Organization and Management of Capital Projects

• Introduction
• Project Team: Roles and Responsibilities
• Managing the Owner's Project
• Budget and Schedule
• Contract Management
• Reporting, Documentation, and Communication
• Project Management Alternatives
• References

Introduction

The art and science of building for colleges and universities continues to be more demanding, and managing all of the inherent issues requires technical knowledge, management expertise, and political skill. Often, increased expectations have to be measured against conflicting interests and competition for resources. Design and construction costs have increased dramatically. Even so, operating costs over a facilities' life cycle add up to many times the initial cost. Competition for the best faculty and students has dramatically increased the requirements for more and better facilities. Technological advances, in both the design and construction phases, have provided new tools, but have also increased expectations for schedule reductions and increased efficiency. Management of cash flow has become an increasingly significant factor. Risk management and litigation are an integral part of the process.

Campuses provide some of our most beautiful and treasured built environments. The constraints imposed by limited land area and the need to preserve the distinct physical and cultural landscape of the traditional campus are difficult to resolve. Pressures to hire prestigious designers for master plans and campus buildings can frequently complicate the process. Debates involving campus interest groups, students, alumni, trustees, and administrators cover a gamut of issues, including preservation, architectural traditions, environmental concerns, security, and accessibility.

Trustees and administrators generally understand the importance of sound planning and high quality construction, and appreciate the associated challenges. And, while it is easy to recognize the need to hire a professional to manage these issues, finding a project manager who possesses the full range of skills necessary is a formidable task in itself. Few professionals are fully trained in these complex and interrelated issues; this chapter delineates some of these issues and provides some assistance.

Ways to Organize Project Oversight

Project management is a complex process that includes effective control of quality, budget, and schedule. The process encompasses a diverse set of tasks ranging from initial programming, budgeting, and schedule development to project commissioning, final closeout, occupancy, and beyond. The owner's project manager serves as agent and primary representative, coordinating the project team and rendering decisions consistent with predetermined project objectives.

We tend to define the term project manager as a single person. In many large institutions, the project management process embodies several individuals and/or departments. This is certainly a logical approach, as the knowledge and skills required for the programming, design, and budgeting phases are different than those required in the construction phase. In these cases it is crucial that the management is carefully meshed so that all the dots between the initiation of a project and its completion are, in fact, connected; this is more easily said than done.

Where the project manager is placed in the owner's organizational structure plays an important role in determining both the focus and effectiveness of the manager. From a pure project management point of view, there are strong advantages to having one person continuously and solely in charge of a project from cradle to grave. This is typically not possible in large organizations where the quantity of work requires many people and managing the process frequently leads to several discrete or somewhat independent departments.

There are many organizational structures, each containing some inherent benefits and concerns. Below several basic approaches:

1. The Planning and Design Department: This department typically focuses on the program development, planning, and design aspects of the project. The project is then turned over to a capital projects construction office at the construction phase. Many of the issues faced directly by this office are discussed in detail in the Chapter on Design Management,  which focuses on design issues.
2. The Capital Projects Construction Department: This department typically takes management responsibility for the project upon completion of construction documents and handles bidding, contractor selection, and construction coordination. The issues faced in this office and the various construction delivery methods are discussed in the Chapter on Construction Management, which focuses on construction issues and construction delivery methods.
3. The Physical Facilities and Maintenance Department: This department frequently has responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the physical facilities. In many smaller institutions, this department contains a division that deals with the responsibilities of A and B, above. The focus of these organizations tends to be on the operating and maintenance issues that drive the majority of their workload, sometimes at the expense of planning and design.
4. The Independent Planning Office: Because of the inherent problems in Organization C, an initial planning and design effort is done by a smaller group that reports directly to a president or provost, outside the business administration side of the university. This office can focus on the design issues, which may not be achievable in Organization C, but perhaps it loses some effectiveness as a result of being somewhat removed from the realities of day-to-day operations that prove to be so central to Organization C’s temperament.
5. The VP or Associate VP for all Physical Facility Matters: Organizations A, B, C, and D can be combined in almost any combination, and typically are the responsibility of the chief business officer of the university. Since business vice presidents are human, they sometimes tire of adjudicating the inevitable conflicts between organizations A, B, C,and D and so establish a super manager to coordinate all facilities efforts. This does not fundamentally change Organizations A, B, C, and D, but is intended to bring them all under the supervision of an individual who is both more familiar and more sympathetic with the complex issues involved than is the business officer.

