Tag Archives: Strategy

December 22, 2016

Seven new estimating ideas to try

By Anton Takken

We’re all looking for an edge to win a bid or make a project more profitable.  Estimating is a profession with deep roots going back through history.  It stands to reason that many of our current problems were familiar to our ancestors.  As with all human endeavors, we’re trying to improve on old problems, and sometimes a “new” idea is really just a rediscovery of a forgotten gem.  With that in mind, I hope the following seven ideas are at least new to most contemporary estimators.

#1 Provide constructability review for fee instead of conceptual competition for free

Conceptual estimating provides financial feedback on incomplete designs.  Since the complete design-development process can take months or even years, it’s important for clients to have a way to maintain alignment between their design and their budget.  There are many situations where a conceptual estimate can help the client to make an informed design decision.  General Contractors (GC’s) have traditionally extended this professional courtesy to assist and encourage upcoming projects.

Some GC’s believe they can make themselves indispensable to a project by providing extensive conceptual estimating.   They hope to secure a contract award before the design is completed.  This is commonly known as “client capture” and it’s the reason some firms will spend a considerable amount of time on conceptual bidding.

Seven new estimating ideas to try

“Scott does a lot of conceptual estimating and it’s starting to show.”

Since neither the Architect nor the Client pays for these conceptual estimates, they are naturally enthusiastic about soliciting bids from GC’s.  In some markets, it has become common to solicit competitive conceptual estimates from several GC’s without any intention or obligation to work with the “winning” GC on the final project.  The request for proposal (RFP) on such projects  encourage GC’s to provide design solutions, while studiously avoiding any reference to contract award.

GC’s with more optimism than caution end up as unpaid design consultants.  Some truly callous Clients will  “refine by bid” which is where all the estimators best ideas from one round of bidding are incorporated into the plans before they’re put back out to bid with their competitors.  This process is repeated until the client is satisfied that they’ve got the cheapest contractors building the best ideas.    I encourage estimators to find less frustrating ways to help their competition!

Clients may be unwilling (or unable) to award a contract to a GC on the basis of the conceptual estimate.  Nevertheless, these clients need budgetary feedback on their designs.  An unspoken detail of complimentary budgeting services, is that you can’t hold anyone responsible for bad information.  Clients who solicit several bidders are hoping to work around this problem by putting their trust in a budgetary consensus.  This encourages bidders to game the uncertainty to their advantage.  The bidders goal shifts from providing insightful conceptual estimates worthy of contract award, to landing an invitation to the final round of bidding.

Since Architects act as gatekeepers to new project opportunities, the GC’s will favor the Architects interests wherever they can.  This means that GC’s aren’t as interested in finding budget-blowing design choices as they are in delivering a plausible-sounding number.  GC’s who mostly chase conceptual work won’t attract market-leading subcontractors (subs) who have real opportunities to pursue.  Firms that cannot attract market-leading subs must often cut corners to be competitive.   All of these conflicting motivations serve to move the outcome of a conceptual estimate further from its purpose.   Many clients end up blind-sided by a budget blowout on their final bid as a result.

Estimates are not free.  Competitive bidders submit their estimates in a good faith exchange for either contract award, or bid results which help them to win their next bid.  Competitive conceptual bidding with no obligation to award or even select a contractor is a terrible practice that’s harmful to all parties excepting the Architect.

GC’s should offer clients an alternative.  A constructability review would furnish the client with not only the conceptual estimate, but a comprehensive report on the constructability of the plans.  Furnishing the client with a list of outstanding budgetary issues provides a way to track changes and guide progress.   The fee for these services should be commensurate with the labor involved in meeting the client’s needs, including recompense to any subcontractor consultants involved.

#2 Include sample subcontracts with every invitation to bid

It’s impressive that with the incredible amount of information that’s being effortlessly transmitted via email, and bid-letting software that one crucial document is virtually never shared before the bid deadline; the subcontract.   Many GC’s provide the sample contract under Division 1: General Conditions in the project specifications.  However that sample contract is only between the Client and the GC.  Most GC’s include subcontract terms that are much more stringent than those in the General Contract.  The most common are the “pay when paid” provisions which allow a GC to deny or delay payment to a sub because the client hasn’t paid them.  Some GC’s restrict the allowable percentages of overhead and profit on change orders on subcontractor’s change orders as well.  Other GC’s require every subcontractor to provide several hours of daily cleanup.  These are just a few of the many contractual requirements that Subs are expected to agree to after they’ve bid the job.  GC’s factor the general contract terms into their estimates as part of the project risk.  Providing a sample subcontract with every invitation to bid (ITB) shows the subs what the GC is expecting of them.  This avoids unnecessary arguments and negotiations for the Project Manager trying to get the project started.

