Preparing for Instability and Volatility as CMs

BY: JOHN MORSE, CCM, ATCS

Now that we are in month 7 of the COVID -19 pandemic, it is most probable we can all agree that none of us originally thought we would still be in this posture. But that fact points to a truth about our industry and our role as construction managers. As construction managers, we are often tasked with predicting how our projects will eventually finish. It is a staple of construction management best practice to understand how projects evolve and to predict when and how they may finish. We look at a variety of past and current trends to predict how long it will take for future activities to complete. There is nothing new about this.

But there is a new variable that we are all dealing with these days. It is the issue of volatility. We could propose an alternative term like instability or unpredictability or even fluidity. But the idea we are trying to convey is that there is something so variable in nature that it becomes a challenge to predict its behavior. What is that variable? It is the changing landscape of our business with respect to market trends. For example, the COVID-19 crisis has triggered a different way in doing business. We are delivering work in a more remote fashion now and we are implementing protocols for greater sensitivity to issues of safety, access, and quarantine. Many sectors of the economy are trying to get back to some type of normalcy but the baseline for normalcy has moved. In addition, at the same time as COVID-19, our country is faced with huge moral issues that are playing out in the culture. The polarization of our society on various issues is more concrete now than it has been in a very long time. Everyone can see these issues but not everyone understands them or how they impact our future. These facts demonstrate the increased volatile nature of our market.

What has this volatility or instability to do with our role as construction managers and our industry? Let me suggest two ideas to consider as we navigate the coming future. First, we as construction managers are no more prepared to predict the future than anyone else. Predicting the future is a risky business. No one has cornered the market on this type of effort but that does not mean we just surrender to the unknown. We as construction managers have practiced for years the study and analysis of past project performance as indicators of future performance. That much we know. But the new volatility means we need to widen our preparedness for the coming volatility. We need to account for added flexibility in our project delivery methods so that we have the freedom to course correct when market conditions or cultural conditions change.

We know for example that there are going to be new funding constraints because of the economic impact of COVID-19. We know the upcoming election cycle will come with increased rhetoric about who truly has the best plan for how to govern our country. We know that we will be feeling the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis for a long time in the same we felt the changes to airline travel after 9/11. Increasing rules and stipulations that restrict project delivery will also hamper the project delivery cycle. Therefore, let us be prepared for such volatility by accounting for greater flexibility in the project delivery planning and execution phases of our projects. That greater flexibility will come in several forms but these should include greater access to various project delivery methods, greater requirements for credentialed CCM professionals to deliver construction work, greater reinvestment into the next generation of future construction managers, and greater flexibility in change management practice.

Second, we as construction managers must be adept at delivering projects for our clients given the growing instability of our culture and its ever-increasing polarization. I say this not to alarm anyone, but to point out that our country is wrestling with how to solve its growing social issues. We construction managers at the same time must find ways to deliver projects amid this instability. There may be shortages in supplies and materials, shortages in available skilled labor, shortages in funding, limited access to work environments, delays in design and project development pipelines, or similar challenges. In addition, we as construction managers must recognize that operate inside and part of our culture. We are not separate from it. This means as we wrestle with project delivery issues, we must wrestle with the moral issues of the day. This is an added burden that the other generations were not challenged with facing in the same way.

We as construction managers must recognize that we are people too living in our culture as well and the problems of society are our problems too. We have to help our projects navigate these difficult waters by relying upon our natural professional skill sets as construction managers so that we plan ahead, we understand the issues, we develop solutions and alternative solutions, and we address each challenge in fairness and equitability. We as construction managers may be more adept at providing answers to issues of polarization and instability because so many of us have seen examples of these demonstrated on various construction projects we have managed. For example, how many of us can say we have managed a dispute between on Owner and a Contractor that was polarizing and causing the project to suffer? I would propose the number is high. Are there not similarities between managing a difficult and volatile project dispute and navigating similar cultural waters? I propose we as construction managers have a service to provide to our country for the very fact that many of us have already navigated these types of waters, just on a different scale and with different terms.

As you consider these two suggestions, think further on the relationship between the role of the construction manager in a volatile market that could prove to unstable for months to come, and may never return to its previous normal. Think further on how we as construction managers have been preparing for years without really knowing we were preparing years to deal with unknowns and instability. We can make a difference if we will invest ourselves and provide guidance for the future…as we have done in the past.