The Critical Path with Mary and Jason

This week, we’re talking about diversity in construction again. With the launch of our new Build the Circle scholarship program, we’re spending some time talking about the problem, as we see it, and the logic that went into our approach at one solution. If you have ever felt like things aren’t right in this industry, but you have no idea how to go about making a change, this episode may be relevant to your interests!

We talk about:

Some of the more subtle forms of bias

All of the voices that are currently missing in the industry

Interacting with the solution from a place of privilege

The systemic construction problem (Hint, construction is a family oriented industry)

Resetting the slate through training and support for those who weren’t born into the industry

Don’t miss it!

This week, we’re taking another dive into our new model of organizational change, the newly named “Groundswell Theory.” As we prepare to roll out our new PM Basic Training program in a couple of weeks, we wanted to spend some time talking through the details of the framework that supports all of our construction training, Arcade’s Project Life Cycle.

We talk about

• Phases of a construction project

• Construction Processes

• Roles on a project

• The Steps of each Process

• Why understanding your Project Life Cycle is so critical to training a new PM

Don’t miss this information packed episode of The Critical Path!

This week, we are talking about growth, hiring and promotion – all of the ways that a company gets an infusion of fresh blood. Of course, being the nerds that we are, we went ahead and made the vampire analogy.

We talk about:

• Promoting from within the company

• Hiring people from outside the company

• Sources of new talent and information

• Case study of companies who get left behind

• How to promote from within the right way

• How to make sure you are still bringing new knowledge and information in to the company, if you promote from within

• Why Growth is essential to taking care of your team

Don’t miss it!

This week on The Critical Path, we are talking about a subject that is at the center of a great deal of stress and drama in the industry – Value Engineering.

We talk about:

•What Value Engineering is and who is benefits

• Understanding which pieces of the puzzle are immovable

• Understanding the role of the building life cycle in Value Engineering

• ‘Smart Value’ Engineering

• Finding more appropriate products or applying the economy of scale

• Cutting Scope / Quantity

• Cutting Profit LAST

Last year, just before Covid hit, we recorded an episode about how to manage schedule in construction. The plan was to record a second part to that episode where we addressed how to handle impacts to the schedule, once it was all built out.

Now that we’re getting back on track with the podcast, we thought it might be a good time to revisit that subject and finally talk more about managing impacts from the field perspective and from the office perspective.

We talk about:

• The importance of understanding a few scheduling basics

• What the field roles need to understand about the schedule

• Some typical places to watch especially closely for impacts

• What the office roles need to understand about ownership of risk and how it relates to cost and schedule impacts

• How to quantify impacts so you can make sure you recover what you are owed

Don’t miss it!

It’s been a while since we have made an episode of The Critical Path, but we’re back and we have lots to talk about! After a long break to think about our business, our podcast, and what’s next for Arcade and The Critical Path, we’re talking this week about what’s been going on, and how we’re changing our whole outlook on Organizational Change. Stay tuned!

This week, on The Critical Path, we’re talking with architectural innovator Kathryn Larsen, who has earned the nickname, The Seaweed Girl in the international design community.

Kathryn is doing some amazing research into how we can avoid reinventing the wheel, by making use of materials and methods that were used by the ingenious craftsmen of previous generations. We’re really excited about this episode – don’t miss it! You can check out some of Kathryn’s work at https://kathrynlarsen.com/

You can check out the livestream of this episode (complete with visuals of some of Kathryn’s work) here!

This week’s episode is a lot of fun! We’ve been working to learn more about how Extended Reality (XR) is being put to use in the construction world for a long time. From using Virtual Reality (VR) for safety training or to better understand models while offsite to Augmented Reality (AR) like HoloLens that lets you look at the models for the project overlaid directly on the actual environment, technology is changing the way we build in a lot of fascinating ways. This week, we got a chance to sit down with the Innovation Team at BN to learn more about what that technology looks like in day to day use.

We spoke with Brian Arnold, Chris Everist, and Tony Castillo about the ways that BN is using AR right now, and how that evolution came about.

If you want to check out some cool video of the technology in action, you can check out the livestream of this recording here.

Don’t miss it!

Recently, we started hearing about some really cool projects that have been happening around the world. We wanted to learn more about what companies like Sextant Foundation and Construction for Change are doing, and how the rest of us can help them in the important work they are doing. We sat down to have a cup of coffee and film a Live Stream with Shannon Bunsen and Kevin Hunter about their philosophies, their projects, what we should all know about humanitarian efforts, and how we can all help. Don’t miss this special episode!

Watch the Live Stream here

Learn more about Construction for Change here

Learn more about Sextant Foundation here

This week, we start running our first group through our Foreman Basic Training program. For that course, rather than give our trainees reading assignments, we put together a series of podcast style audio reviews, so that they can listen to their homework while they drive or get other things done. We’ve been really busy getting the final touches on the program, so we missed recording an episode of The Critical Path last week! Instead of just skipping an episode, we thought it might be fun to give you a sneak peek behind the curtain of the Foreman Basic program, by letting you listen in on that first week’s review.

We talk about:

• The changing needs that the ‘Foreman of the Future’ will have to address

• The Value of the foreman to a project

• The 4 main goals of a foreman

• What does leadership look like for a foreman?

• The importance of organization for a foreman

Don’t miss it!