Seven new estimating ideas to try

“Here we see a project manager fixing problems with the estimate… “

#3 Provide bidder responsibility matrix to delegate trade overlaps and identify sole-sourced vendors

Building on the concept of telling Bidders what you want from them, it’s a good idea to provide a bidder responsibility matrix.  There are tons of situations where several trades will overlap, yet nobody knows which trade the GC expects to do the work.  Rather than leaving these things to chance, it’s far better to actually provide direction so there won’t be any bid-day surprises.

Sole-sourced vendors are companies that must be hired for the project.  Sometimes they sell an exclusive material, other times there are proprietary systems that require specialist training.  The most common sole-sourced vendors will pertain to systems like; Security, Access control, HVAC Control, Fire Alarm, Elevators, Point of Sale (POS) systems, and Telecom.  Many of these vendors are “ghost trades” who only operate in a sub-tier-sub relationship.  If the affected trades don’t know who to call, they’ll just exclude the work entirely.   It’s absolutely incredible how much time gets wasted by all the subs trying to figure out who these sole-sourced vendors are.  GC estimators that provide leadership and information will quickly earn the loyalty of their subs.

#4 Provide “sellable” target budgets for individual trade solicitations on design-build estimates

GC’s who pursue competitive design-build bids rely on subcontractors to fill in a great deal of information.  These projects typically provide a narrative along with a rudimentary sketch of the work.  Lacking a target budget, the subcontractors have no context to interpret the design intent of the project narrative.  As a result, a lot of work is wasted in developing proposals that don’t meet the client’s needs.  Getting the subs dialed in to the GC’s expectations gives the whole team a cohesive plan of action.  Providing leadership and perspective is vital to successful bidding in a competitive market.

It’s worth pointing out that GC’s who have a Project Manager (PM) “bidding their own work” should make sure they adhere to estimating best practices .  Lots of PM’s “estimate” by collecting subcontractor bids and tallying the total of the lowest bids in each trade.  These PM’s have no idea what things should cost because they’re not actually estimating their projects.  GC estimators looking for an edge against their competitors can set themselves apart from the “bid collectors” by proving they are the firm that knows what a winning number should be.

In tight markets, this knowledge can undermine the hack GC bidders by giving the sub market a way to know when a GC hasn’t shared all the project requirements.  Transparency leads to trust and trust leads to cooperation .  The subcontractor market’s frustration with bidding practices that obscure, delay, and misrepresent what’s really going on shouldn’t be underestimated.  Being timely, honest, and forthright with important information will provide a sustained competitive advantage in most markets.

#5 Improve in-house estimating by hosting “lunch and learn” sessions with a market-leading subcontractor

Good leadership is difficult without good information.  Market-leading subcontractors can be a great source of trade-specific information for a GC estimator.  Understanding what drives the costs in complex system can open up options that would be overlooked.  GC estimators should strive to improve their knowledge by inviting a market-leading sub to a lunch hour session where they can present on some specific area of their trade and answer estimators questions.  These meetings can explore new materials, techniques, and technologies that estimators could potentially use for value engineering exercises.  Don’t forget that subs have extensive market knowledge about Architects, clients and competitors.

Reciprocity is a vital component of fair-dealing so GC estimators should share whatever they can that would help the sub to win more work.  Feedback on how proposals are scoped on bid-day can greatly improve a sub’s understanding of how their bids look through the GC’s eyes.  Poorly written proposals may end up on the “war room” floor when time is short, and the prices are close.   GC’s may lose the bid by these small differences so it’s very important for subs to have well-written proposals.

#6 Provide a team strategy that goes beyond simple pursuit.

