Category Archives: Uncategorized

March 28, 2016

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

I’ve written before about conceptual estimating and some of the challenges that it presents. We conceptually estimate whenever the plans and specifications are too incomplete to facilitate a normal contract. This means that conceptual estimates do not constitute a binding contractual obligation the way they do on a “real” or “hard-bid” situation. Correspondingly, the client is typically under no obligation to award a contract, or even select a contractor for future award based on a conceptual bid. It’s supposedly mutually understood that conceptual bidding is a courtesy that contractors extend to clients and their design teams to facilitate future work. Many General Contractors (GC’s) see conceptual bidding as an opportunity to get in front of the client. They hope that their investment in conceptual bidding will lead to contract before all the drawing stages are completed. This is known as client capture.

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

You’ve got to enjoy those victories

The Architect knows more than they’re letting on

Before we go much further we need to address some of the misconceptions about what’s really going on. First and foremost, we need to understand that the professional with the most information, and the most authority to make informed decisions to align the design with the budget is the Architect. The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has recommended policies and procedures for the project process. These policies aren’t shy about demanding not only budgetary information, but insight into how the budget gets approved, who might be opposed, and what can be done to ensure the job moves forward. The Architect knows what features must be included and they know the budget they’ve got to hit in order to get the job approved.

Further, any Architecture firm with sufficient experience has an impressive backlog of information for the costs of past projects. This information is far, far, superior to what any individual GC might have because they have access to not only the awarded bidder’s proposal, but the losing GC’s bids as well. This is profound feedback on their design that they can collect every single time their plans are bid.

Not only are the Architects sitting on competitive bids for their plans, they’ve also seen the change order costs for all the projects they’ve built. They have a uniquely accurate insight into how costly missing, incomplete, or changing information can be on an issue, by issue basis.

Inflection point

This brings me to one of the most canny contractual moves I’ve ever seen. The AIA writes the vast majority of construction contract templates. It’s therefore not surprising that these contracts absolve the Architect of any responsibility for the financial outcome of their work. So when the lowest bid they received blows the client’s budget, the Architect isn’t responsible.

This makes a certain degree of sense because the Architect is independent of the GC’s bidding the job. They can’t be held responsible for market conditions, or contractor business decisions that are outside of their control.

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

However, this absolution of responsibility has opened the door to corruption. Architects and their design teams can, and do, sole specify vendors who inflate their prices because they’re protected from competition and transparency. Everyone in the distribution chain realizes that exposing the corruption to win a single job, may cost them competitive pricing on everything else they’re bidding.

Playing dumb is a costly game

It’s obvious that an Architect can’t do their job without knowing the clients budget as well as their project expectations. It’s also obvious that an Architect couldn’t be expected to balance the project expectations with the clients budget, unless they had a sense of how much their design would cost. This working knowledge is a function of the Architects experience. Taking this one step further, it’s therefore obvious than an experienced Architect has very little excuse for blowing a clients budget.

GC estimators receive Request For Proposals (RFP’s) from the client or their architect which outline the expectations and obligations for the bid. These vary in formality, however the basics of the bid and subsequent project are provided to all invited bidders. Some government projects are required to show the estimated project cost on every RFP. It’s very rare to see this information provided anywhere else.

Conceptual estimating requires the bidders to fill in the gaps in the documents. This means that a conscientious bidder is forced to make design decisions and price them in a competitive setting. While there may not be a contractually binding obligation to honor their conceptual price, a bidder is aware that it is unprofessional to provide erroneous or misleading information Experienced bidders know that clients and design teams virtually never remember the qualifiers, clarifications, or exclusions. The lowest number they got is what they’ll remember. In tight markets, clients may have several GC’s bidding each stage of plan development. This can mean three or more rounds of competitive bidding before the final contract award. Every GC may have two dozen trades, with three or more subs per trade. The collaborative cost of all these estimators pricing a project through its document development is staggering.

A modest solution

The entire point of a budget check is to verify that the design cost won’t progress outside of the clients ability to pay. If things aren’t adding up right, it’s easier to scale back earlier in the process so the final Construction Documents (CD’s) attract acceptable bid amounts. The budget checks are tied to plan development stages which are known to the design team and the client.

For example, a 50% design set may only have the major Heating Ventilating, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) equipment located on the plans. The Mechanical Engineering consultant may need to run some calculations to make their final specification selections, but they know the magnitude of the final system and how it will correlate to the mechanical portion of the project budget.

If the 50% drawings don’t provide the estimated magnitude of the system so the HVAC bidders are forced to fill in those blanks to conceptually bid the job.

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

Efforts to improve engineering transparency are ongoing…

Basically the conceptual bidders are pricing their vision of the project rather than the design teams vision of the job. Design changes implemented on the conceptual pricing feedback aren’t actually based on universal comprehension of the original plan. If the HVAC bidders filled in the gaps with unnecessary or inefficient selections, they’re pricing a completely different design than the design team had in mind. Since conceptual estimators are wary of angering clients when the low-cost assumption is shot down, they may skew to higher cost answers to guard against the unknown.

We have a situation where Clients are asking if the design is on track, and the bidders are playing guessing games with the designers intent. None of the answers are meaningful because the most insightful information isn’t provided.

I propose that RFP’s for budget checks include a design-team estimate breaking down the clients budget into Construction Specification Institute (CSI) Masterformat divisions. The Mechanical Engineering consultant in the above example would provide rough magnitude descriptions of their planned equipment along with budget allowances for each component.

The context of the RFP completely changes because the design teams budgetary assumptions become the baseline of conceptual estimating. Instead of asking what some poorly rendered thing costs, the RFP asks if their plan is on track.

The GC’s responding have a uniform means of quantifying the scope, and they can identify budgetary inaccuracies on a line-item basis. This not only improves the design teams understanding of what’s driving their budgets, it also reduces the GC’s risk in answering conceptual questions.

This also resolves the ticking time-bomb of last round changes to the plans that suddenly reveal costly items that were always expected but never communicated during earlier budget checks.

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

“We found a few concerns in the Landscaping budget…”

What would need to change

For starters, Architects would need to become more transparent and accountable for the impact of their decisions. Currently, budget checks are like a theatrical production intended to feign concern for staying on budget, while collecting the means to blame GC’s when the job comes in over budget. Budget checking doesn’t need to be a charity effort in an Architects theatrical production of “The budget is blown” starring “The angry client”!

Budget checks are not offering a fair contract award to the lowest bidder in exchange for a free bid. Since there is no legitimacy without reciprocity, the bids shouldn’t be free. If we can agree that it’s a professional courtesy that’s necessary to foster market growth, we should be able to agree that Design teams need to be more respectful of the markets time. Basically, if the design team knew what they were doing, checking their budget should be a simple process.

There is an obvious need for Architects to have their own in-house estimating, scheduling, and management professionals.

Likely resistance

The fundamental link between design intent and cost outcome cannot be waived aside in the context of a budget check. Either the Architect is a responsible and capable professional, or they’re just hoping whatever they draw will pass budgetary muster. Architects may feel they have little to gain by transparency in inverse proportion to their professionalism.

Admitting that to their cost knowledge may lead to clients demanding that they pay for design errors and omissions.

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

Even when they’re spiraling out of control, Architects will color coordinate!

Of course, there would be fewer change orders if the budget-check process was actually grounded in a meaningful process to correct the Architect’s course via contractor feedback. Also, the budget-checking may provide sufficient pricing information to later argue that change orders are overpriced.

Incompetent design-teams won’t likely be any better at estimating than they are at Architecture. Budget checking an obviously flawed estimate isn’t going to be fun for GC’s looking to impress the client. However GC’s will benefit from having a real black-and-white illustration of the Design teams competence to refer to on bid day. Clients may fail to recognize the nuance of a complex architectural depiction, but they’ll be able to see how their Architects work fell short of what they promised. It’s politically difficult to tell a Client they’ve hired the wrong team, but a red-lined estimate showing where and why things were wrong may send the same message.

