The Power of Great Project Management

Project management is not a small job. A project manager should provide overall team leadership and coordination. Project managers are accountable for the success of their projects, and to that end, they plan the work, organize the team, get ahead of issues, and serve as the primary contact for clients. To more fully explore the impact of project management on a design or build, as well as dive into what makes project management at BWBR unique, we assembled a team of in-house pros — Andrea Cecelia, Jarett Anderson, Anna Pratt, and Charles Orton — for an informal conversation about their work and what makes great project management so rewarding.

Hosted by: 
Jarett Anderson - BWBR - Project Manager

Guests:
Charles Orton - BWBR - Head of Project Management
Andrea Cecelia - BWBR - Project Manager
Anna Pratt - BWBR - Project Manager

Music provided by Artlist.io
Siberian Summer by Sunny Fruit
DuDa by Ian Post

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Transcript

Matthew Gerstner  00:10

This is Side of Design from BWBR a podcast discussing all aspects of design with knowledge leaders from every part of the industry.

Jarett Anderson  00:19

Today's episode of side of design, we're going to be talking with some project managers from BWBR, by the way, I'm Jarett Anderson, I'm an architect here at BWBR. And we're lucky to have with us some talented individuals, and I'll have them introduce themselves in a moment. But our topic today is, we believe that BWBR has always had a positive reputation when it comes to quality project management. And we're wanting to talk about today. What does that mean for our clients? How do our clients feel that their project from the proposal stage onward all the way to occupancy, and we might not get all the way to occupancy in this discussion, but we definitely want to talk about what that means to the client. What does project management mean to the client? Then, we're going to hear from, again, a couple of different project managers from BWBR. So with that said, Charles, would you introduce yourself?

Charles Orton  01:08

Sure, gladly I'm Charles Orton, I'm an architect. I'm head of project management at BWBR. I've been with BWBR for about nine years.

Jarett Anderson  01:17

Thanks, Andrea?

Andrea Cecelia  01:19

I'm Andrea Cecelia. I am a licensed architect as well. I've been with BWBRf or about six months.

Jarett Anderson  01:25

Nice, and you're in our Madison office. 

Andrea Cecelia  01:27

I am. Yep. Loving it. 

Jarett Anderson  01:29

Great. Anna?

Anna Pratt  01:31

I'm Anna Pratt, and I'm also an architect, and I am a project manager in our Omaha office. And I've been here about four years.

Jarett Anderson  01:40

And you've been doing a lot of healthcare and education. Right? 

Anna Pratt  01:43

Exactly. That's been my focus. 

Jarett Anderson  01:45

Great. Andrea, what have you been working on?

Andrea Cecelia  01:47

I have been working on some S&T, some lab projects. And that's been absolutely fascinating getting into that aspect of architecture, as well as some healthcare projects, clinics. And that's also been a really fascinating project type to work on.

Jarett Anderson  02:03

And then coming back to you, Charles, you've been doing a lot of healthcare in your career over the years, right?

Charles Orton  02:08

Yeah, mostly healthcare. Earlier in my career, I did some schools, K-12, higher ed, but healthcare has always been pretty central. And the main focus of most of my work.

Jarett Anderson  02:20

Right, and I think this is, this is a group here, we've worked on large projects, and we worked on small projects, right? In the end, it all kind of matters to the client, that re-roof that needs to be done, or that wing that needs to be added, or that new critical access hospital or new school building, all those things matter. With that said, as a project starts out, what do you think needs to happen? To get a good start with a project?

Charles Orton  02:45

Well, obviously, we we are pretty focused on doing good work plants. So we try and understand the scope of a project, what is it going to take to do is this big and complicated? What does the owner want? Is it fast? What are their expectations in terms of enhancing their brand or capturing market share whatever kind of project it is, we want to just make sure we have a good understanding of what it's going to take to do the project. Then we start putting pencil to paper for in my case, spreadsheets, trying to figure out, okay, what do we need to do? And when do we need to do it and marrying that with what the owner needs.

Jarett Anderson  03:28

And do you think tha, that exercise happens in a vacuum? Or do you shop that around at times?

Charles Orton  03:34

Oh, I always shop it around, I don't do anything in a vacuum. I told a project manager who was just beginning to be a project manager once who said they were uncertain that they knew enough to be a project manager and I I commented that project managers get to be project managers at BWBR, not because of what they know so much is because of their judgment. And we are surrounded by an ocean of expertise here at BWBR and in our consultant teams, and in our owners. We learn a tremendous amount from our clients too. I need to go through the exercise of learning from all of those people in order to really understand what we're doing and how we're doing it.