The very nature of competitive bidding means that the majority of bidders will lose.  Many professionals assume that bidding is like a lottery, where your odds may improve in proportion to the amount you participate.  Their favorite slogan is “you can’t win if you don’t bid“.  If clients merely picked the winning GC out of a hat, this reasoning would have merit.  The reality is that the market-leading price for the proposed work isn’t generated by random chance.  Market leaders will consistently deliver higher value at lower cost than their competitors.  It therefore follows that any GC capable of attracting the best subs on the market will have a profound advantage in quality, pricing and profitability over their competitors.  When these firms pursue an opportunity, it’s incredibly hard to beat them without an excellent plan

Eagles and moths share the gift of flight, but moths squander their gift by banging against windows.

GC estimators should sincerely develop a strategy that plays to not only the GC’s strengths, but to their best subs’ strengths.  Winning  a bid has more to do with targeting the right opportunity than anything else.  Blindly pursuing every opportunity leads to consistent losing.  This tells market-leading subs that the GC is a participant rather than a contender.  GC’s that can’t attract market-leading subs won’t be competitive on dearly needed projects without sacrificing profitability.  Eventually this spirals to the point where every bid is a last-minute, underfunded, and poorly managed effort to keep the doors open.  The ever-present urgency to pursue every project is the most visible indicator that an estimator is adrift.

Seven new estimating ideas to tryEven the best teams get tired of running around

Estimating is a deadline-driven enterprise, and everyone participating knows this.  Invitations to bid that offer nothing but a strategy of pursuit aren’t capitalizing on the opportunity to communicate a viable strategy to win a profitable job.

ITB’s with statements like ;”we’re really going after this job” are presenting  their enthusiasm for the pursuit as a reason for subs to team up with them.  When these ITB’s are followed up with interns or secretaries nagging subs to bid, the tone shifts from enthusiasm to desperation.  Excellent GC’s don’t nag subs for bids.

GC’s who carefully select project opportunities based on their best allies in the subcontractor market aren’t doing themselves any favors by writing an ITB that implies the GC is desperate for company on their mindless pursuit.    If the GC’s best subs are market leaders, nothing is gained by soliciting every company in the book (or the database).  ITB’s can and should indicate when subs are short-listed for a targeted opportunity.  If it’s a great opportunity because the GC’s got a great team of subs, then the GC should clearly commit to their team. 

It’s worth mentioning that scoundrels who think “blind copy” gives them the power to misrepresent their commitments are mistaken.  Dishonesty is revealed in the supply chain just before the subs bids are due.  This is because the sales reps at distributors who sell to all the subs in a given trade have a vested interest in helping their customers to win.  Since everyone has the same deadline, the vendors can see who’s requested pricing.  Subs may have a lot of opportunities vying for their attention.  Sinking a few weeks of effort into bidding on one project may require turning down a lot of great opportunities.  Competitive bidding operates on principles of good-faith.  Once a sub knows the GC is willing to lie or cheat, there’s no reason to believe in fair competition.  Honest subs will choose to either withdraw from bidding or intentionally lose the bid so they can escape dealing with the dishonest GC.

In the decade that I’ve been an estimator, every profitless, contentious, mismanaged, and unpaid project started with some form of dishonesty.  It’s never the bid you lose that puts your business under, it’s the terrible job you won.

#7 Replace boilerplate bureaucracy with clarity of purpose

Modern construction is very litigious which is why companies call themselves “General Contractors” instead of “Builders”.   This is why GC estimators often think in terms of contractual liability.  Estimating is about controlling risk so it follows that many estimators would seek to reduce their risk by using standardized forms covered in catch-all provisions, clarifications, and exclusions.  This “boilerplate” can get so extensive that very little on the form is actually pertinent to the project at hand.

I’ve encountered proposals that were so riddled with boilerplate that they barely outlined the work to be done for the proposed amount.  Some GC estimators try to circumvent this practice by requiring their subs to use a “bid template” to standardize the format for the bid.  This is predictably unpopular with the subs because the GC’s formatting  limits the risky exclusions, clarifications, and notes.

Both of these examples illustrate how boilerplate bureaucracy swaps risk for cooperation.  The best cooperation is achieved when the risk is assigned to the parties who can best control the factors driving the risk.  Subcontractor proposals with boilerplate meant to replace a contract are false economy.  The GC’s ITB is a solicitation to bid on work under the terms of the GC’s subcontract.  While the GC’s get to set the terms of the contract, the subs are independent firms who must strike a balance between protecting their interests, and offering a useful proposal to the GC.  If the subs knew what the GC’s subcontract would require, they would have less risk to control.