Adding estimating and management staff to a design firm may be seen as an onerous obligation. Many design teams have been able to operate on fuzzy program designs that fall well-short of being an accountable estimate. Plausible deny-ability is built-in via sloppy and opaque documentation. Nevertheless, design firms are selling their clients a promise to responsibly translate their clients vision and budget into a successful project. Clients looking for a qualified architect should focus less on computer-aided design innovation, and more on sound business practices.

Likely blow-back

The entire concept of client capture via conceptual estimating would be effectively turned on its ear. Rather than telling the most compelling story of how the job might be done, conceptual bidders would be editors to the Architects narrative. For firms that have been successful with client capture, the budget check as I’ve proposed would offer much less latitude to sell the client on your companies abilities.

There’s nothing about my proposal that addresses the possibility that the final round of bidding could still exceed the clients budget. Market factors like seasonal rushes or shortages can have profound impacts on the bid-day amount. We all have to cope with factors that are outside of our control. However, it’s worth pointing out that GC’s could inform their potential clients of changing market conditions that would affect their budgets. Additionally, the Architects estimate defines the limits of the scope intent which reduces risk, which in turn lowers pricing from the GC’s.

By a wide margin, the group most likely to oppose my proposal are the cabal of corrupt professionals who would find it harder to maintain their business practices.

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

Derek is just trying to build the only way he knows how…

If Architects were to reveal the actual cost of corrupt vendor material, it would immediately attract the clients attention. Even having a placeholder for a future sole-specified product would attract the bidders attention leading them to offer more cost-effective options. If the Architect attempted to add the sole-specified vendor in the final round of bidding, the budgetary impact would be easily audited. GC’s who participated in earlier rounds of budget-checks would be quick to identify the chicanery to the client to explain why the budget jumped.

Some GC’s may be opposed to my proposal because it indirectly illustrates their faults. If the architects estimate is based on contracted amounts of similar work, they’re providing accurate information about what market value pricing is supposed to look like. There are some GC’s who’ve never actually seen a market-value subcontractor bid because their approved subcontractor roster is so limited. These GC’s will initially inform the Architect that their budget for that scope is too low. Architects with several GC’s checking their budget may find that they can tell when a GC has an overpriced sub on their roster.

The next round of budget checking would tell all the bidders how they compared to the winning team. This neatly side-steps the insidious nature of GC’s who withhold bid results from their subs. It won’t help the GC’s who prefer to avoid transparency, but it will help the industry to be better informed about the going rate for work.

Final thoughts

If the market is helping the client to achieve their goals, it’s only fair that the process should help the market to be more successful. Estimating should never be free. If you’re not winning a contract award, you should receive feedback on how to win the next time.

Lots of subs would be far better off by bidding to a more competitive GC. GC’s need to know when they’re failing to attract market leaders so they can correct course. Bureaucratic inertia and dysfunctional relationships lead to lots of wasted opportunities.

Architecture firms seeking to market their abilities to potential clients would have a market-proven means to show that they can design within the clients budget. Undermining this fundamental concept is where our industries contractual adversity takes root. True professionals must raise the industries standards to shed daylight on the scoundrels operating in their shadow.

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1 Comment | tags: budget, Perspective, Solutions, Strategy | posted in Uncategorized

March 16, 2016

Warning Signs

By Anton Takken

Will Rogers once said “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment”. While there’s certainly some truth in that statement, an awful lot of suffering can be avoided by recognizing some common warning signs. It’s been my experience that all the truly awful projects had one thing in common; dishonest people. I realize now, that every one of them put off some warning signs right at the beginning. So in hopes of sharing my hard-earned good judgment, I’m going to start with some background on why people disregard warning signs.

Warning signs

“I’ve got three good reasons why we should turn back…”

Judgment isn’t an insult

Right off, we have a popular perception that exercising judgment on the actions of others is an unkind or hurtful act. In simple terms judgment is the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions. We have to exercise judgment to make good decisions. Estimators exist because there is uncertainty. If it were possible to simply add everything up, our job would be done by cashiers or accountants. It naturally follows that estimators must exercise their judgment if they are to do their jobs successfully. Estimators cannot afford to limit their perspective to the documents they’ve been provided. The project will happen in the real world, which means the uncertainty and risk of everything involved in the project should be considered. There are times where the people involved are the greatest risk of the project. Ignoring or underestimating the harm a key player can inflict, is a potentially ruinous mistake. If giving everyone the benefit of the doubt was a universal business practice, contracts wouldn’t lock in the estimated price.

Critical thinking

Getting back to influences that shift perspective, we must move to ethical reasoning. Critical thinking, also known as the Socratic Method is the classical means to grapple with moral dilemmas. The basis of the approach is a line of inquiry meant to draw out ideas and underlying premises. A series of hypotheses are presented, and each is tested to rule out those that lead to contradiction.

The clean and clinical Socratic Method takes a turn when you’re considering what to do with potentially dishonest people. It’s here that we entertain “devil’s advocate” or “how would you feel” arguments about the merit of your concern. I’ve worked with diplomatic and polite professionals who simply couldn’t bring themselves to see potential malice in others. Naiveté and bad judgment are constant companions. A lot of wrong-headed policy decisions are made by people who want to appear virtuous without doing the work to ensure a moral outcome.

For example: A General Contractor (GC) may become aware that their client isn’t conducting a fair bid. Their competitors are benefiting from additional time or information that’s not shared formally or equitably. Nevertheless, this GC upholds their “policy” of bidding according to the terms of the Request For Proposal (RFP) simply because they were invited to bid.

Virtue-signaling

Virtue-signaling, is more about the appearance of virtue, than acting with moral fortitude.

Warning signs

Sure Al could bike to work and avoid the traffic, but then nobody would see how superior he is.

In my example above, the GC is knowingly consuming their subcontractors (subs) time chasing a bid for an unethical client. Not only are they unlikely to win the job, they’d be contractually bound to a dishonest client if they did. Obviously it’s not the GC’s fault that their client is acting dishonestly. However the GC has options to act with integrity. The GC could contact the client with their concerns and withdraw from bidding if they were well-founded. The GC could also opt to submit a conceptual courtesy bid to give the client, their subs and themselves a face-saving exit from a bad situation.

Hope and second guessing

Entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch. Seeing an opportunity in every difficulty is a critical component of their success. Estimating is a craft but lots of entrepreneurs start to see bidding strictly in terms of competition. Estimators may take pride in landing a few percentage points apart on bid-day because they’re aware of how hard it is to get to that total. Unfortunately, narrow losses are still losses. Tight markets increase the pressure on estimators to capitalize on every opportunity. Lots of desperate estimators jump at the chance to bid on turkey jobs because they’re hoping more than they’re thinking. Second-guessing your hard-won knowledge is using your best tools to build a trap for yourself.

Warning signs

Legitimacy and reciprocity

Take a moment to consider how construction estimating relates to clients, the market, and to contracts. From the RFP to the contract award there are a chain of events that proceed entirely on good faith. The client expects free bids from the GC’s according to the construction documents (CD’s) by their deadline in exchange for fairly awarding the contract to the winner of the bid.

There’s a lot to unpack in that last statement. The GC’s are committing their resources and the resources of their subs to providing a bid based on the client’s CD’s. Those resources are expensive and they are limited. So what’s in it for estimators facing lots of competition? The client is promising to fairly award the contract to the winning bidder. This obliges the client to prove the bid was fair by providing bid results to everyone. So each estimator is guaranteed to get either win a contract, or information on how to win their next bid. Anything that’s true at the Client-GC level is equally true at the GC-Sub level.

Estimators have an obligation to responsibly invest their company’s time in legitimate pursuits. Therefore the legitimacy of a potential opportunity, is dependent on the client’s reciprocity. Estimators must understand that a foolish investment cannot be recouped. So it is especially important to pay attention to early warning signs.

Warning signs

Warning signs

#1 The CD’s don’t support the clients schedule

For example, a client with a set of 50% complete drawings dated yesterday who claims they’re already in for permit so they can start the day after bid-day.

