Business Practice: January 2010 Archives

Why should you consider an independent document review?

The project deadline is looming, you are working feverishly to make that final bid issue deadline. You know there are areas that are not fully coordinated because of last minute changes, and you sent a bullet point list of these items to the entire team. You have been working on the project for months and are confident other parts are well coordinated by each lead designer. No structured interdisciplinary review was completed. So, why add even more stress to an already stressful situation?

Because, each uncoordinated item has the potential of generating another dreaded RFI or Change Order. Because an independent document review reduces construction costs, saves design team construction administration time, and reduces stress. . . That's why!

Here is an example:

We just completed reviewing drawings and specifications for a university interior renovation project. The project consisted of two similar, not identical, multi-story dormitories. There were a total of 260 drawings 30 x 42 inches in size. Each building had its own set of drawings. One project manual (spec book) served both buildings.

The review was completed over nine calendar days, including two working weekends. A total of four staff contributed over 150 hours to complete the review, slightly more than 1/2 hour per drawing. In that short time, the review team marked the drawings and specs with over 2,000 comments about coordination and constructability issues. Granted, some of these comments are essentially duplicates. Coordination issues were noted on each drawing contributing to the problem. For instance, when toilet fixture locations on the architectural plan did not match the locations on the plumbing plan, a comment was made on both drawings to identify the same issue. This duplication is intentional to ensure each affected design discipline is aware of the issue so the correction will be coordinated.

The number of comments is great. Some comments such as correcting a detail reference have little, if any, impact on the project cost and schedule. However, columns in the middle of glazed openings, insulated pipes that do not fit within designed chases, utilities extending the length of the building without regard for building expansion joints, powered equipment without an electrical circuit, and hard ceilings without consideration of access panels to service mechanical equipment discovered during the review can have significant cost and schedule impact when found during construction.

When presenting the results of our reviews, I always have some trepidation about how the comments will be received. Some designers become defensive, but most receive the comments in the spirit intended: to produce a better set of documents and a better building. We strive to help design teams and projects to be successful.

Finishing our review by presenting our comments in a meeting with the entire design team leads to valuable group discussion of the primary coordination issues and often results in an agreed solution. This last presentation was well received by the entire team. The MEP engineers were especially grateful the review found items that everyone had grown accustomed to seeing, and therefore assumed were correct and clear.

During our meeting, the mechanical engineer was able to explain a code provision as the reason why fire dampers were not shown for a dryer vent shaft. This was something I was happy to learn. Today the same engineer called to discuss our comments about louvers. I was pleased to have the opportunity to explain louver construction and why drainable blade designs are not well suited for semi-circular louvers.

The purpose was served. Everyone learned something for the next project, and this project will have far fewer RFIs as a result. As for the owner's perception of this design team compared to others? Guess!.

Today, even small design and construction projects can have large design teams with many contributing consultants. Managing the work of so many people and coordinating the result has become a herculean task. So how can this burden be relieved while ensuring all participants remain aware of the project progression so high quality documents are produced every time?

For the past 18 months we have relied on Basecamp, a web based application from 37Signals. Basecamp is an intuitive tool that provides great flexibility in managing data. We offer our subscription for this service to all our clients and their entire design team because we believe so strongly that it significantly improves collaboration and raises the quality of the resulting design.

Initially, we tried Basecamp for selfish reasons. Project schedules changed regularly, sometimes daily. We kept a paper calendar showing project deadlines. Because we were delivering up to 250 projects each year, just imagine the number of deadlines on the calendar. As the schedules changed we could not find all the previous schedule dates to void the entries. This created some tense moments with near panic when we turned the calendar and discovered an outdated completion date.

Basecamp allowed us to view the delivery milestones by specific projects. So when schedules changed, we opened the project and easily made all the adjustments at once. Ad every change was instantly available to our entire staff. At first, this feature alone was justification for using Basecamp. No more panic attacks!

However, we had an epiphany. We invited our clients and all their other consultants to use Basecamp with us. We found that Basecamp allowed us to collect all the project communications in one location, essentially replacing email. All communications are visible to everyone on the project. And automatic email notifications of Basecamp posting are sent to everyone directly involved in the issue. But wait! There is more.

To Do lists allowed team members to assign tasks and completion dates to others, for work that was required to coordinate the project and incorporate the latest design changes. Everyone on the team can view the lists for everyone else. What an incentive! It is embarrassing to open the project and discover your unfinished To Do list is the longest. The embarrassment factor worked. Things got done and in a much more timely manner.

What about project files, you may ask. Well Basecamp helps there too. There is a simple file upload feature similar to an FTP site, except multiple versions of the same file can be posted. The latest file is always on top and the previous versions directly below.

We are still only scratching the surface of what can be accomplished with Basecamp. It seems we find new ways to manage the work flow, nearly daily. The built-in flexibility allows us to try new ways to accomplish traditional tasks.

Now we use Basecamp for every project. We encourage our clients to start the project on Basecamp at day one and to include the entire team as welcome participants. There are no limits on the number of users. So there is no need for anyone to be excluded.

The cost to our clients? None! The value to the project resulting from participation far outweighs the subscription fee.

We encourage you to take the Basecamp tour to see for yourself: http://basecamphq.com/tour