Subs who don’t include the complete scope of work for their trade are generating liabilities for the GC.  The GC’s patience with those liabilities grows in proportion to their ability to find someone else to address them.  The more skilled the trade, the fewer options there will be.  This is why some “concrete” firms can get away with excluding rebar and/or concrete.  In contrast,  Electrical contractors are expected to include all wiring for the building, even when that requires a sub-tier contract for proprietary systems such as Fire Alarm, Communications, Building Management Systems, or Point Of Sale (POS).

Inexperienced GC estimator’s sometimes try to counterbalance their lack of knowledge with additional bureaucracy.  This translates to numerous and tedious bid revisions that steadily move away from a collaborative effort to win a job.  These revisions generate additional risk to the subs because risk-averse GC estimators are prone to losing bids.

Clarity of purpose is what’s needed here.  The GC estimator must understand it’s their purpose to profitably win work by controlling risk.  This is best accomplished by working collaboratively with market-leading subcontractors.  Demanding protection from all risk isn’t estimating, it’s one-sided policy that leads to profitless work.

Seven new estimating ideas to try

“I don’t know… something about light and heat, I handed it off to the estimator…”

In competitive bidding, profit may be considered to be a function of risk versus reward.  Making projects rewarding for subs increases the GC’s ability to attract top talent.  It therefore follows that reducing the risk for bidding subs will correspondingly increase the GC’s profitability.

It’s here that an engaged GC estimator can provide committed leadership to direct the best course of action.  The most common problems will pertain to what gets included, or excluded from the scope of work.  The design teams believes their primary function is to provide design intent, which the General Contractor  uses to develop a cohesive scope of work.  Design teams can successfully argue that even incomplete plans, convey the design intent.  As a result, the GC may find they’re facing a choice between losing the bid by including something or winning the bid by excluding something the design team expects you to have.

Many GC estimators are reluctant to carry subcontractor exclusions into the proposals they send to their clients. This creates a situation where the GC estimator must force their subs to remove the exclusions (pushing the risk onto the subs), or take the risk that they can be negotiated during the contract buyout (pushing the risk onto the build team).  Risk is always expensive, but problems get more difficult when there’s less time to solve them.

When a specific risk is dependent on the actions of the client or their design-team, it’s wise to clarify what’s included in the proposal based on your understanding of the design intent.  Giving the client insight into how you’ve managed the uncertainty clarifies your position in terms they can understand.  On bid day clients may interpret exclusions presented without context as inconsequential.  Yet when these selfsame issues cause a change order later on, they’ll feel cheated.  Empower the client to make informed choices by connecting their choices to project outcomes.

I hope these ideas push estimators to think beyond statistics, measurements and spreadsheets.  It’s easy to become confident in a process that has become complacent through repetition.  Estimators looking for an edge can set themselves apart by exceeding the standards of their competitors.  As Thomas Edison once said ; ” Opportunity is missed by most people because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work“.

 

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© Anton Takken 2016 all rights reserved

 

 

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May 26, 2016

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

By Anton Takken

One of the greatest misconceptions about construction estimating is that it’s a solitary profession.  It doesn’t matter if you’re an estimator for a General Contractor (GC) or a subcontractor (sub), there’s always someone calling, emailing, or popping into your office to discuss something.  I’ve written before about reliable estimating practices that improve the coordination, clarity, and timeliness of communication between the GC and the subs.  I focused on practices that reduce the need for estimators to interrupt one another to get or give pertinent information.

I’ve worked in offices where the incessant phone calls consumed far more time than any other aspect of the job.  The constant interruptions dramatically increase the chances of making a quantity take off (QTO) error, or a transcription mistake in your estimate.

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

Mistakes are often easier for others to see

It’s been my experience that there are five personality types that tend to work against an estimator who’s trying to work efficiently.  The companies these people represent can be market leaders which means the competitive estimator has to find ways to deal with difficult personalities.  Everyone is coming from somewhere, which is to say that sometimes a difficult personality is a product of their environment.   I strive to be thankful for difficult people, as they remind me of what I don’t want to be.

