Project managers, firms, and clients all benefit when PMs are actively involved in business development. Chris Martersteck, AIA, LEED AP, DBIA, AECPM offers his unique perspective as he examines PMs as the focal point of a firm’s BD efforts.

Today’s PMs are responsible for many things. They simultaneously deal with the needs of their teams, clients, and firm leadership. And we always demand they accomplish additional goals. On top of the list is project profitability and meeting deadlines, followed closely by generating future work. In this webinar, you will learn:

• The BD responsibilities of top A/E/C PMs

• How much time a PM should spend on generating more work

• Where to improve the PM / PIC relationship

• What PM goals will help generate additional business

Chris will spend some time looking at business development from the client perspective:

• The most common problems of unhappy clients

• How best to hold on to your best clients

• Four questions to ask on every client visit

• The best way to incorporate networking into your schedule

About the presenter:

Christopher P. Martersteck, AIA, LEED AP, DBIA, AECPM has managed projects in the A/E Design and Construction Industry for 38+ years as part of a professional career that spans 42 years. As Vice President and Director of Project Management for several international architecture, engineering, planning, and construction firms, he has led and supported A/E/C teams in Project, Program and Construction Management as well as dozens of Design-Led Design-Build / Integrated Project Delivery engagements. Chris has also trained thousands of project managers in A/E/C industry best practices as a PSMJ Resources consultant, helping project leaders not only achieve individual success, but also helping them to better lead teams and maximize success for their firms and clients.

Over the past several months there has been a renewed interest by project-based firms to enhance overall project management and accountability. Implementing a Project Management Office (PMO) role, whether in-house or outsourced can help your firm move the needle on project performance and profitability.

Join Val Higgins, Managing Director of AEC Advisory Solutions, for this discussion on defining PMO responsibilities, benefits, and if your firm is the perfect candidate for this critical role.

In this one-hour live podcast, you will learn:

• Role of a PMO

• Responsibilities of a PMO

• How a PMO can improve profitability

• Impact of project accountability on a firm

About the Presenter:

Val Higgins has assisted with Project and Business Management in the A/E Design Industry for over 25 years. As CFO and Contract Manager for A/E firms Val has led and supported Project Management efforts with specific focus on systems and tools and developing best practices for Project Management. Experience with assisting 100’s of clients in implementing accounting and project management systems has given Val exposure to nuances found within the industry and many of the challenges faces Project Managers. In addition to supporting clients Val has been a PM on 100’s of projects; directing team efforts and managing client expectations.

Val’s passion is training Project Management teams to find the most efficient and effective ways of managing their projects and teams with the tools available to them.

What does a public client expect from their Consultant’s Project Manager? Jeffrey Bronowski, P.E., offers his perspective on the work of project management and the City of Akron Water Supply Bureau. Jeff has worked his entire 25-year career with the City of Akron, OH. He started off in the Engineering Bureau working on large combined sewer system projects. In this role, he worked with, and oversaw, up to 10 consulting firms simultaneously.

Jeff is now the Water Supply Bureau Manager for Akron and is responsible for the City’s expansive water supply system which includes adjacent communities. As the Bureau Manager he works with A/E/C firms and Contractors daily. He’s knows what works and he is ready to share his thoughts on communication, methodology, and the importance of relationships.

In this podcast, you will learn:

What are the attributes of an effective public PM?

When there is a problem, what is the best way a public PM should respond?

How do PMs make public client projects successful?

How should project management evolve to generate better public project outcomes?

About the presenter:

Jeff Bronowski has spent his entire 25-year career in public service for the City of Akron, OH. As a public servant, he has worked with both large consulting firms and small local entities. His experience is concentrated primarily in Civil Engineering, which include extensive water treatment, water distribution, sewer, and roadway. Jeff is a licensed professional engineer and Class IV Water Supply Operator in the State of Ohio.

Capacity is the maximum possible output of a company. In the A/E/C industry capacity is usually measured in numbers of hours. Planning looks at the right amount of resources to cover not only current projects, but those coming on line in the near future. Since many firms are very busy these days, PSMJ’s Dave Burstein wonders how many leaders are currently worried about outselling capacity.

“Right now, most firms find it easier to get more work than to hire more people,” Burstein says. But despite consultant advice to “stress” capacity, most firm leaders are worried about how to handle outselling their capacity.

One thing that many principals fail to consider is the lag time between the date the client says they will start the project and the date they actually start it, Burstein says. “One large engineering firm studied this lag time scientifically and came up with some interesting results,” he explains. “For example, they found that on transportation projects, there was typically a 6 – 9 month slippage between the RFP start date and the actual project start date.

“For projects in New York City or Los Angeles, the slippage averaged 12 months. And on design-build projects, the slippage averaged 18 months!” So, when considering whether you have (or can hire) the capacity to do the projects you are proposing, remember that they don’t always start when the clients say they will.

Project managers have all the skills and competencies to make it into the CEO’s chair. However, it only happens on very seldom occasions. Why?

Antonio Nieto-Rodriquez talks about why PMs are the best candidates to be CEO. These are the professionals who bring together such disparate aspects of the business as finance, business development, legal, and more. As project managers work across all organizational functions to create successful outcomes, they see the organization as a whole.

People are busy. Project managers who want to get their point across need to know how to speak and respond in a timely manner—while exuding both confidence and empathy.

So what does effective communication look like?

“Sometimes it's proactive to address risk, and sometimes it's reactive to address issues,” says veteran PM and organizational change agent Vicki Hoard, PMP, LSSBB, CSM, Management Consultant. “It's always a continuous process, and it improves as you go on. There are a lot of lessons learned and lessons taught.”

