CHAPTER 20
Level 3: Systems (Relating/Collaboration)
Level 3 of the Project Design Controls framework houses the human/relational systems. (See Figure 20.1) We call them “systems” because they have complex moving parts and represent the framework's “communication,” “circulatory,” “personal,” and “spiritual” systems. But unlike building and machine systems such as HVAC and electricity, these human systems factors rely on complex moving parts such as relationships, trust, and people to work.
FIGURE 20.1 Level 3: “Systems” (Relating/Collaborating).
Owner, Architect, Contractor: The Team
People come first, because without them, there is no judgment, expertise, or communication. Get to know the people on your team personally and professionally. Treat them as someone you value. Maybe they'll do the same for you. Make time for people and renew and refresh your efforts periodically. Invest in after-hours social time. It pays off. Trade organizational charts to ensure you know who they are and what they do. Invest in their preferences and accommodate them. Give.
Trust
No matter how well planned, organized, and documented your structural controls are, if the team doesn't have trust, the tangible factors are worthless. No one will believe or use them. Earn your teammates' trust. Don't be afraid to be vulnerable, admit when you've made a mistake, or need help.
Trust must be earned. Earn it by doing what you say you're going to. Under promise and overdeliver. Consider this: teams that trust one another preserve and maximize their productive work time. Teams that don't will rob themselves of time spent in backchecking, backstabbing, reworking teammates' efforts, and talking about them. You've done a cost estimate? Having earned my trust from past interactions, you grant me the freedom to do my work or solve some other team problem rather than question yours. Maybe I can return the favor? Sound like a fantasy? Ask those who've done it. It works.
Relationships
Relationships are the circulatory and respiratory systems of Project Design Controls: they drive the team understanding, communication, and trust through which all measurable controls flow. Develop and nurture relationships with those you'll work with. When times are tough, your relationships will get you through the adversity. Relationships take intention, commitment and time. Do you have those? Give to relationships through actions. Create an atmosphere of giving and teamwork. The best teams find counterparts on other teams and align (e.g. designer to design manager, production detailer to facility manager, IT guru to BIM manager). See Figure 20.2.
FIGURE 20.2 Alignment.
“It's no wonder we sometimes have a failure to communicate. All too often, we're separated by a common language.”
Common Languages
Since owners, designers, and contractors have unique languages, industry crusaders have developed common vocabularies. Owner organizations such as Construction Users Roundtable (CURT) and the Construction Owners of America (COAA) support committees for this subject. BIM leaders fight for COBie, LOD, and other data standard and interoperability protocols to push us toward common languages to exchange digital data between machines and people.
“To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong.”
– Joseph Chilton Pearce
It's the same when humans talk. Without common understanding of terms, we resort to our own meanings. That's where the trouble starts. The architect has a “program.” She means a “program of requirements” to design to. The owner has a “program.” He means a repeatable process of building multiple projects. The HVAC subcontractor needs the “program.” He means the digital control software to operate the HVAC system. It's no wonder we fail to communicate. Too often, we're separated by a common language.
Hearing Differently
Even when we use the same word or phrase it can take on different interpretations and forms. Take “design schedule.” We all know what that means, right? The words are clear. No multiple meanings. But let's look deeper. To a designer, design schedule may mean a three-activity macro look at schematic design, design development, and construction documents. Perhaps it doesn't include consultant coordination, contractor pricing, exploring options, or owner presentations. Faced with producing a design schedule, lacking these activities – and a constructor/owner dialogue – designers are likely to have a different view of their design workplan than their owner/contractor teammates.
“It's fundamentally unsettling to see the world as messy and chaotic. The mind is created to make sense of things. We are sense-making organisms.”
– Daniel Kahneman
Here's the stereotype: within their studio enclave, the design team works their alchemy, making gold of common elements, speaking a language known only to those in the guild:1 mass models, elevation studies, maquettes, esquisses, parti, poche, materiality.2 Contractors and owners not privy to the high order of design rarely enter this sanctum. They don't know these veiled processes or how the magic happens.