Jarett Anderson  04:19

Right pairing strengths and noticing blind spots, right as you're building that work plan. Asking asking the right questions that might affect an end result for a client or an impact on outcome for a client, right?

Charles Orton  04:33

Our project managers are a good group about sharing information with each other. But it goes beyond that. I think that the people who will actually be doing the work are people that I need to, to know and hear from to now what I'm really asking, you know, is this, is this hard? Is this easy? Is this fast or slow? And what are the potential challenges that come with doing this in a particular situation. So it's a it's a highly collaborative activity. And we're sort of at the nexus of all sorts of expertise. That's what's fun about it for me.

Andrea Cecelia  05:10

I agree with you, Charles, being newer to BWBR I didn't have the resources that we have now. And it's been nice being able to figure out who I can tap for certain things, be it codes, specs, healthcare, in general S&T In general, and even yourself. I've come to you on a handful of occasions to discuss the PM role and an understanding where I can find resources. And I think that's what BWBR really seems to excel it is that we have a wide variety of people. But we're all willing to help each other and lend a hand here or there. And that's really what makes our projects at the end successful is people willing to jump in and help out to get something done as a team.

Anna Pratt  05:56

So when you started that question, at the beginning, you said something about from the proposal stage. Can I say something about that? 

Jarett Anderson  06:03

Absolutely. 

Anna Pratt  06:04

Okay. So there's a few ways that we win projects and work. And so one of them is obviously just the relationships that we build with our clients, and that we're a trusted advisor, were a good partner. And so they a lot of our work is repeat clients. And that a big part of that is the communication, the expectations that our teams and our project managers and our PIC's put forth and how we serve our clients. The other way, or another way that we win projects, is by competing for them through a proposal and interview process. And so oftentimes, when we're going after the project, myself being in Omaha, and the principal in the project will often make a site visit and try and meet the project manager on the client side and do a tour or grab lunch. That's not always an option, depending on the funding, and if they can talk about it or not. But a lot of times, it's a really great way to just continue to build that relationship, it shows that we're interested, we have a genuine care for that client, we're investing in the time and effort to go visit them learn about them. And then that just helps to set us up even better when we put our our qualifications together. And then on into the interview stage hopefully and win the project, it starts long before we even think about a schedule or work plan, those relationships are being built early on.

Jarett Anderson  07:33

Right, the client's figuring out who we are how we like to work. Is it all about us? Are we ego driven firm? Do we have, are we going to deliver solutions to them and that's it? Or are we collaborative, which I believe we are collaborative. Our point is to be out there and we're listening. It isn't really about us. We're nothing without our clients, right? We're out there listening to them, doing projects for them, with them, to move the needle for them to, you know, better their outcomes, and deliver things that are on time and on budget,

Andrea Cecelia  08:02

Right. The PM's, and in general BWBR, our goal is to allow our client to be the hero in their own story. So a lot of times the projects we work on, the client isn't one person, it's a group of people, or a board. But you meet with their project manager or their director, whomever you're that one person you're meeting. And our goal is actually to make that person a hero to the rest of the board and make things go smoothly and go well, and it's the communication, it's the caring, it's all of that wrapped together to make that happen. Just like Anna mentioned.

Jarett Anderson  08:40

I like that a lot. It's exactly it. Making them the hero. And then making everybody, when you when you turn it over at the end, everybody, the vision has been communicated, everybody understands the design, we're on the same page, and we're all moving forward. And even if there are bumps in the road along the way, we're going to try to get ahead of some of those bumps for that project manager. So even in the meetings, I think, you know, if we start thinking about our teams that we build and how we interact with clients, I think kind of that collaborative spirit with our designers, with our planners, with our technical experts, really comes through in our in our proponent or user meetings. 

Andrea Cecelia  09:21

Definitely. 

Jarett Anderson  09:22

I see a lot a lot of head nodding. There's a lot of you know, when you're making those project plans, are you always imagining that everything goes smoothly through all of that or ... 

Andrea Cecelia  09:35

That's the dream is that it goes smoothly, but our role is there to be prepared when the hiccups come up, and foresee some of those hiccups, you know, it's watching for, I can see this might cause a problem in the future, what can I do now to spearhead that. What can I do now to shift the course so that isn't a problem. That's kind of the magic role of the project manager is just to understand the moving parts and pieces and see into the future, what could happen and how could we make it less impactful now? By catching it?

Charles Orton  10:14

Yeah, you know, answering your question's kind of tricky, because, of course, we're imagining a good outcome. And we always need to be able to visualize where we're going. 