Obsessive

We’ll start with the most common personality type in estimating, the obsessive.  Estimating offers the detail-oriented person a lot of information to focus on.  Lots of companies focus on best practices  in estimating which are often simplified to only detailed estimates are accurate.  Their intense desire to quantify and categorize every detail is continually thwarted by missing, incomplete, or confusing information inherent to construction documents (CD’s).

If all the needed information was presented in the CD’s, there would be no need for estimators.  Detailed estimates may indeed reduce the uncertainty of an estimate, but it’s entirely possible to have an accurate estimate using other methods.

Obsessive’s are rarely able to cope with uncertainty, to the extent that many of them feel it’s wrong to make any kind of assumption.

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

Steve likes to be sure nothing changes

In extreme cases, these folks won’t bid at all if they don’t have an “official” direction in the form of an answered Request For Information (RFI), an addendum,  or a bid directive.

It’s important to understand that a lot of obsessive estimators work for companies that see estimators as cashiers ringing up a long list of very obvious stuff.  Most projects are bid before the building department has completed their review of the CD’s so it’s very common for Architects to add a great deal of information to the construction set.  Many people see a bid-day uncertainty as an obvious decision when they’re holding the Architects revised plan.

This extends to bid results as well.  If the estimator bids a job, they’re expected to get bid results to show their boss how they did.  Bidding the worst-case scenario can lead to losing by large amounts.  The consensus view of competitor bids will be seen as the obvious judgment call.  This fundamental ignorance of the estimators role leads to negative performance reviews.  Estimators in these companies learn to see uncertainty as future punishment.  This is why they’d rather withdraw from competition, than bid on incomplete information.

Advice for GC estimators working with an obsessive sub

GC estimators working with obsessive subs need to understand that the driving issue is one of accountability.  GC estimators cannot expect these subs to exercise good judgment if it means the sub estimator will face accountability for their actions.  The GC estimator must be willing to provide accountable direction to the sub.  I encourage GC estimators to seek these subs insights into the issue because they may be highly skilled and experienced estimators in their field.

Advice for sub estimators working with an obsessive GC.

Obsessive GC’s tend to go looking for any uncertainty in the sub’s proposal.  They’re driven to distraction by exclusions, clarifications, and exceptions.  If they direct the subs to bid a certain way, they will badger anyone who doesn’t conform.  Subs must understand that the obsessive GC is focused on avoiding any potential judgment call.  They want to know that the subs are taking full responsibility for everything whether it’s perfectly clear or not.  Obsessive GC’s are virtually never competitive bidders so unless they’re bidding a negotiated project, subs should expect their bids to be fruitless and time-consuming.  These GC’s rarely attract market-leading subs, even when they have negotiated work out to bid.  Patient subcontractors may find they can win highly profitable work with obsessive GC’s on negotiated projects.

Insecure

The next most common personality type is the insecure estimator.  New and inexperienced estimators fall into this group, however they’re only half the population.  Construction estimating is a unique vocation that relatively few people seek out.  An awful lot of estimators came from the field following a significant injury that would have otherwise ended their careers.  Knowing how things go together is certainly a critical skill set, however estimators draw confident conclusions based on analytical techniques, market observations, computational skills, and management fundamentals.  I started this blog because the majority of construction estimators I encounter lack most of these skills.

Insecure estimators are constantly paralyzed by mundane issues because they don’t understand how estimating fits into the larger picture.  These estimators rarely see a lack of detail as an opportunity to present a uniquely advantageous solution.  To many insecure GC estimators, the bid is simply a process of collecting sub pricing, toting it up, and adding profit.  I call it bid collecting because they’re not actually estimating anything.  This is terrifically common among companies who have their PM’s bidding their own work.

Insecure sub estimators are often convinced that a proposal with several pages of boilerplate exclusions will protect them from the outcome of their mistakes.  Their bids emphatically exclude so much that it’s genuinely difficult to tell what you’d be paying them to do.

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

“Dave’s a snappy dresser but nobody’s sure what he does all day”

In many ways, the insecure estimators are the opposite of the obsessive estimators.  Insecure estimators won’t communicate during the bid.  GC estimators who won’t answer their phones or email can’t be expected to draft RFI’s to the design team, or publish bid directives to clarify the intent to the subs.

Everything is reversed on bid-day as these insecure GC estimators often resort to begging subs for last-minute bids.  Conversely, the responsible GC is forced to play phone tag on bid day with the insecure sub in an effort to decipher all the exclusions.

