The Project Value Mindset: 7 Factors That Produce Successful Outcomes
The Project Value Mindset: 7 Factors That Produce Successful Outcomes
How to maximize the value of a project using value-focused thinking.
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In 1996, a group of owners, architects, contractors, and engineers gathered in San Francisco to discuss common goals and opportunities for collaboration in the building industry.
This group formally organized themselves as the Collaborative Process Institute (CPI). During their discussions, they came up with what I think are the best descriptors of the factors that need to be managed and controlled on a construction project in order to produce a successful outcome for the owner and all stakeholders involved.
They referred to these factors as the seven dials of project value:
Quality
Quantity
Cost
Time
Safety
Relationships
Function
The idea is that each of these dials has a most advantageous setting for any given project, and it is the project team’s job to optimize these settings.
The first 6 project values are within the range of services provided by the construction project management team: quality, quantity, cost, time, safety, relationships. The 7th value dial is typically determined by the owner and design team prior to the construction management team being involved: scope/function.
Part of the project management challenge is understanding how your decisions and priorities influence the dials of project value.
The Influential Project Manager is the PM who works with a Project Value Mindset. They maximize the value of a project using value-focused thinking. A project can only be considered successful if it delivers the predetermined business value to the project stakeholders.
The project value mindset (PVM) describes the attitude of a project manager, which maximizes the value of a project, by making value-focused project decisions and by seeking and exploiting opportunities beyond the baseline that will lead to increased project value.
Project values serve as your road map to desired outcomes. Every individual and every organization is involved in making hundreds of decisions every day. The decisions we make are a reflection of our values and beliefs, and they are always directed towards a specific purpose.
By keeping these values front and center with you and your team, you’ll notice a behavior change as a natural by-product of striving to maximize each dial of project value.
When businesses look at project success in this light, they will make better decisions about which projects to execute, and project managers will focus on what is important as their teams deliver value.
Do you want to be the project manager that every owner wants on their projects?
Let’s take a closer look and these dials of value and how they are monitored and controlled.
Quality
At its core, quality in construction means that projects are finished within the guidelines established by the scope of work. This includes aesthetic impact, user perceptions, appropriateness of building materials, and verifying the work is installed in conformance with the design as to workmanship, material, and intended use (free of defects). Quality is monitored and controlled by a variety of means, including specifications, punch lists, inspections, mock ups, user surveys. Special care must be taken to establish appropriate measures early in the project to focus attention and effort on the quality expectations of the team.
Insight: The project manager who can build a culture around quality and strengthen the specific behaviors that people need to produce quality work is irreplaceable.
Cost
It is essential to predict and control what the construction project will cost. Costs are established, targeted, and controlled by means of an estimate or budget. As the work progresses, expenditures for materials, labor, equipment, and subcontracts is to maintain costs within or below budget parameters.
Insight: The project manager who can minimize cost while maximizing overall value to the owner will optimize the cost dial.
Quantity
The quantity dial is the fuel that connects the rest of the project values. If you dig to the roots that connect them, you’ll find they revolve around quantities and acting on the most accurate information. Quantity and production data is essential for making the best decisions.
Insight: The project manager that can quickly and accurately document, access, and communicate project quantity information will be able resolve issues the fastest, which fuels the overall value.
Time
As the saying goes, time is money. For many projects, the speed with which the building can be brought on line is more important than almost any other factor. Time is monitored and controlled by a detailed schedule, breaking each item of work down into its competent parts. Once all of the purchasing, fabrication, installation, and construction steps are identified, a time element is assigned to each step. The goal is to complete each of the work items within the time frame assigned.
Insight: The project manager that can guarantee the schedule and actually beat it is invaluable to the owner.
Safety
No matter how valuable a facility or structure may be, it is never more valuable than the health or welfare of the people who build and use the building. Care must always be taken to ensure that the building process and the building itself do not create unacceptable hazards to workers or users. These hazards range from risks during the building process (for example, falls, accidents, injury, and death) to risks from the completed buildings (for example, toxic gases, bio hazards, breach in life safety, and structural failure). Safety is best monitored and controlled by proactively by identifying potential risks and taking prudent steps (for example, pre-task planning) to mitigate those risks.
Insight: The project manager who can build a compelling safety culture and strengthen the specific behaviors that people need to work safer is priceless.
Relationships
Some of the fundamental underpinnings of society involve trust. Project management is no different. There are 1000’s of relationships that exist within (1) project. Trust is one of the key ingredients that is required for effective and successful interaction among people, groups, and organizations. To successfully manage on-site operations, you need some level of control. To accomplish this, you have to be able to communicate clearly as well as effectively. But for the message to resonate with the people involved, there needs to be trust and relationship.
Insight: The project manager that can foster healthy relationships will be able to create a meaningful project experience for all involved once complete, resulting in repeat work.
Function
The best project teams try to meet all the functional requirements of the end-user group. An optimal outcome would satisfy their short and long term needs, allowing for sufficient flexibility to adapt to changes in the market. Function is monitored and controlled by means of process flow diagrams and utilization analyses, which document the efficiency of the process that will be performed in the completed facility.
Insight: The project manager who can point out functional issues and help the design team resolve them in a timely manner will be world-class.
Final Takeaways
Keep in mind that these dials are all interconnected and that adjusting one will ultimately cause a change in others.
For example, if an owner requests that we crank up the time dial and complete the project earlier than we had contracted to do initially, then it is likely that the cost dial will also be turned up. We will also have to adjust our approach to the quality dial as this may increase manpower and longer hours that potentially could lead to lower quality which needs to be managed. Likewise, if the owner increases quantity of scope, then both time and cost dials will turn up.
The job of the project manager and the rest of the team is to figure out how to best adjust, manage, and monitor these dials in order to optimize the performance of each value relative to the owner’s request.
If you learn to do this consistently well, the sky is the limit for your career. You will become a prized asset to project stakeholders and in the marketplace.
Until next week,
Kyle Nitchen
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No project manager can "guarantee" project being on time there are too many variables and anyone experience that construction knows this, do you have any actual construction references that would back up your claims about your résumé? And what office do you work out of as far as your corporate headquarters??