Hypothetical Construction Project

George checked his watch; the project team meeting was scheduled right after lunch and he was a little nervous. This was his first major project for GWIZ Construction as Project Manager. The project was three months into the revised schedule and the usual problems, plus a few unique ones, were showing up and he wasn’t sure how to handle some of them.

The project had gotten off to a rough start. The contract negotiation process with the owner had been finished in less time than he had ever seen for a project of this size and scope. Because of the speed of the process, GWIZ had been forced to give up a little more than they wanted during the negotiations. This left George hoping that the subs with which Purchasing had finally contracted would come in under budget.

As soon as they had finished these shotgun negotiations, there had been some funding and permit issues that had resulted in a four-month delay. As a result, once the project had finally been given the go-ahead, a number of the subcontractors were over-committed with other projects. George had to find alternative subs for some of the project scopes and just had to hope to mitigate any schedule impact.

This delay and re-purchasing had actually worked in George’s favor for one of the subs. Purchasing had evidently had difficulty making the buy and had finally sold the job to an “undesirable” firm. George had used the delay and rescheduling as an excuse to lose that firm and to bring in one of his favorite subs. Not only would this guy do a better job than Purchasing’s buy, but he had a reputation for sending a little “thank you” to the Project Manager when the job was done business.

As he looked over the budget and project plan, and put together the final version of his own work plan, George thought about ways he could maybe cut some corners and add a bit more to the bottom line.

George welcomed everyone as they arrived at the meeting and tried to get a feel for how this group was working with each other. He wasn’t sure about the team chemistry especially since some of the project team members were new to the company. He had also heard that Carl was not always easy to get along with. John, George’s boss met him at the door and shook his hand as he came in. “I see the fire marshal won’t be at this meeting,” He joked. “Otherwise this would have been a lunch meeting with a good lunch; we don’t even get cookies.” Surprise, the boss was sitting in on his Project Team meeting.

As the meeting got underway, George went over the most current project status reports with the project team and reviewed the scope, objectives, schedule and budget for each part of the project. The meeting went smoothly and there were few questions or comments.

Later that afternoon George stopped by to talk to John. “The meeting seemed to go OK - not much comment, but that is not surprising. What did you think?”

John thought about some of the comments and conversations he had heard following the meeting.

Two Project Engineers had left the meeting talking:

George doesn’t know about the new electrical inspector, does he? This guy is a bear; someone has to “sweet talk” him or we’ll never get done on time. It’s not like when Pat was the inspector. He knew us and knew the quality of our work so those inspections went really smoothly - and he understood the pressures we are under. Sometimes he would approve work before it was completed if he knew his schedule might hold us up.

The Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent had been talking by the drink machines in the snack bar when John had stopped by to get a soda.

We’ve worked with the sub who’s doing the framing before - AHN. They use a lot of part-time guys and they are really lax on the standards and quality. They may be quick and cheap, but someone better be keeping a close eye on them or I wouldn’t want to sneeze in that building when it’s done. Either that or we are going to double costs when we have to re-do that work. With this budget and time line, we can’t afford that.

And talking about schedules, we are really pushing the plumbing folks to get a move on, but they are still ripped at GWIZ for that last project when we gave them such a hard time and then held their checks till after the new year. They just won’t budge. We are waiting on them!

Other comments John overheard included:

I am really not looking forward to working with Carl. I had to work with him on one of my last projects and he grates on my nerves. Hopefully I won’t have to work too closely with him on this one. If I do…! Maybe I’ll go talk to John about George’s choice of people for this team.

Considering all these comments, John looked up at George, “You have a number of challenges to deal with - broad scope, tight budget, team dynamics, short timeline. You’re just going to have to cut it close to the line and ask the team to give it 110 percent.

Task:

You have a chance to meet with John, the Project Engineer, first thing tomorrow.

• You want to discuss your plans for dealing with the issues raised during the project team meeting.
• You also want to find a way to get him to be more open and direct in his future dealings with you - you want to know what he had in mind when he said, “You have a number of challenges to deal with - broad scope, tight budget, team dynamics, short timeline.”

How do you have this conversation in a way that resolves the conflicts and builds trust?