Unless the job is very small, it’s implausible that the clients design team could finish half their work in the time it would take you to bid the job. Even if that were the case, why pay to submit plans that aren’t likely to pass building department review if the completed drawings were forthcoming? The job is obviously not going to start when the client claims, so what is really going on? Bidding on incomplete drawings means that the estimator will have to creatively “fill in the blanks” of the design. Some clients use this ambiguity to request alternates or Value Engineering ideas for their project. These clients take the best ideas from the “free” bids and direct their design teams to include them in the final plans before putting the whole thing back out to bid. Feigning urgency and in need of assistance is a tactic to attract bidders looking to convert a conceptual estimate into a contract. I’ve seen clients who consumed so much of a GC’s time in estimating that the job was no longer profitable to build. That’s a very expensive way to give your competitor a job!

#2 The plans are ancient

Warning signs

“We’re working with a familiar design…”

Most legitimate projects on the hard-bid market will have plans that are dated within a month of the RFP. Design development can be a lengthy process that taxes the clients’ patience to get underway. Most clients are in a tremendous hurry to get their projects out to bid because it’s a major step in getting their project built. CD’s that are several months old could indicate that the project has previously bid. Savvy estimators might figure they must have come in over-budget so they’re re-bidding the job. They might be right, but it’s worth considering that a budget-blowout is cause for design/scope revision. Revised drawings get new dates, and that didn’t happen. Clients who simply felt they could get a better price by re-bidding are violating the basic reciprocity that makes them a legitimate client. They’re simply beating the bushes looking for someone below market value.

#3 The plans show more scope of work than the RFP requires

They’re called Contract Documents for a reason. The contract requires everything shown on the plans and specifications. Vague and/or informal instructions to “just bid this part” of a larger project creates a situation where the contractor can’t simultaneously follow instructions, and address their contractual risk. Why wouldn’t a legitimate client pay their design team to define the limits of project scope in a contractually enforceable manner? In my experience, these clients are feigning a competitive bid to collect information for later negotiations.

#4 The plans have the wrong address

Believe it or not, this is an incredibly common practice with chain stores and restaurants. Plans for a project in a different state are put out to bid with instructions to bid as though it’s identical to the proposed location. When the client won’t invest enough to revise their drawings for a new location, it’s a warning sign that they’re not sincere about writing a contract with you.

#5 The plans have a different contractors name on them

Its common practice for contractors engaged in design-build projects to have their names and logos put on the plans they develop. So when plans are put out to bid with a different contractors name on them, it’s an indication that a design-build contract fell through. Most contractors make their money on the build portion, so it’s unlikely that they’d happily give up that work. I’ve encountered situations where a competitor was suing the client because they were never paid for their design. It was difficult to imagine a successful project emerging from that debacle.

Warning signs

“Laugh all you want Tim, they’re your client now!”

#6 The client is still looking for money

Charity organizations are often obliged to fund their projects with some combination of pledge drives, donations and loans. There’s nothing wrong with that however an estimator needs to be aware of when a client’s ambition exceeds their finances. I’ve been to job walks for church remodels with a pledge drive “thermometer” showing they’d only raised a fraction of their goal. Those projects never got off the ground despite the client’s optimism.

#7 Unprofessional plans and bad clients

Clients tend to attract design teams with similar priorities. Truly excellent clients are generally willing to pay for the best professionals so their projects are successful. The worst design teams tend to work for clients with risky priorities. Projects that are run by committee like Education, Religious, and smaller Government facilities are bastions of poor decision-making. These groups are often seeking to spend their entire budget so they generally require a multitude of alternates that allow them the means to “upgrade” from their basic project without seeking additional funds. Vague, misleading, and incomplete plans are par for the course because these clients want to spend as little as possible on their design. In many cases, the committee members have no construction experience so decision-making and leadership will be haphazard at best. The design teams focusing on this market are well-versed in the arguments that poor plans create. No matter how incomplete the plans, these design teams will make certain they’ve laid all responsibility on the contractor.

#8 Past as prologue

Chain stores and restaurants have a tendency to use a “universal” design for all their locations. Over time, the company builds new stores and encounters change orders for something that was wrong in the plans. The client directs their design team to change the plans for all future work which generally takes the form of an added note on the plan. Over time this “universal” plan becomes inundated with obscure, trivial, and often pointless notes that solely exist to prevent change orders. The clients desire to avoid change orders creates a situation where the relevant scope is concealed from the bidders. A better plan would require fewer notes and would communicate more effectively, but the client isn’t willing to pay for that.

Similarly, clients with onerous RFP requirements designed to facilitate future arguments speak to the clients history. While it’s understandable that a client would want to avoid past mistakes, it’s worth considering what the client learned from that experience. Dishonest clients are often convinced that everyone is trying to cheat them. These clients tend to believe that cheating is simply a matter of beating the contractor to the punch.

#9 Nobody gets the same story

Clients and/or design teams that only answer questions off the record may pass it off as a means to rapidly respond, or to foster a “friendly” rapport with the GC. The bureaucratic process of writing an RFI, and getting it answered via an addendum is admittedly a lot of impersonal work. The great advantage of the formal process is that it’s the only way a bidder can change the contract documents. Moreover, the formal process also provides a measure of assurance that your competitor is getting the same information. If the client and their design team won’t provide direction formally, there’s a chance it won’t be a fair bid.

#10 The job has bid before

Reciprocity is tied to legitimacy and that’s especially true when it comes to clients who aren’t willing to award a contract to the low bidder. Lots of clients put their projects out to bid at the Schematic Design, and Design Development, stages to “check” that their design is within budget.

Warning signs

Conceptual bidding: a process of going nowhere until you reach your destination.

Unbridled optimism leads GC’s to think their conceptual estimate will be so good that the client awards the contract before the Construction Document’s are finalized. This process is known as “client capture” and it’s great when it works out. However unless the client has made promises to that effect, it’s more likely that the client expects this professional courtesy to be free of any reciprocal obligations.

There are some clients who maintain this perspective even on their “final” drawings. They are constantly beating the bushes for better prices by re-bidding the job with different contractors. Developers are particularly given to this practice. An absolutely staggering amount of market resources are wasted on these pricing exercises.

Clients aren’t the only ones who use this tactic, unethical GC’s who’ve won a bid will solicit new bids in a gambit to find a cheaper subcontractor. The subs who brought the GC their bid-day victory, are rewarded by a craven attempt to gain profitability via their competitors after the fact. Whether the GC is technically engaging in outright bid-shopping or not, it’s absolutely wrong.

You may discover your project was previously bid when vendor quotes are faster than normal and carry the date of the original bid. Distributors will often call subs to ask why something is bidding again. These same people will contact the previous bidders tipping them off that the job is back out to bid. GC’s who suddenly receive an early proposal from an uninvited sub may have good reason to suspect they’re not the first to bid the job.

As warning signs go, learning that a job has bid before should be cause for serious concern. There are very few legitimate reasons why a client would be forced to re-bid a job. Clients with contractors or financiers backing out of the deal would be a legitimate reason, however this is extremely rare. Subcontractors should be especially concerned about any GC who’s trying to get a sub proposal after the GC won a bid. The best case scenario is the GC had a sub back out on them. Any GC who’d accept proposals from hack bidders to win a contract isn’t willing to control the project’s risk. Why sign up to work with a rogues gallery of misfits who will drive the project into failure? It’s far more likely that the GC is trying to undercut the subs who helped them win in the first place. These GC’s won’t become more honest after contract award.

A note for the cynical

Oscar Wilde once said; “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Estimators spend a lot of time figuring out what things should cost. It can be easy to lose sight of the bigger picture where estimating translates to controlling risk. Every enterprise will rely on people acting in their interests, in accordance with their nature. My answer to the cynics is to pay attention to people’s nature. Most of the problems we seek to guard against fall into patterns of behavior that are more complex than avarice. From the estimators point of view, there may be more risk in working for the indecisive, or ignorant than the greedy.

