The Way We Were, Not Just a Barbra Streisand Movie

BY: DAVID E. HUSSON, CCM, LEED AP, CITY OF ARLINGTON, VA

We seem to be constantly bombarded with articles about the changes this pandemic is bringing to every aspect of our lives and business. Sadly, here is another one. However, I am not going to tell you what you have heard repeatedly - what has changed, how we need to change and how will we move forward. I am going to explain why we must get back to some semblance of the way we used to operate - face to face meetings where we brainstorm, review material choices, share ideas and come together to determine the direction our projects will take.

Social distancing and Zoom meetings are not the end all solution for our AEC industry. As much as we talk about technology solutions in this pandemic, our industry is built on personal interaction and relationships. Success in this business is as much technical expertise as it is to your ability to manage interpersonal relationships. We have adapted quickly to continue with our missions to complete our projects without meeting face to face, but it is a short-term solution. We are struggling to overcome the distance part of social distancing in efforts that need to be done in groups.

The real challenge we face is how to meet in person with clients and coworkers safely. We need the ability to meet in large groups to accomplish certain activities including project creation, certain design meetings, procurement and certain construction meetings.

This is a large topic, so I will touch on a few examples where we will need to find a way for confidently holding direct interactions safely. You have experienced a few, if not all, of these situations and will relate to the difficulty in handling these efforts remotely. The events I’ll touch on are in different phases of a project - design, contractor procurement and construction.

During design there are numerous meetings between the A/E and the client where interaction is needed for the client’s vision for their project to be relayed to the design team. The design team in turn prepares concepts for the client to convey the direction and intent of the dozens of design decisions made. The sharing of ideas and preferences between the client and design team is often done in a conference room with plans, renderings and materials. All participants are seeing the colors in the same light, touching the materials and hearing how they will be used to fully understand the intent of a concept.

A design principal recently told me the difficulty he experienced in trying to coordinate color sample reviews with his team and the client. Color sample review cannot be done virtually as everybody’s computer will portray a given color differently, so they tried a rolling schedule of review times. Besides being cumbersome and time consuming, there could be no immediate discussion of the colors and the how they did or did not work together. This conceptual design meeting is not one that can be replaced by virtual meetings. It is not just an intellectual understanding of a drawing but a visceral response to a concept design and materials laid out by the design team.

Public project procurement relies on equality for all prospective offerors in understanding the project on which they will be bidding. This is generally accomplished by public invitation to several meetings where the project is presented to the attendees. The first meeting is a discussion and Q&A of the project details in front of all attendees. Following this first meeting, another meeting is held for a site walk, again by public invitation. My current project covers 11 acres. Can you imagine trying to perform a virtual 360-degree site walk with Q&A as you go? It would not be tenable. Too many details would be lost on the participants by their not walking the site, only leading to protests after award.

Finally, construction meetings are a large topic, the bigger the project the more meetings. As any Program Manager will tell you, developing a team cohesiveness at the beginning of a project is vital to increase your chances for success. Therefore, partnering efforts are usually required by contract. Partnering meetings can be quite large with multiple people from the client, user group, design team, PM/CM team and contractor present. Numerous activities are planned to help develop personal relationships. At the end of the event, which can sometimes be a multi-day event, everybody leaves knowing and understanding that everybody, though they are from different stakeholder groups, is on the same team, a team where everybody wants the project to succeed. This realization sets the stage for trust and working out difficult problems together to achieve the success of the project. How can this hope to be accomplished virtually?

These examples meetings that need safe direct interactions are only from the beginning stages of a project. Imagine how many more examples exist when face to face meetings are not only desirable but needed. In two years’ time, vaccinations, treatments and immunities will hopefully, render these thoughts moot. In the meantime, if we want to start projects in the near term we as owners, designers, contractors and program managers have issues to solve to enable safe direct interaction for the good of our projects.