Here’s how to start the process:

Be clear. Speak in plain language, be explicit, and use short sentences with concrete words—sort of like how information gets transmitted in an email or text.

And be sure to address people by the proper pronoun. (For the sake of clarity, ask.)

Measure how you're doing. Establish a baseline by asking questions. How much rework do you have to do? Are there errors? Are your client’s needs met? What about the needs of the people in your firm—even those above you?

Don't dictate and demand. Bad communication, such as telling technical staff to stay in their lanes, can be shaming and lead to disarray.

“Emotional vampires can suck the energy out of projects and ultimately sabotage them,” says Hoard. This can lead to overrun, scope creep, scheduling issues, stop work orders, and other negative impacts.

Avoid barriers. “Self-awareness is one of the biggest tools out there,” says Hoard. “One of the most important things a project manager can do is to be knowledgeable about yourself—to understand what you're doing, who you are, and what you’re there for.

“People who jump to conclusions often hear what they expect to hear instead of what was actually said, and those who believe there is only one way to do something often struggle when working with a team. Bring people together to create “a shared culture that has meaning for everyone.”

Support others. The best project managers do not say, “My job is to make sure you do your job.” They say, “My job is to help you be successful in your job.”

Hoard calls the second leadership style a “grow-with-you type of mentorship”—one that invites reflection from both sides.

Stay calm. People are much more responsive when a leader explains anger and frustration instead of expressing it.

Listen more. Ask questions, clarify, summarize, and provide feedback. “Don’t take it as a threat when someone on your team asks a question about what you meant,” Hoard says.

Use data. You want to be able to back up what you communicate. Says Hoard: “You never want anyone to question who you are and what you are in the organization.

“You want to be trustworthy. You want to be able to say, ‘If I'm wrong, prove it. It's that important.’”

Project managers are collaborative and readily take on decision-making responsibility. They lead and enjoy teaching and mentoring. The spirit that runs through these--and other important PM traits--is being good at informing, including, impacting, and disclosing.

Join Vicki Hoard this Halloween as she digs in and uncovers everything regarding PM communication. Ineffective communication is scary, but learning effective ways to better communicate can be child’s play.

Communication skills are valuable to every engineer, but especially for a project team leader. Without working on these skills, project leaders can find themselves in a misunderstanding or miscommunication that could result in frustration or, even failure. A team leader needs to know how best to foster group communication.

In this one-hour, live podcast, Engineering Management Institute’s Anthony Fasano will guide you through the approaches to develop your communication skills as an engineer. In a Q&A approach, Anthony will answer questions about his own experience and give you strategies to pick up immediately for your next project.

Tune into this podcast and learn:

• How to establish effective communication with your team right from the start

• How to maintain communication and avoid miscommunication throughout the project

• How to provide support for a project team member

• How to balance different communication styles within a team

Bad project managers avoid communication, or worse, do not know how to be diplomatic. Good project managers know how to be respectfully tactful with clients, yet can deliver bad news when necessary. But truly great project leaders make executing project on schedule and within budget look easy. They are accountable, strategic thinkers who are hard to find.

Using a buzzer-beater format, PSMJ’s Chris Martersteck and Talent Matter’s Reid Tolley unpack the traits, preferences, and tendencies they see in bad, good, and great PMS. Through real-life experience and PSMJ collected data they lay out what propensities the best PMs elicit and which habits the truly bad PMs share.

In this podcast, you will learn:

- What examining great PMs’ work preferences can reveal

- What traits struggling PMs have in common

- Why personality paradoxes are important with PMs

- Learning how to spot PM talent in your talent pipeline

- Developing new and incumbent PMs

About the Presenter:

Christopher P. Martersteck, AIA, LEED AP, DBIA, AECPM has managed projects in the A/E Design and Construction Industry for 38+ years as part of a professional career that spans 42 years. As Vice President and Director of Project Management for several international architecture, engineering, planning, and construction firms, he has led and supported A/E/C teams in Project, Program and Construction Management as well as dozens of Design-Led Design-Build / Integrated Project Delivery engagements. Chris has also trained thousands of project managers in A/E/C industry best practices as a PSMJ Resources consultant, helping project leaders not only achieve individual success, but also helping them to better lead teams and maximize success for their firms and clients.

Reid Tolley, SPHR, Certified Master Coach is is president of Talent Matters and is an accomplished global Organization Development and Talent Director with significant HR Generalist experiences. Reid has a track record of working effectively throughout China, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and North America. Areas of expertise include: effective and ethical use of assessment tools for critical talent decisions and high impact development, providing thought leadership in aligning strategy and organization, and more.

When we try and guess the future, we are often right and wrong at the same time. Imagining potential futures is fun, but it’s not frivolous. Every imagined scenario can offer inspiration for what you want to work towards, and what you want to work against. DLR Group’s Bonnie Sanborn’s background is in anthropology, psychology, and sociology. She uses techniques from these fields to better understand and articulate someone’s reaction to a design, or to help them explain a design need.

In this podcast—through real-life stories and practical tips—Sanborn outlines a process for guided daydreaming and talks about how to leverage what neuroscientists know about the way the human brain works to “trick” us into better clarity about future states. “By forming a clear and specific picture of the future, we can plan for what we want – or don’t want – to happen due to our designs,” Sanborn explains.

In this podcast, you will learn:

•How to use Speculative Design (SD) to force thinking to be proactive

•How SD empowers designers and gives them more control over their processes

•Ways to look at a future that is a spectrum of probable and preferable, versus only possible

•Four SD techniques that incorporate planning and visioning: regeneration, retrocasting, ripple effects, and reframing