Many estimators fail to grasp the significance of picking good opportunities to pursue. Successful estimating starts with culling the lost causes, and the wastes of time. Impressing a client who won’t hire you isn’t worth much when your company needs work. It’s very important to understand that our industries malefactors are perfectly aware of how hopelessly optimistic contractors can be in hard times. Feigning legitimacy is their stock-in-trade so hard-times call for serious consideration of who you’re dealing with. Estimators working in a down market must recognize these warning signs as a basic survival skill. Working for a bad client in hard times has put many companies in dire straits. It doesn’t take much for a single bad job to pull an entire operation down. Estimators have a duty to protect their firms by heeding warning signs and steering a better course.

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2 Comments | tags: GC, Perspective, Risk, Uncertainty, Warning Signs | posted in Uncategorized

February 24, 2016

Why people won’t follow instructions

By Anton Takken

If you work long enough, you’ll eventually have a moment where you’re stuck wondering why someone didn’t follow your instructions. Estimators, especially estimators working for a General Contractor (GC) struggle to get their subcontractors (subs) to follow instructions all the time. It would be easy to suppose that typical explanations such as inattention, or laziness explain this behavior but there are overlooked reasons that could be playing a role here.

Why people won't follow instructions

“Wait, I can explain…”

A reflection on risk

Let’s start by considering something that all estimators have in common; risk. Risk is the uncertainty of a return and/or the potential for a financial loss. If we really think about it, controlling risk is more important than simply winning work. For example; winning a risky job is worse than losing a profitable opportunity.

The GC’s contract exchanges the liability of the entire project scope for their bid amount. The GC controls the risk by contracting portions of the project scope out to subcontractors. Once the project scope is divided and attributed to the subs, the GC’s remaining risk is greatly reduced because they have the contractual means to enforce performance.

This means that the GC estimator is primarily concerned with “complete” sub proposals. Exclusions, clarifications, or limitations that leave uncertainty for the GC estimator are considered potential “holes” in their plan. It’s understandable that subs not following instructions is a common frustration for GC estimators.

Perspective on the plans

The sub estimator has a profoundly different perspective because there is very little contractual latitude when it comes to accepting liability for their scope of work. Sub estimators are keenly aware that they must bear responsibility for misunderstanding, overlooking, or underestimating the scope of work shown in the Contract Documents (CD’s).

It’s incredibly rare for design teams to accept financial responsibility for misleading, incomplete, contradictory, or incorrect information on their designs. Specifications often stipulate that any design errors or omissions must be brought to the design teams attention BEFORE the bid via a Request For Information (RFI). Many projects obligate the bidders to walk the job. Some specifications even require bidders to verify hidden conditions during the walk regardless of how impractical or impossible that really is.

Why people won't follow instructions

“We’re all along for the ride, but Engineer’s hate field trips…”

Essentially the design team expects the CD’s to be vetted and reviewed for constructability before the bid deadline, free of charge, and they believe this is grounds to dismiss change order claims based on the inadequacy of their design at bid time.

A competent GC estimator understands that they are empowered to write RFI’s, and bid directives to communicate the questions and answers necessary to work around issues with the CD’s. Sadly, many GC estimators assume a passive role when it comes to inadequate CD’s because timelines are tight, Architects might get cranky, and it’s a lot of extra work. Some GC’s won’t write an RFI unless there’s a subcontractor “revolt” where all the subs of a given trade refuse to bid unless an issue is resolved. This attitude starves the subs of any recourse to address uncertainty in the plans, so they resort to exclusions, clarifications, limitations, or outright declining to bid.

Last minute bidding and why we’re all in a hurry

Lots of GC estimators maintain a rigorous bid schedule. There’s lots to do, and little time to get it done. Subs rarely have the luxury of working for a single GC, so they deal with exponentially more projects than the average GC. Their scope is limited, however they’re liable for every single component which makes it very stressful to keep up.

As I mentioned earlier, RFI’s are part of the bid process which inevitably leads to changes in the CD’s or scope of work. Design teams love to answer all questions a day or so before the deadline. Maybe this is because they’re hopelessly optimistic that they’ve resolved every possible issue for the bidders. In truth, it’s very common for addenda answers to actually create more problems than they solve.

Why is it so hard to know what changed?

Every year, fewer and fewer design teams bother with addendum change narratives which itemize the changes made to the CD’s. The assumption is that the Architectural standard practice of “clouding” or “bubbling” changes to the CD’s makes it clear what they’ve done. In reality, there are often changes made that aren’t bubbled. Presumably the assumption is that everyone is using digital take-off systems that can do overlays to reveal the hidden changes.

Overlays can take a lot of time to do. Minor changes shown on an overlay can induce eye-strain, making the addenda a literal headache! Often it’s less work for the Architect to simply revise the entire drawing set and transmit it digitally. This can mean overlays of pages without any changes at all. Larger projects may have several such Addenda, which can quickly overwhelm a subcontractor.

For the sub who’s always several bids deep, the most efficient way to handle this deluge of information is to do their quantity take off (QTO) at the last moment. Bidding off the final addenda set avoids all the misery of earlier overlays, but it leaves them with little time to complete their estimate.

GC estimators looking for less drama on bid-day should itemize the changes made in each addenda according to their bidders scopes. Maintaining a running list of changes and supplementing with instruction/ direction where necessary limits the amount of scrambling a bidder has to do to deliver a complete proposal. GC estimators who strive to lower their subs risk get better pricing. The GC with the best sub-pricing can be simultaneously cheaper, AND more profitable than their competition. I know of a few GC estimators who’ve rejected an Architects addendum until they provided a change narrative and bubbled drawings. Setting a precedent with the design team at the start of the project kept the addenda from becoming unmanageable.

Email mountain

The ease with which information can be transmitted via email can lead to inboxes that are inundated with messages. Bid letting software allows an estimator to mass-communicate with all the invited subs to share every document, file, and change. Many bid-letting programs automatically send out reminders to bid, often to multiple contacts at each subcontractor. On the receiving end this can mean upwards of a half-dozen emails per project, per client, and per contact. Projects with short deadlines can go from invitation to bid, to addenda, to bid day reminder within 24 hours. Many of these systems don’t communicate the basics about the project in any of the emails. Subs have to log in and navigate to files they must download in order to find out what they’re being asked to do.

Sure, the information is available, but it’s parceled out into several “Go find what I sent you” exercises that waste the subs time. If GC’s want their instructions followed, they should put themselves on the receiving end of their systems to see what’s going out to their bidders.

Why people won't follow instructions

“Our servers improve your fitness by exercising your patience”

Cloud based file sharing has become incredibly popular because all the documents are constantly available to everyone. Some teams are careful to separate different editions of the CD’s to maintain documentation of the changes. Other teams make no real effort to retain older CD’s which means the documents can and do change between the invitation to bid and the deadline. This can create a real hazard to the bidders who may not receive any notification of the changes. I’ve worked for unscrupulous GC’s who replaced the CD’s after the contract was written in an attempt to avoid paying for change orders. All the supposed benefits of shared files pale in comparison to the risk of being unable to prove what was and wasn’t on the CD’s at bid time.

I encourage every estimator to download and save the most current CD’s on bid-day into a time-stamped file. Keep that file for your records, because it may not be there later on.

Smarter than you think

So far, I’ve focused on information and risk management reasons why a bidder won’t follow instructions. The GC estimator should provide leadership to clarify, consolidate, and communicate what needs to be done. There is a lot of trade-specific knowledge required to understand and bid the scope of the skilled trades. A lot of GC estimators aren’t sure what to do when they’re presented with a complex issue, so many default to asking for alternate or breakout pricing. Alternates can double or triple the amount of work to bid a project. Not only is it more work, alternates might be misunderstood, misapplied, or used against the bidders interest. Arming the client with information that leads to wrong decisions is bad business.

If the GC estimator don’t understand the issue, it’s unlikely that they will clearly communicate the alternates to their client. Some GC estimators in this position will simply add up all the alternates just to “be sure” they’re covered. Subs see these GC estimators losing bids because they don’t exercise good judgment with the information presented. In some cases the sub is truly trying to help the rookie or fraidy-cat GC estimator win, by ignoring their alternate request.

