CHICAGO–How a project is managed is almost always the key to whether that project actually succeeds. To create that success, David Andersen is offering a three-step process for ensuring projects run smoothly. Andersen, CEO of Andersen Construction, is regularly listed on Building Design + Construction's Top 100 contractors list and has developed a reputation for both excellent service and a great work environment, according to Elise Keith, co-founder and CEO of Lucid Meetings.
Writing on Inc.com, Keith shared Andersen’s advice for managing projects.
1. Adapt working team agreements to drive client success.
Working team agreements prevent communication problems that arise when people make bad assumptions, wrote Keith of Andersen’s approach. “You draft a working team agreement in a meeting, then post the document for the team's reference later. The agreement will spell out how the team expects to work together, including details like normal working hours, response times for internal communication, and how the team will track progress.”
Keith said working team agreements come in many forms and can include whatever the team finds most useful. “For example, one customer success team at HubSpot, the online marketing software platform, has every new employee write a document called ‘How to Work With Me’ that the whole team then reads and discusses together. Remote collaboration expert Lisette Sutherland leads workshops that help remote workers agree on the technologies they'll use and how they'll work across time zones, and product teams often create their team agreement as one step in their multi-day chartering workshop.”
In the case of Andersen Construction, it practices vision-values leadership, with everyone pursuing a strong vision of becoming each client's "Builder of Choice," while ensuring their approach stays within bounds defined by their values, wrote Keith. “ To do this well, they realized they needed the same clear expectations between the construction crews and clients that internal teams get with a working team agreement….Andersen had heard about an approach called partnering, where you get all the stakeholders together and you define clear expectations, so the company decided to hire a facilitator to run the two-day workshop.” Andersen said “it worked.”
2. Develop a "communication programming" practice.
For the first year, Andersen hired a facilitator for every project. Then, they began facilitating these sessions themselves and refining the approach, according to Keith.
“Now, many years later, they have the system locked. Andersen calls this process ‘communication programming,’ and it can be completed during lunch in an hour,” wrote Keith.
Andersen told Keith the process is key to keeping everyone on the same page. "We never skip this step because it's where you learn the really important stuff," he said. "If the client's promotion is riding on the project, or if the budget is literally all the money they have, that's important to know up front."
Once the communication plan is documented, everyone on a project gets a copy, including the client, subcontractors, and partners.
3. Put the agreement to work.
While many teams create these agreements, few of them use them as well as they could. Andersen's teams don't make this mistake, according to Keith. “Once per month or more, everyone gets together and rates how well they're meeting expectations. Any rating that is less than satisfactory gets discussed and resolved in the monthly meeting.
With these two meetings--the communication programming and the monthly review--the teams at Andersen Construction not only know what the client expects up front, so they can earn their trust, but they ensure their performance exceeds those expectations throughout the project so they keep it.”