgeable Project Manager who will plan intelligently and deliver as promised.
Tags: corporate real estate, cost savings, lease, PM, tenant
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What’s in Your Wallet–and How to Keep It There, Part II
Friday, February 25th, 2011
By Phillip Infelise, Chairman & Managing Principal
In Part I, I began discussing the communication between Project Managers and clients surrounding the overall Project Budget, starting from a Conceptual Project Budget and moving toward a Preliminary Project Budget.
In this entry, I will continue the discussion.
Once focused on a specific site and true design documents evolve, we turn to a working Project Budget Revision that is a collaboration among all of the project team to meet the client’s needs within an established spend authorization. We have established line items that properly reflect expected spend, and then our challenge is keeping the team and the client always talking about solutions that fit into those line items. We establish a hard budget column, a current update column, and a final budget reconciliation column to track all costs in real time. We will issue a Project Budget Revision (maybe 12 to 20 over a typical project cycle) any time there is movement that suggests reallocating monies between line items. We do not stay in business if we need to increase the bottom-line spend; consequently, we are proud of our track record for not doing so. Most important, though, is our ability to counsel the client on where scarce dollars are best spent—a good example is whether to insulate walls or install sound-masking to get the best acoustic for the dollar spent.
Design and construction costs are not the money sink in projects, as they are the easiest to control for the Project Managers. (Stay tuned for a follow up blog entry on change orders.) Usually, we can establish accurate targets for these and work with our project partners to deliver the desired result within those parameters. The bigger challenges are the other numbers like:
-IT Costs. For some reason, few internal IT departments want to openly share their plans and the attendant costs. That’s problematic since an average project budget will need to include about $8 – $15/SF in overall IT costs, including structured vertical and horizontal cabling, IDF equipment, servers, new phones (now always VOIP), and more.
-Audio Visual. While they are useful communication tools, AV costs can quickly spiral out of control. Equally important are late AV additions that require infrastructure that should have been installed before walls were closed and the retrofitting that then impacts multiple trades.
-Wish Lists Unrevealed. Project Managers are very good at budgeting for what they know. No one is good at budgeting for what they don’t know. Even though our process requires that we ask the same cost questions multiple times, what is unsaid costs money. Typical budget costs not revealed until very late in the game include new AV applications, art work, special signage, graphics, special security, specialty lighting, plants, and special furniture, among others.
What surprises a client the most in a typical tenant build project? Usually, it is the overall cost—and the range of costs—for furniture. Many have heard that the build is in the $35 – $50/SF range. Few understand that all new furniture can add $25 to $35/SF. However, that being said, we also believe the biggest savings can be realized by accurate and leveraged furniture purchasing, blending old and new, understanding the relocation impacts and costs, looking at re-use products, and a wide variety of other options.
Yes, we talk our clients through our budgets. It is often not the easiest of conversations, but it is certainly one where we truly need to talk the talk and make sure our clients understand every word we are saying or not saying. The best chatter is at the end of the project when we talk about a result that exceeded expectations and returned savings to the bottom line!
Next time, I promise, let’s have a little fun and look at some acronyms and industry speak that baffle our clients—and some of our client speak that baffles us.
Then, much later, we will return to a sore subject—the curse of the change order.
Tags: budget, corporate real estate, cost savings, PM
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What’s in Your Wallet–and How to Keep It There, Part I
Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011
By Phillip Infelise, Chairman & Managing Principal
In my last blog entry, I promised we would have some fun with acronyms. But I thought there was a serious subject we had not yet touched on—Project Budgets—so we will save the frivolity for a while. Related to our last edition, we should consider the overall Project Budget as yet another form of communication between us and our clients. This form of communications is often the most difficult one since no one likes to talk about money. But Project Managers do like to talk about it—exactly how to get the project you want at the cost you can afford.
Typically, we want to begin the money conversation very early, often in a first meeting. Whether a TI build or a build-to-suit, we believe that—given the right initial information on size, character, aesthetic approach, what’s in, and what’s not in—we can provide the client with an appropriate Conceptual Project Budget during the first conversations. The conversation we don’t like to hear—either from our side of the table or theirs—is: “We can build the space out for the TI allowances provided.” Too often, the client hears that comment and thinks the total budget can be covered. Our job is to provide the bad news that such a scenario is rarely true when total project costs are included.
This first budget is generally a conversation about how much the basic items cost and where this particular client wants to spend or conserve its dollars. Generally speaking, we usually have about 50-60 line items divided into the following cost categories (NOTE: Only because I knew you would ask for it, I inserted some typical ranges you might expect on a basic tenant build project. There are caveats galore, too numerous to detail here. Please call me for details.):
-Design Costs ($2.50 – $5.00/SF)
-Construction Costs ($35.00 – $60.00/SF)
-Furniture Fixtures and Equipment ($15.00 – $40.00/SF)
-Voice, Data and Special Power ($6.00 – $15.00/SF)
-Administrative Costs/Contingencies ($5.00 – $15.00/SF)
-Total Cost, Minus Allowances and Offsets (less than $25.00 to $75.00/SF)
Our job is to describe the typical project and the estimated costs to the client and open a dialogue about what should be included or not included in this particular budget. We work on a wide enough range of projects to fully understand the potential costs in each line item and to describe what you get for a low, medium, or high spend in each. For a build-to-suit, land purchase and due diligence around it adds a major component, as does the core and shell construction, but otherwise, the majority of line items remain the same (even if the dollars associated with them are higher). And month-to-month cash flows are usually included in the build-to-suit budget to forecast the big spends for the finance team.