Jarett Anderson  10:25

Right. 

Charles Orton  10:25

Andrea and Anna may have heard me say this before, because it's one of my favorite quotes. I think Eisenhower said, "Plans are useless. But planning is indispensable." That's really part of it is preparing for what can go wrong and trying to anticipate what can go wrong. Sometimes you do come across as worrying about things that haven't happened, but that's, I think, that just goes with the territory you want to, you want to try and steer around them when possible, and just try and always look ahead and see what's out there.

Jarett Anderson  10:58

Right. And you know, those those things, and those hiccups can be a range of things. But it's our job to keep the train on the tracks and keep things moving forward. You know, there's building consensus as part of that, some consensus might be falling away at certain point in the design process, and you need to come together and have a meaningful dialogue. And have, you know, people say what they mean mean, what they say, and move things forward. It might be budget related. We're in a period now, right where not to put a timestamp on the podcast here. But, you know, there's a lot of inflation happening in the past couple of quarters. And in the past six months, even something that was estimated not too long ago, doesn't really cost that in today's dollars. So we need to understand project costs and stay on top of those things. And I think our project managers tend to have the experience to know when to ask some of those questions, and when is the right time to get that information out and discover that together so that we can move forward together?

Anna Pratt  11:56

I agree with that, Jarett, I think one of the things that I find really rewarding and exciting. And in the whole scheme of the project is the visioning session that we do tat he beginning of a project, when we hear from a number of folks The client will help us figure out who else is going to be a part of that, but it's great when we have a wide spectrum of folks that are going to be occupying the building or community members. It's kind of a dreaming phase of what could this project be, and from all of that will work with some key stakeholders to determine guiding principles. And so when we do need to build consensus or have to make some of those tough decisions to adhere to the budget, we can go back to those guiding principles, and think about what those big goals were from the very beginning, whether it's a center of excellence for this certain type of project, or it's going to serve the community in this certain way. Those guiding principles can help us get back on track and rebuild that consensus as needed or, or still build a wonderful project, even if budget is tight. And we have to make some some tough choices.

Jarett Anderson  13:03

Right. The visioning is about those, helping discover those priorities.

Anna Pratt  13:09

Exactly. 

Jarett Anderson  13:09

What truly matters, what is the soul of the project? And maintain the integrity of that as we go forward. And that's well said Anna. Absolutely. So what's great is when I read what a project manager is, verbatim, in our office, and we have the role profiles and all that stuff, you know, a project manager should provide the overall team leadership and coordination project managers are accountable for the overall success of their projects, the PM plans the work, organizes the team, anticipates issues and is the primary client contact during all phases of the project. At any time, the project manager should know the status of the project, scope and budget, and the team and what they're doing and why they're doing it. Basically, you're responsible for all of it, right is kind of what it comes down to. Y'all are the captains of the ship in some ways, but the real captains are our clients, and we're in service of them as we go through this. And I think everything that we just talked about, I think highlights one of those requirements of what a project manager is in our office. So going through then what's something Anna that you enjoy about being a project manager?

Anna Pratt  14:19

You know, one of the things that I enjoy the most is, is learning from everybody else on the team, we all bring our own strengths to the team. Some of the PAs that I work with are, well, they're all fantastic, but some of them just have this depth of knowledge in certain building systems or building types that I don't personally have. So that's really exciting to me. I love learning from our code folks. And you think you've got a grasp on something and then the certain project type or an existing condition just throws you for total loop and so being able to, to learn from everyone else around me so that we can serve the client is, it's always it's always great. It's a challenge,but just there's always that something new to learn,

Jarett Anderson  15:03

Andrea, what's something that you enjoy about project management at BWBR?

Andrea Cecelia  15:07

I think it's the whole role. There's days, I miss getting into the details and drawing the details. But I enjoy understanding the bigger picture and being able to anticipate things that are going to possibly happen, could happen. And then and seeing it through to the end. And having that rule that I didn't have to touch every aspect of it. But I kind of helped make it happen. And pulled all the parts and pieces together, almost like it was a big puzzle. Bringing in all the different roles, the engineers, architects, and helping them pull it together, letting them shine, where they shine, and then being that catalyst to the client. Some of my most enjoyable times with the client have been actually when they don't always know what they're doing. And, you know, if it's a client that might only build a building once, or it's their first time, and maybe they will have more in the future. But that initial walking through, okay, this is what we do, this is how we're going to help make this process digestible to you and get you through it. And then those check ins of, you know, is there anything I can do to help you, and can explain this in a different way? Not every client knows how to read a set of plans. And I just find that really gratifying when I can explain something to a client. And then that light bulb goes on, or when they have vision, and they might not be able to see it on the plans, but then it finishes and they're like, "Wow! This is what I wanted. This is exactly what I wanted." So it's kind of the whole process, pulling it together and making it happen.