“How do you get to know the people who design?” you ask. Spend time with them. Learn their processes, concerns, needs, and values. Ask to go into their studios. You'll need practice because they talk, hear, and see differently. Even if you don't want to know, do it to head off problems and help your teams. We need you. Outside our own organizations, designers and builders need each other symbiotically for survival despite our differences.
Ever had this experience? We attended the same meeting, yet left with wildly different recollections of what was said. Why? Because we heard and processed information through different filters and experience sets. For example:
“We're 10% over budget,” is heard by the contractor as “Change the design, get in budget. Now.”
“Not too bad,” is heard by the architect as “Maybe the market will pick up and we'll come in under. The contractor probably has that much in contingency. Keep going with the current design.”
Hopeful, optimistic, the architect is conditioned by a different belief set. Is it any wonder the design is still over budget at the next phase's pricing? It's the same building, more developed. Irreconcilable viewpoints continue in parallel while frustration and mistrust mount. Where's my budget-fixing superpower when I need it? Where's my language translator? Is there a Star Trek Vulcan mind meld in the house? That's Mr. Spock's alien empathy at the highest level – a knowledge transfer with no data loss. We all carry preconceptions and biases and hear in versions. We must ask and listen better to arrive at a common message.
On Management: Skeptics and Cynics
“When you look at a gamble you are evaluating states of wealth. One if you lose, another if you win. That's the foundation of prospect theory.” 3
Not many architects look at their work as gambles, prospects, or risk to be managed. They should. For all their powers of synthesis, too many architects are loath to integrate practicality, work planning, and economics – management – into their processes. That's when they (and their teammates) pay the price. With their broad training in arts, sciences, and humanities, architects excel at making sense of things. They study creative processes and apply them to bring order to chaos. But somewhere, the notions of meeting schedules, hitting budgets, and making money elude most of them.
Design drives project success, yet managing it remains sketchy, misunderstood, and underperformed, a seldom-mastered skillset. Improvement seems distant, even unattainable. Perhaps professionals are waiting for the mythical element spoken of by cynical engineers and scientists: “unobtainium.”
Architects and engineers are a skeptical lot. They're trained that way. Their mission to effect change assumes that nothing exists that's good enough: they can always do better. Whether the subject is a design, calculation, drawing, or finished building, no one else's work is ever as good as their own. This innate drive to reinvent flies in the face of the business person's motivation: to develop a valuable product, service, or idea, and sell it widely for profit. For the average architect, efficiency and management are “unattainable” – by design. They reside in a distant, unfamiliar paradigm. For architects, already prone to think about their inherent specialness,4 the pressure to be better at business can be bothersome. For decades the AIA's own canons advised against commerce as an objective – and we prided ourselves on obeying them. Most of us still do, even while lamenting our plight.
Collaboration
“Co-labor-ation” means “working together.” Ideally, this produces synergy, not mere compromise or accommodation. Evaluate concepts such as co-location, face-to-face work, and sharing data. Not only can they be more fun, but you might learn something, make a friend, generate better solutions, and feel more fulfilled.
Team trust and relationships dictate performance capacity. The interpersonal behaviors and beliefs, through which the tangible project controls are interpreted is the team's collaboration lifeline. Even with measurable controls, without that lifeline, they'll be ineffective.
Even if you've been telling your architect she is over budget, if she doesn't want to listen, is too busy, mad at you, or speaking a different language, she may not hear or understand. The flow rate of communication and work within your team is a function of how well you collaborate. If you don't trust one another, you spend time micromanaging, documenting, or checking up on a teammate, cutting productivity. Successful collaborators identify peers with similar responsibilities and communicate.
Do they have authority to speak for their team on their issues? Learn their language. Develop a relationship and ensure all aspects are represented in the direction they give. Collaboration needs nurturing. Are you using colocation, weekly meetings, calls, social outings, checkpoints, and sharing imperfect information? Yes, I hope. Working together is decidedly better than the alternative.