After a little more time with the client and further conversations about wants, needs, and funds devoted to the effort, we refine the budget to the next stage, a Preliminary Project Budget, ready to be tested against early space plans (aka test-fits) in a number of potential sites. This may also be the time to introduce a General Contractor and pre-construction estimates to the table. Accurate budgeting against multiple sites allows the real estate team and the client to thoroughly understand the true cost impacts of the specific site’s building systems and distribution, built environment (if any), allowances provided, and the actual net “cash-out-of-pocket” costs to the client at the end of the day.
In Part II, I will discuss the Project Budget Revision and the three areas that are often the most challenging for Project Managers to control costs. Stay tuned.
Tags: budget, build-to-suit, corporate real estate, cost savings, PM, TI allowance
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Communicating through Documents & Deliverables
Wednesday, December 22nd, 2010
By Phillip Infelise, Vice Chairman
In our past blog editions, we have covered a range of approaches and services that Project Managers provide. Now, I think it is time to look at how we (should) communicate with our clients and our project team. Often it is not what we say, but how we say it. And written communication, deliverables, and documentation are needed to cover what we are not saying out loud.
Since we have come to accept that very few people ever read lengthy, detailed documentation—we need to adapt to that, and our documents need to catch the eye and focus on only the most important details. And they must be visually appealing to do that.
-E-mails should be written with all the protocol of a formal letter, not a sound bite. And the subject line should indicate whether action is needed or simply information is being provided.
-Action Items replace the former laborious Meeting Minutes so team members can focus on only that which is critically important.
-Project Memoranda seem to be a lost art and defers to e-mails, but there are circumstances when a situation or approach should be clarified in this more formal document.
-Deliverables should be boringly consistent – every document should be identical to any prior version.
-Color can be very effective if used appropriately. Applying red, yellow, green light symbols to Action Items can really grab the attention of the reader to their follow-up needs.
-Complimenting the client by using their logo on documents is a nice touch (make sure your company logo is not bigger or more prominently placed than theirs).
-File Identifiers are important on each document so folks will know where to find it in the electronic archives, often many years later.
-Communicate to the client with commonly used words, not industry-speak.
-Talk less, say more and communicate facts; don’t tell stories just to fill air time.
-Be an Advisor, not a Reporter, as clients needs to know what is coming around the next bend, not hearing what already happened in the last few weeks.
-Phone Conversations is still an important form of communication particularly when sensitive or personal information is forthcoming in a written document and needs prior context.
Many times, a solid document/deliverable can communicate in a graphic way what would have taken thousands of word to describe. Knowing when to talk and when to document is an acquired skill.
Finally, as a member of our national marketing team, I look at every document we produce as Project Managers to be an opportunity to extend our brand with a consistent identity that is recognizable and replicable. That is to say, I want each client and project team member to look at a document we produce and immediately know – “that’s a CresaPartners piece.”
In the next blog edition, let’s have a little fun and look at some acronyms and industry speak that baffle our clients. Maybe we will even make a few 2011 resolutions.
Tags: corporate real estate, PM
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Revving the Relocation Engine: RPM
Wednesday, October 20th, 2010
By Phillip Infelise
Now that we are clear on PM and CM differentiation, let’s throw in another acronym: RPM. In the world of Project Management, that stands for Relocation Planning and Management. On the long and winding project path, during the relocation phase, the rubber truly meets the road for our clients, so we need to pay particular attention to the curves, steep grades, and potholes that come with this process.
Managing change is tough. Project Managers could even be called TMs (Transition Managers) or CMs (Change Managers), but that would be confusing, wouldn’t it? Most brokerage firms concentrate on the design or sticks and bricks phases and leave clients to their own devices during relocation. We have a very different – and perhaps enlightened – viewpoint that nothing is more important to more people than the success or failure of the actual relocation. It is embodied in our “Relocation Dictum.”
“During 99% of the project, only 1% of the client universe is directly impacted. During the final 1% of the project, during the Relocation, 100% of the employees, clients, vendors are affected. The goal therefore has to be a 100% seamless transition.”
Consequently, we need to focus as much on the Relocation Phase as we do on the Project Planning, Design, and Construction Phases. To not do so is to abandon the client at a critical time; perhaps when they need us most. However, solid RPM consulting starts way back at the beginning of the project, and RPM consciousness should never lag throughout, as there will be transition trauma from start to finish. Some key points to focus on for successful RPM:
- Elevate RPM to a strategic position in the overall project planning.
- Establish good department contacts and business-flow understanding during early program interviews – what you learn will have big impact later.
- Develop a transition strategy that minimizes downtime.
- Over-communicate to staff and the project team throughout the relocation process.
- Pick a strong Move Captain from each department as they will be your chief lieutenants.
- There is no detail too insignificant to attend to.
- Develop a platform where all vendors are speaking to one another and understanding the overall sequence of events.
- Tote moves are in; boxes are out.
- Staff the move 24/7 so there is continuous coverage – hope that it is so smooth that it is boring.
- Be willing to hold hands and be a shoulder to lean on. Change is traumatic and this is where our people skills are really needed.
Three months post occupancy, few of the client staff will recall who did their lease or may not even know who the Project Manager was during design and construction. But they will surely know who helped them with their relocation.
In my next entry, I want to look at how we use precise documentation and deliverable formats to enhance our communication with clients and project teams.
What was your last office move like?
Tags: corporate real estate, PM, relocation, relocation planning and management
Posted in Project Management | Comments Off