Don’t kick the hornets’ nest

Material specifications don’t happen by accident. Design teams are paid to select, define, and enforce the material specifications for their projects. This becomes a very contentious issue when a specified material is overpriced. Corruption thrives wherever transparency, competition, and accountability are lacking. Some material vendors and distributors have extensive relationships with design teams who protect them from competition by sole specifying their product. Lots of GC’s will request alternates for Value Engineering or Alternate equal pricing to replace overpriced material. If the difference is significant, they present it to the client.

Subs may refuse to provide this pricing for several reasons. First off, the design team has a vested interest in their specified vendor. It’s therefore unlikely that they will happily accept an alternate product that would expose their budgetary irresponsibility. Second, the more extensive the corruption, the more control the malefactors have in the system. Releasing material pricing just before the deadline is a favored tactic because it precludes bidders from seeking another option before the deadline. The subs may simply not have time to find an alternate solution. Finally, the sub understands that solving the GC’s budget issue isn’t a guarantee that the sub will be awarded a contract. Many GC estimators see no problem using one sub’s alternate in conjunction with another subs proposal. They figure their low sub will be able to find the same deal on the alternate material later on. So the sub who kicked the hornets’ nest gets noncompetitive pricing on all their material bids, while their competitor lands a contract.

Why people won't follow instructions

Chris has plenty of time to consider how his hard work left him in the cold.

A lot less than nothing

It bears mentioning that lots of GC estimators entertain endless post-bid client requests to value engineer the job. Some clients instruct their design team to incorporate all the best ideas, then put the job back out to bid. I call it “Design by bid” and it’s an incredibly expensive way to give your competition a job.

GC estimators looking for a solution here should consider writing RFI’s requesting alternate specifications for sole-specified overpriced materials. In some cases, it’s smarter to ask for performance specifications because it’s difficult for a design team to go on the record refusing to accept an equally performing product.

Most design teams stipulate that alternate materials must be submitted for approval before the bid. Since it’s virtually impossible to know precisely how overpriced the material will be before the deadline, it’s hard to tell when this will be worth doing. Experience in a given market will expose the relationships underpinning the corruption, so long as you’re paying attention.

Defensible decisions beats conditional clarifications

Contradictory, misleading, and confusing requirements are part of an estimators life. Controlling risk often comes down to judgment calls on the information you’ve got at hand. It’s a weird quirk of estimating that people tend to overlook justifiable confusion during the bid because they’re sitting on the post-bid answers. “Of course they wanted X instead of Y, here’s all the supporting reasons that make it obvious…” Nobody cares that there may be just as many compelling reasons to support a preference for Y, because now the client’s telling you what they want.

This mindset carries into reading proposals at every level. The presumption is that your proposal is presenting a complete scope of work for a bid amount. Clarifications, especially complex conditional clarifications are seen as fine print or worse; weasel wording. Anything that savors of sneaky dealing works against the estimator. From a practical standpoint, it’s better to articulate your scope of work in terms of defensible decisions. The more simple and defensible your decision-making is, the more your client trusts your motivations.

Let’s say there’s an obvious conflict in a design that could potentially go three different ways. If a sub sent over a base bid with two alternates to cover all the options, they’re taking a risk that the GC won’t know how to scope their bid against their competitors who didn’t price any alternates on their proposals. These alternates make the GC estimator responsible for the outcome of their decision-making. Lacking knowledge, experience, integrity, or time, the GC estimator may make the wrong decision. These moments can have real costs in terms of bids, relationships, and reputations.

The imaginary alternate

Some projects have a long list of alternates that are scarcely defined in the CD’s. I’ve seen projects that had four elevation drawings of a single occupant restroom, yet an alternate for an additional building was defined entirely by three sentences in the specifications! I call these “imaginary alternates” because they exist only in the client/architects imagination. Experienced estimators know that any price you provide can be used against you. Imaginary alternates offer no tangible defense for decision-making. The only defensible decision, is to not price them. Estimators should respond to imaginary alternates with “To Be Determined”, or “Price Pending Design”.

The bid template

Just about every rookie GC estimator who has scoped a stack of sub proposals gets tired of how difficult it is to simply compare one against the other. The myriad ways that bidders word their way around promising to “have everything” can be very frustrating. Their grand solution is a bid template which not only orders the information, but neatly prevents the subs from excluding anything inconvenient to the GC. The GC estimators plight is understandable, but misguided because they’re ignoring the autonomy of the subs. It’s the subs autonomy that makes them an effective risk diversification strategy for the GC. Attracting market-leading subs not only lowers the GC’s prices, and raises their potential profit, but it also reduces the risk of subcontractor failure. GC’s with a myopic focus on bid templates convey higher risk to the subs. We’re estimators because there is uncertainty. If we can’t address the uncertainty via clarifications or exclusions, the risk becomes unmanageable without raising the price. Bid templates are an excellent way to efficiently lose bids and repel market leaders.

Why people won't follow instructions

A better alternative

A bid checklist is a subcontractor level list of applicable scope items with columns to confirm, add, or subtract funds to correspond with the GC estimators plan. Not only does the form automatically tabulate the “apples to apples” amount between bidders, it provides all the bidders with the same criteria, and equal time to respond. Getting the subs “on the record” in terms of unclear scope inclusions is invaluable for when Project Managers are writing contracts. Perhaps best of all, the checklist allows the subs to protect their interests and control their risk by supplementing rather than replacing their proposals. If done correctly, it’s possible to use the GC estimators actual estimate to output bid checklist forms, thereby saving considerable time for everyone. It’s easy to overlook just how much time a GC estimator spends trying to call the subs individually. Bid checklists can be mass-emailed to all bidders. The answers return in black-and-white terms that simplify decision-making.

Clear, well-reasoned instructions backed by good faith efforts to make the project successful make all the difference. Bidders want to be on the winning team, and will happily do their part to the extent they believe it will benefit them. This means that ignored instructions communicate something counter-productive to the bidders. Estimators who build on this feedback may find ways to re-focus their efforts and get the results that matter. If our purpose as estimators is to win profitable work, we should evaluate our processes with clarity of purpose and keep only what works.

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2 Comments | tags: GC, Incomplete plans, Instructions, Perspective, Risk, Strategy, Subcontractors, Uncertainty | posted in Uncategorized

February 10, 2016

Estimating tools; Computer Mice

By Anton Takken

For many estimators, the shift from paper plans to digital or “on-screen” takeoffs brought about a fundamental change to how they spend their days. By extension, the familiar scales, calculators, measuring wheels, digitizers, and ubiquitous colored pencils all get used much less now. Digital takeoff systems are run on computers just like those used in accounting, project management, scheduling, or marketing.

Periscope vision

Digital takeoff systems have one obstacle that creates a unique user experience, the plan area is nearly always larger than the computer’s monitor. Typical architectural standard sheet sizes like ARCH D (24″ x 36″) or ARCH E1 (30″ x 42″) would require a 46.47″ and 51.63″ monitor respectively to display at 100% size.

Even if your company would pay for such a large monitor, it wouldn’t be convenient to work at the extreme corners of the display . Imagine holding an open newspaper at arms’ length and trying to read the top left paragraph of print and it will be obvious why bigger isn’t always better. The current solution is to adjust the zoom in and out as needed which feels like you’re trying to read the plans with a periscope.

Estimating tools; Computer Mice

As you might have guessed, there are some design issues…

Most programs offer the user two ways to adjust the zoom; toolbar buttons, and scroll wheel. I’m sure someone out there uses the toolbar buttons, but I’ve never met them. The reality is that most accurate measurements will require zooming in. A continuous measurement like a long wall, or a large area will quickly reach the border of the displayed area. Waiting at the edge of the border will occasionally cause the program to side-scroll but it’s almost always too fast or too slow to be useful.

It’s unspeakably frustrating to be focused on items in the middle of the displayed area and controlling the zoom with a toolbar button that’s somewhere on the perimeter of the program window. You’re forced to stop everything you’re doing to futz with the zoom buttons so you can see where to continue your work. Mousing across the entire screen to access the buttons is slower than using the scroll wheel. It’s been a while since I used Planswift, but it used to allow zoom commands from the zoom toggle on my Microsoft Wireless Comfort keyboard. I’m currently using On Center’s On Screen Takeoff which doesn’t recognize the zoom toggle.

