QUESTION:  “I don’t know why my [PM, Super, Foreman] just don’t see all the details that I see when I look at a construction project.  How do I get them to pay attention to the same things I pay attention to?”

Most construction business owners and senior executives (including myself) have essentially “grown up” in the industry and there are literally thousands of things that we do each and every day that we “just do.”  We have a hard time understanding why things that seem so obvious to us can be completely overlooked by someone else. 

Our first thought is that somehow that other person isn’t smart enough, experienced enough or isn’t trying hard enough.  Sometimes (very few times) this may be true but most of the time we just aren’t managing and teaching the person very well.  The root of the problem is that most of the time we don’t fully understand what it is that we do, how or why we see the things we do. 

What do we currently do to manage?  Typically we get frustrated, vent to others and sometimes blow-up at the person.  When we do their reviews annually we simply say things like “needs to pay more attention to details” or “learn to prioritize time better” and give a few vague examples.  Sometimes this works but often the results are less than spectacular. 

If you really want to change people’s habits and build a stronger team you need more rapid and concise feedback.  We need to take the approach of teaching rather than “grading” which is what the annual review process does. 

In the mid-1990′s I was running a project as a field Superintendent.  It was a large and complicated job that I had taken over because it was behind schedule and over-budget.  I had a good track-record of profitability in the past and the turnaround was going phenomenal.  It was at that point that I had the best management lesson of my life. 

The Sr. Project Manager on the job came to visit (it was an out-of-town job) and immediately just started walking through with me and making a detailed list of everything that he saw throughout the job.  The list ended up being several pages long.  He walked into my office, made a copy and handed it to me saying “See you in a week; make sure these things are done.” 

To say that I was mad would have been an understatement.  We were 10 days ahead of schedule and had turned a loss into a profit.  Everyone else was busy telling me how good of a job I was doing so this list; most of which were what I considered “petty details” simply made me steaming mad.  Nevertheless because I had a great deal of respect for this Sr. PM we got to work on the list. 

On top of that I was determined to have a smaller list the next time he showed up.  When he came the next week I already had a list started.  While making it I saw that I was picking up on details that I previously wouldn’t have picked up on as early in the project.  During this visit he saw the list I had started and made me carry the clipboard and write this time.  He pointed out a few dozen more items that I hadn’t seen myself and started explaining why he had learned these details were priorities.

This process repeated itself for several more weeks and throughout that time his additions to the list became less and less.  Finally he stopped coming to the jobsite and started spending more time with other people on his team doing the same thing. 

For my part I started the same process with the key Foremen and Crew Leaders on the job teaching them how to walk their own areas of responsibility and systematically pay attention to every detail. 

The results – we finished a very complicated job and never had to look back because there was zero punch list.  I saw that customer for years into the future and they still talked about the project because it was the only one that had a zero punch list but also didn’t have any maintenance issues. 

Details matter and even though I was already pretty good at managing them my bar was raised because of simple, regular feedback.  I’ve repeated this process throughout my career and always had fantastic results. 

Pick a single job to work on and walk through it once a week with the Foreman and Project Manager systematically using this form to make notes of every detail you see, what materials or special equipment are required and what may be in your way to keep you from getting the item done.  The next week walk through the jobsite again and have one of them make the list. 

Guide the process as above and when your input is minimal move to the next job.  In a year you will have made a significant impact on your company and your team.  More on this topic soon.

Tags: construction, Management, PM, Project

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2008 at 11:11 pm and is filed under David Brown Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.