Advice for GC estimators working with an insecure sub

Reliable estimating practices must be built around the value of time spent being inversely proportional to the time remaining.  The shorter version; an early hour is worth less than the last-minute.  With the majority of the sub proposals coming in an hour or two ahead of your deadline, the GC must be able to quickly scope the proposals looking for bids that could make or break the GC’s odds of winning the bid.

Time sunk in a promising proposal that turned out to be a dead-end, might have been invested in more fruitful considerations.  Insecure subs proposals are incredible time-sinks.  Their proposals are riddled with boilerplate exclusions, with the proposed amount inevitably buried in fine print, and there’s typically an innocuous-looking exclusion for some obviously costly and necessary part of the scope.

Rather than play on the insecure sub’s terms, the GC estimator should provide bid clarifications that stipulate the inclusions for all trades.  Requiring that the sub’s acknowledge the bid directives on their proposal allows a useful means to circumvent their chicanery.

Following up all proposals with a bid-checklist forces the subs to agree they’ve included, or modify their proposed amount to include the pertinent scope items.  This frees the estimator to consider the sub proposals in a consistent format designed to facilitate a clear definition of the agreed upon scope.

Advice for sub estimators working with an insecure GC.

Insecure GC’s can’t be counted upon to know what is, and what isn’t in the subs scope of work.  Efforts to request direction will be either ignored, or the GC estimator will demand the sub bid “per the plans and specs”, with the occasional request to “price it both ways”.

Ineffective GC estimators are the leading reason why people don’t follow instructions on bid day.  Giving an inexperienced or irresponsible GC estimator the means to lose the bid works against the entire market’s interests.  Subs working with these GC’s should strive to keep all communications on company email accounts that provide time-stamped evidence of who said (or did) what, and when.

It’s often necessary for subs to gently teach a new GC estimator how things typically work.  Leading the inexperienced  GC estimator to a fruitful and logical conclusion builds trust and rapport for both parties.

There’s less a sub can do with a seasoned, yet insecure GC estimator.  The lack of communication isn’t a bug, it’s a feature intended to maximize plausible deny ability.   Working for these GC’s is often a greater risk than the project itself because there’s nobody protecting the build team’s interest.  These GC estimators are rarely competitive bidders, without exposing their subs to considerable risk.

GC estimators who complain about the scores of “whiny subs” they’re dealing with probably have reason to reevaluate their estimating program to attract (and retain) market-leading subs.

Doubter

One of the most difficult estimating  personalities is the doubter.  These are the estimators who tenaciously ignore the obvious design intent whenever they find a discrepancy.  Efforts to answer their questions will exercise your patience because these folks are always in doubt and never in a hurry.

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

Rick’s commitment to interrupting your work is impressive.

Doubter estimators typically come from the field where they had extensive experience in a wider variety of work than their current employer typically builds.  They’re often intelligent people who didn’t fit in with field crews that emphasized production over planning.

Advice for GC estimators working with a doubter sub

GC estimators should look beyond the immediate project and the doubters questions to establish a precedent for future interaction.  Pretending that it’s reasonable to indulge every imagined concern will only encourage them on every subsequent bid.  Approach the situation as a teachable moment to lay down default assumptions you’d like them to work within.  Up to and including how you’d like them to ask questions.  Doubters tend to favor whatever is the least efficient means of resolving a problem.  Tell them that their questions are important to you and that you want to quickly resolve them by using your preferred medium.  Be advised that you’ll almost certainly have to enforce your boundaries.

Advice for sub estimators working with a doubter GC

Subs will know they’re dealing with a doubter GC estimator when they receive an invitation to bid (ITB) that’s absolutely riddled with alternate and breakout pricing requests that work against a cohesive scope of work.  The doubter GC estimator doesn’t understand the project in the client’s terms, so they bombard them with options “just in case” the client would like an a la carte menu of confusing prices.

Subs need to be very careful about what they tell the doubter GC because there’s little assurance that what they’ve asked for, will be presented appropriately to the client.  Doubter GC’s tend to misinform the client which typically leads to scope changes and a pricing revision that turns out differently than the client expected.  Subs should ask the doubter GC to walk them through their proposed breakouts with a special focus on how things might be combined disadvantageously to the subs.  Often the list of what the doubter GC thinks they need, will be shortened when they’re faced with explaining how they will protect their own teams interests.  It’s critical to understand that doubter GC’s love to pretend that their long list of alternates was a client request.  They quickly become sanctimonious about honoring their esteemed clients request if you simply object to the amount of information being requested.  Give your client what they ask for, provided you’ve controlled your risk first.