You’ve got a hitch in your get-along

Zooming in and out to see what’s going on is only half the struggle. Actually moving the displayed area on-screen can be a surprisingly counter-intuitive process. Planswift assigned the right mouse button as a “grab” that let the user move the sheet around within the display window. OST does have a “grab” tool which they call “pan” but it’s only activated through a toolbar at the perimeter of the display area. You can shift the displayed area in with the scroll wheel to move the display up or down and Shift+scroll to move the display left or right.

This method prevents moving longitudinally and laterally at the same time. You can however zoom out, place the cursor where you’d like to center the display, then zoom in. Zoom in OST is control+scroll. I should mention that the keyboard arrows do technically work, and that you could also use the OST overview window to “grab” and move the sheet. The problem is that you’re making gross corrections within a display window that’s maybe 1/10th the size of your working window. The lack of coordination makes this VERY frustrating. If anybody at On Center is reading this, it would be HUGE if you could assign keyboard shortcuts to change cursor functions. The spacebar toggles between takeoff and select, but it’s clumsy and it would be awesome to engage “pan/grab” without the all-too-distant toolbar.

Estimating tools; Computer Mice

The upgrade affects your performance as soon as you lift the handles

Why the mouse’s design becomes critical

Digital takeoff programs require a lot of “horsing” to simultaneously see what you’re doing, and get to where you need to be. Neither of those functions are actually getting the work done, yet a good half of my mouse movements are spent this way. Entering data in a spreadsheet, you can happily tab, arrow, or enter your way around for most of the day without needing the mouse for anything. A digital takeoff program will have you switching between the keyboard and the mouse constantly. Most digitizing operations require data input, and the majority of that will be numeric. This sets up a repetitive stress situation where a right-handed estimator has their hand pivoting between the mouse and the “ten key” numeric pad.

A “typical” mouse presents a unique problem here because it’s movable nature means that when you’re returning to the mouse from the ten key, it won’t be in a consistent location. Further, most “ergonomic” mouse designs won’t “come to hand” easily for the estimators intermittent usage.

At this point I think it’s helpful to list the necessary attributes that I would be looking for in a mouse. For the record, I am simply providing my observations and opinions on equipment I purchased with my own money. I have received no compensation and I have no vested interest in any of the companies or products mentioned in this article.

#1 Static position. Since the digitizing requires near constant movement between the keyboard ten key pad and the mouse, it’s an obvious advantage for the mouse to “stay put” so your hand can quickly and reliably get into and out of mouse operation.

#2 Low profile. This one takes a little explaining. A mouse profile that is substantially higher than the keyboard requires the mouse hand to make a “jump” to get the mouse into action without disturbing the pointer location. The movement from a keyboard to mouse for a right-handed person is particularly likely to unintentionally strike the tallest part of the mouse.

#3 Scroll wheel. It’s difficult to understate just how much of the user experience depends on scroll functioning. Being able to “whip” through a particularly long menu/ text file, or to move the viewing area quickly is a pivotal mouse feature. Some designs allow the user to switch from “free-wheeling” to the typical notched detent scrolling.

#4 Traverse speed and precision. There are a lot of mice out there with adjustable Dots Per Inch (DPI), some even have buttons for on-the-fly DPI changes. The best and most useful designs allow rapid movements without becoming too coarse for accurate mouse control. Designs that allow “whipping” or “spinning” of the movement control let the estimator get to perimeter menu or buttons without sacrificing accuracy.

#5 Function buttons. Some mice have additional buttons which can add some useful functions. The most common are the “Forward and Back” buttons which typically control web browsers and multi-page document displays. “Copy” and “Paste” are profoundly useful functions with wide-ranging utility within digital takeoff systems. One often overlooked function is a “double click left” button. It seems like a minor convenience to press a button once instead of twice, but digital estimating involves lots of movement. It’s particularly difficult to double-click without moving the cursor in some situations. Many estimating programs involve extensive database negotiation so this feature can greatly reduce your repetitive movements.

#6 Durability. I’ve worn out many mice in my career, some lasted years, others only a few months. It’s particularly difficult to find durable mice that aren’t of the “typical” design. Many mice that are marketed as ergonomic prioritize comfort over durability. I know from experience how debilitating it is to have your mouse fail on bid-day. I’ve always got a backup mouse at the ready, just in case.

Estimating tools; Computer Mice

Pursuit of perfection

Logitech Wireless Trackball M570

I started off with a Logitech Wireless Trackball M570. While it’s called a track ball mouse, it’s really set up to control the ball with the just the right thumb and index finger. Being a track ball, it easily meets the static position requirement. The ball itself is fairly low profile so it worked out pretty well transitioning between the keyboard and the mouse. The scroll wheel didn’t allow for free-wheeling so the detents kept me from whipping through lengthy lists. The “middle” mouse button is the wheel. It works but I didn’t use it much because it’s difficult to control the automatic scrolling. The thing I absolutely loved about it was how quickly I could whip the ball to cross the screen or scroll through a long document. Being able to stop the ball and incrementally control it took some getting used to. The key is to wedge your fingers along the socket and add friction when you need greater precision. Logitech did a brilliant job of making the cursor move vertically when you slide your thumb along the socket. This mouse has two function buttons; forward, and back. These buttons are most useful for web browsing, and the occasional text program that interprets these as page up/down commands. Durability with the M570 is a mixed bag. I got about a year out of my first one which was a hard-wired version, and maybe 6 months on the second. The open ball design tends to capture crud in the little bearings. It’s not too difficult to get in a clean them but eventually I wore the bearings down until the ball would only move in twitchy starts and stops. I tried all the online tips about petroleum jelly and hair oil, but nothing worked. I gave up on the Logitech because I had developed shooting pains through my elbow, wrist, and fingers.

Kensington Expert Trackball Mouse

Image result for kensington expert

Next up was a Kensington Expert Trackball mouse. This is a substantial device with a cue-ball sized ball placed in the middle. There are four user-programmable buttons placed symmetrically in quadrants around the central ball. Surrounding the socket is a rotating ring that’s used to control scroll functions. I thought the larger ball would give my thumb a rest because I could control the whole ball with my fingertips. The huge buttons seemed like they’d help as well. Right out of the box I found that I needed to re-arrange the programmed settings. The scroll wheel worked exactly the opposite direction of what I expected. Since the mouse has an angled base, the two buttons on the lower side are actually more useful as your “left” and “right” mouse clicks. Using the top left or right button requires raising your arm to clear the ball which isn’t convenient or comfortable if you’re doing it often. The mouse comes with a removable wrist support pad which didn’t work for me. I found the ball moved smoothly and it “whipped” across the screen more easily than the smaller Logitech. The scroll ring/wheel was a disappointment. New out of the box, the scroll wheel had a very soft feeling detent. The size and arrangement of the ring required a finger and a thumb to move it around most of the time. Within two months scroll ring had become gritty, and caused jerky page movements. I found some advice online that suggested removing the magnet that causes the “detent”. Please note that this requires disassembling the device which almost certainly voids any manufacturer warranty. Even without the magnet, the scroll wheel was gritty to the extent that it was a constant struggle to stop and start a scroll. I tried several different lubricants to smooth the wheel, but nothing worked. The size of that ball coupled with the angled face of the mouse made it easy to unintentionally move the cursor when returning from the keyboard. No matter where I placed it in relation to my keyboard, it just wasn’t possible to make an easy transition between the two. I continued to have pain in my right arm and fingers, this just wasn’t the mouse for me.

3D Connexion Space Navigator

Estimating tools; Computer Mice

This time I decided to look well and truly outside of the normal mouse offerings. I found an incredibly promising option in the 3D Connexion Space Navigator. It looks like a stubby joystick on a heavy aluminum base. This mouse was developed for Architects and Engineers working in 3D CAD programs. According to the company, it’s meant to be used in the left hand with a traditional mouse in the right. There are four axes of movement along with a left and right button on the base. At the time I found a forum post where someone said they’d downloaded a driver that allowed it to be used like the famous/infamous IBM pointing stick. I gave it a shot and ordered it. First off, the quality of the product is simply outstanding. Absolutely everything about it was awesome.