Jarett Anderson  16:49

Nice. Charles, have all the answers been taken, or?

Charles Orton  16:53

All the good answers have been taken, you know, what Andrea and Anna said, made me think about a couple of things, kind of conversations I've had, when people are trying to make a decision about whether they want to do this or not, be a project manager. And some of the things that I routinely wind up saying are something that is not a reason to be a project manager is you want to be a boss, you want to be in charge, you want to direct people. And I think what Anna said really illustrated that, you know, and I think this is true culturally across the board at BWBR. Everyone approaches the work with a with a kind of humility, and a respect that I am not in charge of you, you know more about what you're doing than I do. That's why we need to work together. Right? We collaborate, and it's not I direct you, it's we have a discussion about how do we together get this done. And I think that that's really true across the board. And it's also not about control, per se. I've described people who are sort of control oriented, that project management is sometimes like trying to drive a car from the backseat, because as Andrea says, you don't get to do the drawing anymore. And that might have been the thing that got most of us into this, right? I mean, I loved to draw and and I don't get to do it much anymore. And so you're directing other people to do things and you have to give them room to do it their way and still be okay. Right? You You have to, you cannot micromanage people, you have to you have to give them the freedom and the latitude to accomplish the work but do so in within parameters, right? We've got to we've got to keep things pointed in the right direction. And so it's a, it's a balancing act. I know that our group of project managers is extraordinarily skilled at that. They're just really, really great at that ability to balance competing concerns and keep things pointed in the right direction and do so in a way that allows people the freedom to be who they are and do things the way they do things. That's what I liked most Jarett.

Jarett Anderson  19:11

That's a great answer. I love it. Going back a little bit. I think a thread through all of this I hear is 'trust' in terms of the relationship building that we discussed in terms of overcoming challenges in terms of keeping things on the track in terms of respecting people that you're working with and around and how you're working with them. How much of that do you think happens very intentionally, or how much of that do you think is just ingrained in what we do, is building that trust?

Andrea Cecelia  19:39

I think BWBR has done a really good job of building that and creating a culture of that. I remember one of my first conversations with a principal when I started here, I said, I don't feel like I have a boss. I was so used to being micromanaged. And you know, this needs to get done. This needs to get done. Yeah, I know. I know how to do my job. And I think that's so ingrained here that everybody learns people's strengths and knows what they can do, and then lets them do it. Okay, I need this sketch for the client by next Wednesday, get it done by next Wednesday, please. And knowing that it will be done to the right satisfaction as opposed to, I need this. And then I need this. And it's that micromanaging, that just doesn't seem to happen here. And it allows people to shine in their own way, and allows them to work in their own way. You know, we're all different. We all work, we all think differently. So it's really letting everybody play off their own strengths. By doing that. 

Anna Pratt  20:46

I agree, Andrea. I think there's certainly just that BWBR culture is that way. And I think as we hire and bring on more folks, we're, we're constantly looking for that cultural fit. You can teach someone to draw detail, but there has to be that cultural fit to the firm as well. But we're also, especially in Omaha, we're trying to be very intentional with growing as a team. And as an Omaha team, as an Omaha office, we've hired several folks during COVID. And so we haven't really ever worked together in person. We've been working remotely for the last couple of years. And so one of the things that we're trying to be intentional about is getting to know each other by going to the office together at least once a week, we're hopeful that this will just continue to build our understanding of each other's personalities and just continue to build that trust that we've we've started to build on over the last couple of years, but then just get to know each other more.

Jarett Anderson  21:44

I think part of part of what that's getting it to a little bit more is, it isn't always just about the objective things. But the subjective things. It's not about just how you draw this, how you do this, get this done, and eight to five, we'll see you later. People genuinely care about what they're doing and how they're doing it and why they're doing it. And they do it in a specific way. So I think, you know, there are some exercises we go through to help understand ourselves to help you understand your strengths, and then how they mesh with other people, right, the way that we use something called Insights, Discovery, is one way that you know, you need to become self aware. I would argue that project managers need to become self aware so that they're more aware of how they're communicating with clients and other people. And I say that as someone that wakes up green, which is the communication color, and I'm also blue, so I like these detail things. And that's, that's my jam. And I have to realize how I come across to other people, right? Because not everybody likes that not everybody likes to talk about details. People sometimes just want to get things done, be brief, and, and be gone and that kind of a thing. So you kind of have to adjust your, the way that you work to your client or to your team or to some of those things as well. So I think we're very accommodating. In that aspect, which is something that I think you were getting at.