Hot Air Balloonists

Whenever projects cross over into markets where work is bid informally, there will be estimators involved who will cause delays, confusion, and a whole lot of waiting for them to get back to you.  I call them hot air balloonists (HAB for short) because they’re often unavoidable, slow, and colorful characters that you’ll need to tie down before they drift past your deadline.

Often these estimators are either “mom or pop” at their firm which generally means they’re spending most of their time doing something other than estimating.

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

Artistic rendering of whatever Melinda’s doing whenever you call her for a bid…

 These professionals often have a competitive edge on their markets because they maintain a lean operation.  In most cases, these folks view estimating as a necessary evil, rather than a vital phase of the construction project.

Advice for GC estimators working with a HAB sub

HAB subs aren’t going to respond to an ITB that looks like it came from a faceless computer.  These folks get most of their work through personal networking.  They don’t chase every hard-bid opportunity that comes along, and they’re often reserved about bidding to an unfamiliar GC.  It may take several tries to get them on the phone, but making a personal connection with them is vital to getting them to bid on your project.  Since they wear a lot of hats, they don’t have a lot of time to chase jobs that are a poor fit for their company.  GC’s should be prepared to answer a lot of in-depth questions about the project on that initial call.  If the GC doesn’t convince them it’s a standout opportunity, they won’t make it a priority.  It’s a fatal mistake to tell them the answers to their questions are in the files you sent them.  They need to see you’re on top of the information because you’re determined to win.  It’s a good idea to check in with them between your first call and bid day.  Lots of HAB estimators will stall out on a bid when they think they’ve got plenty of time.   Absolutely all communication should reiterate the deadline.

Advice for subs working with a HAB GC

HAB GC’s tend to focus on smaller projects that have little in the way of formal drawings, specifications, or even narratives of what the project is about.  Most of what the subcontractor needs to bid the job will be covered at the job walk.  It’s fairly common for HAB GC’s to walk  a group of subs through a space waving their hands in the air like an orchestra conductor.  Subs need to prepare proposals that carefully itemize the work to be done because HAB GC’s aren’t known for their contractual finesse.  Subs looking for HAB direction, should approach the question by presenting the subs preferred solution.  Chances are excellent the HAB GC won’t answer their phone on bid day, so be sure to put clarifications in bold on your proposal.  Emphasize clarity, by keeping the descriptions in simple terms.  Exclusions are vitally important to protecting your interests.  HAB GC’s love to assume that everything they overlooked was implied at the job walk.

Corrupt

Corruption takes many forms in the construction industry but it’s always found in practices that discourage transparency, accountability, and competition.    Estimators must tread a fine line because they must maintain confidentiality in order to conduct a fair bid.  Providing a bidder with their competitors prices in order to solicit lower prices prior to award is known as bid shopping.  This practice is absolutely unethical, and is in some cases illegal.

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

The reciprocal of bid shopping is bid peddling, which is where a bidder offers to submit a lower price than the winning bid to secure the award.

A less extreme version of this practice is for a GC to continually bid a job they’ve already won in an effort to “beat the bushes” for a lower subcontractor bid.  Their original ITB promised to fairly award the contract to the winning bidder on bid day.  Any GC who feels it’s their right or privilege to renege on their promises whenever it’s convenient to them is a cheater.  Be advised that pretending  to be “not sure who won” their original bid is an old scoundrels trick.

There’s no good reason to do business with corrupt people.  Whatever you stand to gain in contract award, you can expect to fight over in unpaid invoices.  Con artists only solicit dupes that they can control and later contain.    I have an entire article on warning signs that will help estimators steer clear of trouble.

The five estimating personalities that make or break your bid.

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© Anton Takken 2016 all rights reserved

 

 

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March 28, 2016

A Modest Suggestion to Improve Budget Checks

By Anton Takken

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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© Anton Takken 2016 all rights reserved

 

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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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© Anton Takken 2016 all rights reserved

 

 

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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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© Anton Takken 2016 all rights reserved

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