Out of the box it worked perfectly with Google Earth, and it’s absolutely amazing how quickly you learn to “fly” through the 3-D landscape. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the driver from the forum post and I am not a software programmer. When I contacted the company, they were adamant that they didn’t intend for their mouse to be used outside of 3D applications. So I had little choice but to return it. It’s a terrible shame because it would be a game changer for digital estimating. Imagine lifting or pushing down on the stick to control zoom while scrolling right or left! The best part about this device is how it uses analog force measurements to taper the speed of the cursor movement. You don’t have to choose between fast or accurate, and you don’t have to apply much effort to make things happen.

Sungwoo 2.4GHz Wireless Optical Pen Mouse

Sungwoo® 2.4GHz Wireless Optical Pen Mouse Adjustable 500/1000DPI Handwriting Smart Mouse for PC Laptop iMac Android Tablet (Black)

Desperate for solution I was online and found a completely different direction. The Sungwoo pen mouse is like a pen with an optical mouse at the tip. In use you simply move the tip along your desk and the buttons are mounted along the top and left sides (for a right-handed person). This mouse was surprising because it was VERY easy to digitize with. The left and right buttons took a little getting used to but soon became natural. The scroll wheel is just behind the “left” mouse button and it’s controlled with the index finger. You can lift the “pen” tip off your desk so that the cursor stays put while you operate the buttons or scroll wheel. It’s lightweight and intuitive to use but I couldn’t transition to my keyboard without a struggle. Setting the mouse down often caused the cursor to jump, and it’s simply too big to hold while trying to type. It came with a little stand that can be used to “park” the pen in an upright position. While it’s possible to slide the pen and stand around, the high-profile of the mouse means it gets knocked over when you’re back and forth to the keyboard. It did reduce my arm, wrist, and finger pain. It’s a shame that it didn’t work out.

Logitech Performance MX

After years of trying to find the perfect mouse I found something that looked promising, but it was terribly expensive (more on that later). That got me thinking that I hadn’t really tried using a traditional mouse in a while. After surveying the offerings at a local office supply store, I settled on the Logitech Performance MX mouse. This mouse has a top-mounted switch which allows the scroll wheel to change from detent, to free-wheeling. There are back and forward buttons as well as a Zoom button. In OST, the Zoom button shifts the cursor to zoom mode just like holding the control button down. Rolling the scroll wheel adjusts the zoom until you press the zoom button again. There’s a “hidden” button inside the thumb well which engages a “task switcher” which pulls up minimized widows of all running programs. One feature I had strong hopes for was the side-scrolling wheel. By tipping the scroll wheel left and right, the display scrolls left or right accordingly. Unfortunately, OST doesn’t recognize this control, and the limited range of side-to-side motion meant the side scrolling wasn’t too useful in other programs either. The screen motion is so slow and imprecise that it’s less effort to simply grab a display window slider. It must be said that this is a very good traditional mouse. In fact it’s my backup mouse. Unfortunately all the reasons that traditional mice fall short for digital estimating apply to this mouse as well. I found myself struggling to maintain my typical production simply because the traditional mouse takes so much extra movement to achieve the same outcome. I tried all of the DPI settings and optimization controls. I tried to stick it out in hopes that the repetitive stress pain would ease. Unfortunately, it just didn’t help.

The best by far

Earlier I alluded to a promising solution that was very expensive. The Contour Design Roller Mouse Red is a profound departure from everything I’d tried before. The RollerMouse is used below your keyboard and it features a rubber-covered roller that also slides left and right. It’s used just like a trackball. You just roll and/or slide the roller wherever you want to go. Pushing down on the roller gives you a left click, however the RollerMouse also has dedicated left, right, and double buttons. This means that you can operate the mouse with either or both hands. There is a central and separate wheel for scroll which is blessedly wide which again, allows operation with either hand. In addition to the other buttons, the RollerMouse has dedicated copy, and paste buttons. The DPI, click volume, and click force settings are all user adjustable. The scroll wheel can be pressed for “middle” button or the user can swap the “double” function button for “middle”.

I initially tried to use the RollerMouse with my (no antiquated) Microsoft Wireless Comfort keyboard which has a wavelike ergonomic shape. This wasn’t ideal because the curved profile at the bottom edge of the keyboard pushed the RollerMouse away from the keys. I found I had to constantly slide my arms forward to type and it wasn’t very comfortable. It was pretty clear that I needed a straight keyboard. I switched over to a Logitech K360 which is a compact design. This allowed me to keep the 10 key numeric pad while using the built-in wrist support of the RollerMouse. I could seamlessly transition from keyboard to mouse without moving my right arm left or right which solved my pain problems. Not only is it more comfortable, it’s profoundly faster. I can complete my takeoffs with much less movement and far greater precision. The star of the show is the roller but I have to say that I’m stunned at how helpful the dedicated copy, paste, and, double, buttons are.

Image result for rollermouse red images

I use On Center’s OST for my digital takeoffs and I’ve found that if you’re accustomed to pulling the copy and paste command out of the right-click menu, the program can be onerous. You can’t simply select items to be copied without keeping the cursor on top of one of the selected items. This sounds petty until you realize just how precise this requirement is when you’re zoomed out. The most common time to copy and paste takeoffs is when you’re looking at “big picture” repetitions.

I should mention that it’s entirely possible to copy and paste using the timeworn control+C and control+V commands, however it’s much faster to simply tap the mouse button than to do a two key command.

The RollerMouse scroll wheel is an excellent example of what I think a scroll wheel should be. There are no detents but the program “steps” an adjustable number of lines in text programs. The wheel has enough resistance to allow precision, but it’s free enough to whip across a page. It has a “middle” button but I don’t use it much because auto scrolling just hasn’t been useful to me.

The roller itself is capable of great precision but it takes a little getting used to. One trick is to wedge your finger between the roller and the keyboard to offer a little resistance to nullify any wobble. I’ve found that I use two hands very often and it’s particularly nice to be able to mouse left-handed when you’ve got a bunch of numeric entry. I use the roller as left click about as often as the dedicated left button. Using the roller to left click works perfectly in most circumstances but it’s possible to roll up or down just a little before the click. If I’m working on a particularly precise measurement, it’s wonderful to be able to click without disturbing the cursor alignment. I can often use my right hand for the cursor control and my left for the button. This gives me great precision and speed. Image result for rollermouse red images

The RollerMouse Red is made of Aluminum and it’s very solidly made. The top edge of the mouse has continuous slots to accept “risers” which are rubber coated pieces that go under your keyboard. They can be configured to adjust the tilt and height of the keyboard relative to the roller mouse. The risers also keep the keyboard from sliding away from the mouse. The fit between the RollerMouse and the Logitech K360 is just about perfect. It’s a petty point, but the keyboard and mouse look like they were built for one another. Initially I was concerned that I’d bump the mouse while typing. The wrist pad shape on the RollerMouse gives me enough support that nothing is touching the roller when my hands are on the keyboard. It’s a balancing act that RollerMouse has managed to execute perfectly.

At this point I’ve had the RollerMouse for a year and haven’t had any major issues with it. I have noticed that my PC fails to acknowledge it after hibernating, but that seems to be a problem with the PC rather than the RollerMouse. I downloaded a driver from Comfort Design which helped with the hibernating problem but now I can’t adjust the click force or volume. Thankfully they’re both set where I like them, but it’s worth mentioning. I’m working on a five-year old PC and it’s possible these issues will be resolved when it’s replaced.

One thing I was curious about was what happens when the roller is slid all the way to one extreme. My cursor will cross the entire width of the screen when the roller is slid about one and a half inches. Anything beyond that stalls the cursor at the edge of the screen until you slide back to center. One half rotation of the roller brings the cursor from top to bottom so it’s not like you’re cranking on it to move around. Again, this is all based on my individual settings with my specific machine. As they say; your mileage may vary.

I paid just under $265.00 for my RollerMouse which is the most expensive mouse I’ve ever bought. However my hunt for a workable solution involved five different mice, spanned nearly three years, and involved a few trips to the doctor’s office for the arm pain. I can honestly say that I wish I’d spent the money earlier. Good tools make all the difference.

