The Intern’s Input
This third episode in The PATH Projects takes us to Sara and Stuart’s office the beginning of the week following their first pub work session:
“So I’ve made a list of what we currently do for CA,” Sara informed Stuart on Monday morning, “But it’s a bit thin and I suspect it has some holes in it.”
Stuart reflected for a moment: “Since we always have a Monday morning “all staff” meeting, meaning us and Iris, why don’t we add this to the agenda and include Iris.”
Sara frowned. “I’m not sure what an intern can contribute. After all, she’s just learning.”
“But she’s been taking the latest courses and has worked at two other firms, so she may have some “latest greatest” information we’ve missed, and her experience at the two other firms means she’s participated in two other recent design “universes.” She’s also much more up on current technology.”
“You mean she spends too much time on social media,” suggested Sara.
“No,” replied Stuart, “I know she uses apps to communicate with her friends, including about design and construction issues. We need to set aside our preconceptions about how she does what she does, rather focus on why she does what she does and what that contributes to communication about design and construction.” He headed into their conference room, which for them was the only private space in their office, where they could avoid phone calls and other intrusions. Iris was engrossed in her smartphone while awaiting their arrival; she put it down, face up, when they entered the room.
Sara and Stuart had instituted the Monday morning meeting from the inception of their practice, having noticed its usefulness in establishing the week’s work programme as well as progress towards larger firm goals. Frustrated at the frequent chaos in firms they had interned at, Stuart had researched the problem, landing on The 4 Disciplines of Execution[i](4DX), as a good practice management model.
Their Monday meeting had a standard agenda (always a good idea): first, a review of the status of their current firm goals (called “Wildly Important Goals” or WIGs in 4DX); secondly, a review of their “scoreboard”, which was intended to tell them how they were doing with their WIGs and the measurements needed to review them; finally, a review of the status of previous weeks’ assignments and identification of new work going forward.
As might be expected of most emerging practices, Sara and Stuart’s #1 WIG is “Create meaningful architectural work that improves the lives of its users.” Not being independently wealthy, their second WIG is “Operate and grow the practice profitably so that we can continue to create meaningful work while paying ourselves and our employees a reasonable salary.”
Their WIG meeting started with a review of their two WIGs, more a reminder. The scoreboard they had evolved to underlie their two WIGs was simple, measuring fees charged as compared to effort expended, i.e., salaries plus overhead expenses. They had been keeping it religiously since starting the firm a bit more than two years ago.
The resulting line graph was both typical and quite good. Like most new firms, in the first few months they used their line of credit to fund expenses, especially with the 60-90 day delay between doing work and receiving payment. Fees received showed a gradual rise over time, as their workload improved, with occasional blips, mostly around year end when clients shut down for Christmas. The most recent uptick in expenses resulted from the addition of Iris to the team after several months of significant increases to their receipts (and many long hours).
Figure 1 — Sara & Stuart’s 4DX Scoreboard
They also graphed their cumulative profitability—the “Operate and grow the practice profitably” 4DX measure. Like most firms, it had taken them about eighteen months to become profitable. Today’s profitability curve looked impressive, but they knew they needed to allow overhead for taxes and an expected rent rise, as well as the addition of Iris’s ongoing salary and benefits. Of more concern, they were about to start construction on three projects, where they historically lost money—that is, the fees they received for construction administration never seemed to match the effort needed.
Stuart and Sara took their mentoring responsibilities towards Iris seriously, so had decided when Iris started that they would include her in all WIG meeting content, including the 4DX graph. Like most employees, Iris had raised her eyebrows at the “Profit” line until Stuart explained all the known things that would come out of it and the unknowns they needed to allow for. There were no unusual spikes or dips to report today.
There ensued a short discussion of this week’s priorities: for Iris, work on construction documents for the school addition; for Sara, the same plus a meeting with a prospective high-rise residential client; for Stuart, the same as Iris and Sara, plus a less pleasant meeting with a client who was unhappy with the slow speed of construction on their latest private home project.
“We should never have agreed to a fixed fee for the construction administration on that project”, mused Sara. “The contractor’s slow and poor performance is destroying our relationship with the client and we’re in danger of losing our shirts.”
“That’s a good introduction to our Friday resolution with the Four Musketeers,” as Stuart sometimes called their friends. He recounted the discussion for Iris’s benefit, who sat quietly, making a few notes in her journal.
“So, Iris,” continued Stuart, “Until we have solved the world’s construction administration problems, including our own, we want you to think about how what you are doing affects construction administration, and how we might do it better. There are no sacred cows, no ideas we won’t consider.”
Iris was predictably silent in the face of the scope of this assignment, but did manage to ask, “So I can comment to you about anything I think we could be doing more efficiently or effectively?”
“Absolutely,” responded Stuart, although Sara looked a bit skeptical. “At the moment we haven’t identified the criteria for what’s good or bad, and when we do we’ll think about them, trial them, perhaps refine and adopt them, but not castigate ourselves if we discover something doesn’t work.”
“That’s a tall order,” added Iris. “How about if we reconvene Friday morning so you can bring thoughts to your Friday evening pub session?”
Stuart thought for a moment. “Given all the work we have, I’d like to suggest we preserve our days for productive work. How about we three go out for dinner on Thursday evening and capture our thoughts then so Sara and I have a chance to organize for Friday evening. Partners’ treat.”
Iris smiled, “I’m always available for a free meal!”
Sara responded, “It’s not free. We expect you to be as thoughtful as us about how to do better – that’s hard work.”
“Agreed,” said Iris and Stuart at the same time. With that, they each returned to their work areas, which were actually contiguous workstations in an open area where they could each see the others as well as the front door (they had not yet hired an administrative assistant).
Convention: Firms are managed by Principals
PATH: Doing better requires the efforts of all
This is the third of many episodes describing the design of The PATH Projects through the eyes of our characters. All published episodes may also be viewed at https://brianpalmquist.substack.com. The technical underpinnings of PATH will be captured in the appendices to my next book, “The PATH Projects—Managing Design and Construction in the Age of Immediacy—a Business Novel.”
Brian Palmquist is an Architect, BC’s first accredited Building Envelope Professional, a Certified Professional and a LEED Accredited Professional. He is the author of the award-winning nonfiction book, “An Architect’s Guide to Construction—Enduring Ways in the Age of Immediacy.”
[i] McChesney, Chris, Covey, Sean, et al., The 4 Disciplines of Execution, Free Press, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, 2012.