Charles Orton  23:03

Jarrett, you said trust, you used the word trust at the outset and I think that, that's certainly key. I think a kind of necessary ingredient inside trust is empathy. And this is something that I think it's a secret sauce that makes everything work together. And it's so we need to illustrate and truly care about all of our staff. We need to care about our clients. We need to care about our consultants. I mean, we're all we're all trying to accomplish something together, and we need to appreciate the stresses and you know, understand what well being looks like. That trust comes out of that you trust people that you think have your back. And if you can't, you can't pretend there. You really have to do it. You have to take care of the people around you, and that includes just about everybody you work with. And if you can do that, that trust is going to be there. It's just going to happen. You know, in terms of client relationships, I mean, there are a lot of really capable firms. And the decision making, I think on the client side is who can you really trust? Who can you communicate with? Where do you get that, that feeling that this is the group that is going to watch your back? Who's going to take care of you as we as we said before? So you know, empathy, I would say empathy is is what really helps us work together efficiently, smoothly and transparently. I remember early in my career, getting to do things for the first time and panicking because, you know, the first thought in my head is oh my god, they think I know how to do this, right? And it's terrifying. When I see staff that I think might be in that because position they have to trust that this is not career limiting to admit that you don't know something. They have to be transparent that they haven't done this before and understand that, I want to know that, and we're here to help, and we can get you the resources to get it done without sending someone on some infinitely long research effort to try and figure out something new for them by saying, llet's look at the resources around us and figure this out together. That's that's how we really do things efficiently.

Jarett Anderson  25:33

Right, I think that's part of our culture. And mission statement two is developing our staff that way in development, without development, what's really going on right now, you developing the next leaders, the next project managers, the next, the next PICs. And I think we have a culture that we have lifelong learners here, and people that want to keep learning and are curious about things, which are all things that I think come through to our clients as well. I'll say, one thing that I like about project management is really the people. And it's really the more and more and more I've been in the career, the more and more more the people are the secret sauce in the whole thing. And that's really what it comes down to is, how are you interacting with those people both on the client side, on the consultants side, on your team side? And how are you working through all that to move things forward?

Andrea Cecelia  26:23

I think tying what you're saying and what Charles said before about, you know, you can teach anybody to draw something. But it's really those soft skills and understanding how to work with people how not just how other people work, but how you work and how you express yourself, and how to essentially bust out of the word manager and become a leader. And that's kind of what we're trying to do is lead our teams and be a leader for our clients and make the whole process successful beyond just a building. You know, that building is going to be there and we want it to function well. But we want the process to go well, and then we want to learn from that process and go in and understand after the fact. Okay, let's let's talk about this, let's understand this final product together.

Jarett Anderson  27:09

Exactly. That's really owning it, and owning that process. And there's not enough, we didn't get all the way through all the things, but we can we can come back and do another one of these I think at some point in time. Which might be nice talk about, you know, we didn't talk about workshops, we didn't talk about integration of sustainability, there's a lot of things in here in project management that we haven't truly, you know, dove into about leading that process about leading a workshop about that there's a lot to it that we didn't discuss so far.

Charles Orton  27:38

Yeah, I mean, there's a there's a lot to it and kind of thinking about okay, what do we say about project management that people haven't heard before? You know, it's kind of tough. I mean, and it sounds like a cliche to say, well, it's communication, right? But I think that the trick is figuring out how to communicate, there's a lot of creativity in in figuring out new and different ways to communicate all sorts of things that people may think they know and don't really know, or that we need to find new ways to communicate with broad teams that include contractors and consultants and owners and staff at all different levels of development and authorities having jurisdiction and all sorts of other things. All of them have a different lens, right, that they they see the world through. And the same message may land so differently across all of those groups if you're not aware of how it's being interpreted. And so so communication, while a cliche is can be a tough thing to do, sometimes it's not for beginners, necessarily, but we'll we'll keep trying.

Jarett Anderson  28:52

Really appreciate everybody's time here today. Anna, and Andrea, and Charles, and thank you for what you do for our clients on a daily basis.

Charles Orton  29:00

Thank you, Jarett. 

Jarett Anderson  29:02

Have a good one.

Matthew Gerstner  29:03

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