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5 Comments | tags: Computer Aided Design, Computer mice, Estimating process, estimating program | posted in Uncategorized

January 29, 2016

Clarity of Purpose

By Anton Takken

Whenever I think about the truly exceptional people I’ve worked with, there’s only one quality they all shared; clarity of purpose. Now it seems like fulfilling the job description that Human Resources typed onto your offer letter would succinctly define your purpose, sadly that’s not always the case.

Timely and tidy

I’ve worked for people who had well-defined expectations for their estimator, however they didn’t consider the estimators purpose in their organization. Delivering tidy proposals before the deadline is an absolute job requirement but that’s documentation (process), not procuring work (product). I’ve never seen an estimating job offer that stipulated how much work you’ve got to win, but I know plenty of people who “used to work in estimating”. The pervasive mindset of most firms is that executing a proscribed process known as best practices will lead to an acceptable number of awarded contracts. Anyone who isn’t successful must not be working hard enough. Estimating is viewed as a machine, and they’re hiring you to crank out wins. The problem with this perspective is that it only works when winning profitable work is easy.

Clarity of Purpose

Competition is different in a booming market

Too much and too little

Meanwhile, there are lots of estimators struggling with the estimators paradox: You lose because you included something extra, and you win because of something you left out. Knowing what to include in your bid can be a strenuous exercise in judgment. Balancing the gaps in information against the surpluses of available minutia can easily consume all the estimators time. Time is lost right at the start as some estimators struggle to get the invitations to bid (ITB) out to their subcontractors (subs). The struggle is compounded when questions arise and the estimator has to write Requests For Information (RFI’s). All this information management work is in addition to actually estimating anything. The problem is compounded by the standard practice of having several estimates in process.

What do you think you do here?

It’s a simple question, what’s your purpose in this business? The answer is emphatically not “estimate the cost of projects” because that’s the process not the product. Your purpose is to win profitable work. Working from that position, it’s obvious that there are immediate hazards surrounding the winning number. If you’re a little too low, the work won’t be profitable. If you’re a little too high, you won’t win. These hazards get more severe the further your number is from the correct answer. Way too low may irreparably harm your company, and jeopardize the project. Way too high, and you may harm your firms reputation, leading to exclusion from future opportunities.

How to get where you’re going

Effectively dealing with these hazards can be summarily described as controlling risk. Let’s take a moment to visualize uncertainty in the example below.

Guessing——————————————————————————————Actual built price

Greatest uncertainty Least uncertainty

The left side represents the least amount of work, and the greatest amount of risk. There’s a chance that you could guess perfectly, but it’s very small. This approach is better known as gambling. The right side represents the most amount of work and the least amount of risk. Companies obviously can’t afford to build models of every project to negate risk. They can, however compile past project information to help price similar work.

Clarity of Purpose

Above: Design driven risk

Estimators conduct Quantity Take Off’s (QTO’s) of the Construction Documents (CD’s) to quantify and value the project scope. The relative merit of their efforts will place their bid proportionately on the scale above. This is the reason estimators control rather than remove risk. If there was no risk, the bid would be done by a cashier.

Multi-level thinking

So if estimators are supposed to win profitable work by controlling risk, and risk is controlled by QTO’s, how are contractors wrong for overemphasizing timely and tidy bids? The problem here is that not all risks are driven by project scope uncertainty.

If we recognize that not all clients are fully funded, we’re forced to admit that not all opportunities are equal. “Winning” a bid with a client who can’t/won’t award a contract is a risk that has nothing to do with how accurate your QTO’s are. Picking only opportunities that you’re likely to profitably win is a fruitless exercise if there’s no contract award.

Very successful estimators pick opportunities that they’ve got an excellent chance of landing a profitable contract award. Remember the estimators purpose is to win profitable work. No contract means no work. From this perspective, estimating could just as accurately be called “Contract targeting”.

Clarity of Purpose

Sheep’s dog, isn’t the same as sheep dog.

What defines an estimators chances of landing a profitable contract? Competition for one, efficiencies of scale for another. General Contractors (GC’s) by definition, contract portions of the project scope to subcontractors. The VAST majority of the actual work is completed by subs. GC estimators are competing on the basis of their relationships with subs. The GC with the most market leading subs has the best chance of winning. Success here, is all about building market leading subcontractor loyalty.

What defines if the work will be as profitable as it should be? In-house, the leadership and administrative abilities of the Project Manager and the on-site staff. Chasing work that’s aligned with their skills, abilities, and past successes is the best way to ensure profitability. On the other side of the contract sits the client and their representatives. Ethical clients with solid design teams are rare gems that attract fierce GC competition for their projects. Incomplete plans and short deadlines is the signature play of the troublesome client.

Clarity of Purpose

“Well our design isn’t complete but we’ve got cloud based computing to share the misery equally”

There’s never time to do it right the first time, but there will be time to do the work again. Unresolved issues handed from estimating to project management tend to harden in the arteries of a project, choking off progress until you’re lucky to simply escape. The estimators purpose is to win profitable work. If it’s not going to be possible to profitably complete the work, there’s no reason to pursue it. Estimators need to keep track of clients and design teams who’ve run contracts into the ground. Very often the client or their design team is the contractors greatest risk on a project.

Deductive reasoning and streamlining your process

Deductive reasoning is a process where you begin with premises that you must assume to be true. Then you try to determine what else would have to be true if the premises were true. Applying this to our situation, we have two premises; Estimators must win profitable work, and estimators work by controlling risk. Earlier I applied deductive reasoning to explain why we do QTO’s, or why it’s important to pick the best opportunities. My intention was to reveal the wider scope of what it really takes to be a successful estimator. If you’re already struggling with the stress and boredom of grinding out bids, this probably looks like I’ve dropped a whole lot more on you. Take heart, that’s not really the case. First off, MOST estimators are losing more than they’re winning. If you’re winning profitable work all the time, I implore you to start a blog! For the rest of us, this means that the majority of your daily work isn’t achieving your purpose.

A critical concept of successful estimating is that in order to win more, you’ll have to bid less. Winning comes from bidding only good opportunities that strategically align with both the GC AND their subs. It takes a lot more focused effort to bring all of that together on an individual bid. Losing bids diminishes the GC’s reputation with the market leading subs. Not only are you wasting your company’s time, you’re damaging your “pull” with subs. More bids means less focus which means higher risk which inevitably translates to lower profitability. Simple things offer no shortcuts.

Most estimating managers won’t consider reducing your workload until you’ve won more work than the company can handle. This circular pattern is why very few people want to become estimators. It’s a ton of work that’s rarely successful because the focus is on single-minded process rather than multi-faceted product.

Elevating the situation requires multi-level thinking. Being able to accurately identify your odds of success is a basic necessity. For more, read up on estimate tracking here. Once you’re clear on the odds, you should be tailoring your efforts to get things rolling quickly. Keeping momentum is how we keep the stress and boredom at bay but that’s not enough to really solve your problem. It stands to reason that you’re tasked with bidding something that’s an obviously poor fit.

Clarity of Purpose

“I can see this client has made some risky decisions…”

Treating every opportunity like it’s equally valid may sound like a best practice but it’s profoundly counter to your purpose. If you’re certain to lose the job, you’re not helping yourself by compromising better opportunities.

Many managers are amenable to courtesy bidding the turkey job to free up resources to land the great opportunity. Gaining a little leg room, then delivering the victory builds faith in your judgment. Backing your judgment with facts and figures, is how you prove your expertise. Trust is built through honesty, transparency, and accountability.

Overworked estimators often hear: “You can’t win if you don’t bid”. The unsaid counterpoint is:”It’s not the job you lost that puts you under, it’s the job you won”.

Clarity of purpose is a simple concept with powerful implications. Give yourself time to consider what you’re doing and ask how it achieves your purpose. We get a lot of encouragement to maintain disciplined process like a regiment on the march, but very little for picking the right direction. It’s only after you’ve arrived at the destination that people realize you knew what you were doing.

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