The issue of how to organize these departments and the various pros and cons of each are well beyond the scope of this chapter, but we point out the different basic management approaches for two reasons. First, doing so vividly demonstrates the wide range of skills and areas of concern that are inherent in planning, designing, constructing, and maintaining facilities. A project manager does not need to be highly skilled in all areas; indeed, being overly skilled or concerned with one area may weaken his or her role as project manager if he or she tends to focus on design or technical issues rather than the whole. It is essential for the project manager to be aware of and sensitive to the broad range of concerns that have to be balanced.

A second reason to consider these organizational issues is that where and how a project manager fits into the overall organizational structure has a major impact on how effective he or she can be. The project manager’s concerns are going to be a reflection of the department out of which he or she operates. When projects are managed across departments, the transitions will focus on the responsibilities of each department. If those transitions are not carefully handled and each department does not truly understand and empathize with the other departments, the project will suffer.

Regardless of how it is organized, effective project management is crucial to the delivery of successful projects that fulfill the essential requirements of the building program. Furthermore, effective project management enables project participants to contribute without being engulfed in constant crisis management—the nemesis of design professionals, owners, and facilities administrators.

Characteristics of Project Managers

A skilled project manager is required to manage all projects, regardless of size. However, the skills that a successful owner's project managers require are not always ingrained in professional designers. Most talented designers display little ability or interest in the business of project management; often the best technicians become project managers by virtue of their proven ability in a selected area of expertise. However, the best technicians may make the poorest project managers, as they have a tendency to focus on those technical aspects of a project that present the greatest interest to them. Appreciation for value of multi-dimensional consideration should trump the project manager's own strongest areas of expertise.

The most important characteristics of an effective project manager are a combination of education and experience. Project managers must possess strong organizational ability that will allow them to recognize and organize the disparate aspects of a project and to give structure to the project team, the process to be performed, and the many details that arise. They must value leadership and team building. The breadth of disciplines a project manager must deal with throughout the course of a project demands an individual who is experienced in handling a variety of unanticipated situations—a true generalist. An effective project manager must be able to examine and prioritize the broad scope of a user's needs without becoming handcuffed by details.

The value of strong communication skills to effective project management cannot be overemphasized. At various stages of programming and design, graphic communication is more important than verbal and traditional written communication. New forms of graphic communication, particularly those that communicate in 3D, can greatly enhance all parties' understanding of proposed conceptual and schematic design. During contract review and negotiation, skill in creating and editing written communication, with a healthy respect for detail, is invaluable. When assimilating project budgets and modeling cash flow projections, an ability to build clear and concise spreadsheets allows a project manager to communicate with university administrators and accountants responsible for funding and tracking project costs. During all interaction with facility users, the project manager must be a skilled verbal communicator. The most important aspect of this communication is the project manager’s ability to listen – he or she needs to be able to deduct priorities of need, sometimes based only on the context or inflection of a facility user’s request. The better the listening skills of an owner’s project manager, the greater the match between the programmatic needs of users and the final result in bricks and mortar.

The best project managers are also knowledgeable leaders with high ethical standards who have the confidence to delegate but understand that accountability cannot be delegated. They are decision managers who ensure that the right decisions are made by the proper persons, at the right time.

Recruiting an Effective Project Manager

Most of the qualities and characteristics of a successful project manager center on the ability to work effectively with people, rather than technical capabilities. Although they must possess basic technical skills, overemphasis on these will not necessarily result in a good project manager. Project managers are people managers; they must possess good interpersonal skills and know how to direct, motivate, and manage the project design team, users, contractors, and the campus and community constituencies with whom they interact. The skills of project managers reviewed above are not taught but are gained through experience. Although it is difficult to find someone with all the preferred attributes, qualified individuals may be recruited from local or regional design firms, industry, or the contracting community.

If an institution has a small staff or is just entering a period of major expansion, it is often wise to recruit one knowledgeable manager to be at the center of the program. This individual can provide invaluable assistance by establishing the project management system to be implemented, training younger or inexperienced staff members, and serving as a technical and managerial resource. Whatever the institution's needs, the emphasis should be on finding a good manager with broad technical knowledge, not just a technical design expert.