“All you hafta do is ask a kid!”

My 12 year old nephew Michael is staying with us under a caretaking arrangement. As part of a summer book club, I’m reading Why Don’t Students Like School? When he saw this on my end table, he asked in bewilderment, “why are you reading that book – all you hafta do is ask a kid???”

Ask a kid....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, says I, taking the bait – why don’t students like school?

 

“Because it’s boring and you don’t get to play.”

 

I see. Those are pretty good reasons. So what’s the upside? There’s gotta be some good news.

 

“You get to hang out with your friends…..and (after thinking awhile) the challenge of math is pretty fun. I like to see if I can figure it out and be the first one done.”

 

So there you have it – my own personal research done from the kid himself. I will continue to conduct research throughout the summer club and post at the club as well as here as additional research – or entertainment – occurs.

 

I invite you to conduct your own research and comment here. I’d love to read your “results.”

 

 

The Meaning and Impact of World Class Customer Service

We left off with customer service in the last post, let’s just pick up where we left off.

I do a lot of consulting on “world class” and “WOW” customer service. So I think and write and I’m constantly on the look-out for it. Mostly I experience the bad stuff. On those rare occasions when I experience the good stuff, it really has meaning and impact. Plus, the simplicity of it really hits home.

My experience with contractors has not been historically positive. I wouldn’t say I have any glaring nightmares to report – probably saved by an abundance of project management. I would say the contractors I’ve encountered in the past have been the wham bam types – slap it together and get it done exactly as you’ve been told. Over the years, I’ve learned to be present and available at all costs when home improvement projects are going on. If nothing else, just maintain a presence and check in periodically to let the improvers know of your interest. So I make it a point to – at all costs – clear the schedule and maintain presence and availability. This does help the quality of the final product.

In addition to maintaining a presence,  you as a project sponsor can do some things to foster better customer service. After the tear down was complete and Tony and his crew started constructing, it was clear I had a special crew on my hands. (Being able to distinguish that so quickly should also tell you something about the quality and caliber of their work and their ethic.) My thinking was the LEAST I could do was to have a cooler full of refreshments on hand at all times.

Little things make a big difference

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first few days of demolition I was out there getting my hands dirty with them. I had half of the roof torn off and cleaned up by the time they were called in. With these little considerations for each other, our relationship began to reciprocate. What intrigues me about world class customer service is the questions of how do you teach quality? How do you come to the point of wanting to do great work? How do you develop the values of wanting to take great care and interest in someone else’s property?

For the most part, Tony and his crew provided exceptional service day in and day out – just in the way they went about their work. Steady, diligent, quick-but-not-in-a-hurry efficiency. They took (and earned) a lunch break, but that was about it. They were courteous throughout the day, and cleaned up at the end of the day. For the most part, they lived and breathed customer service every day by doing diligent and quality work that would last for years while looking great and functioning well.  

It’s when they needed more information that their customer service won awards. I think they could tell I wasn’t the world’s foremost authority on all things construction. But I also suspect they could tell I had more than a passing interest in the project.  So when they had questions, we developed an ability to have a back and forth exchange, until the solution was something we could both live with and approve of. Again, they cared enough to tell me when my thinking was naive of off-base.

There is an element of providing service that is priceless. Look to provide the kind of service that is life-altering. I would have never come up with the solutions that Tony suggested for the sunroom roof. It simply wasn’t in my way of thinking. By the act of taking the time and having the interest to ask a simple question, he altered our home, its function and aesthetics forever!

What does it mean to have someone who takes an interest in you and your well-being? What is the impact of a service provider who cares enough to ask questions and treat you with respect even though you’ll never have the skills or knowledge they have?

I think you’re getting a sense of what it means to me. I would encourage all of us to think about these questions and I am interested in your thoughts on them or perhaps some customer service stories of your own. What, if anything,  did you do to foster the service and the reciprocal nature of the relationship. Please comment, and let’s learn from each other.

In the final analysis, this stuff couldn’t be more important – keep in mind who will be getting my first call on my next project. Never forget who will be my first referral when a friend or neighbor asks, “Who do you know………”

Priceless!

Project Management: Don’t check it at the door at work!

The reason for the overview of my last post was to set the stage for additional posts on project management, team work, and leadership. Today’s focus will be on the elements of project management that went into the remodel in terms of the planning, surprises (scope creep) along the way, and some lessons learned after the project was complete.

PLANNING

First of all, a quick before and after shot:

Before

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The first, and I believe most important, point to make about the project is that it took two years to think about and plan. Show me a successful project and I’ll show you one that has been well deliberated upon. Where do you want to experience the pain? On the front end, where there is lots of thinking, planning on paper, phone calls to contractors, material list planning, etc. etc. or on the back end where there is frustration, rework, poor results, and more rework, fights about change orders, conflict and even things like arbitration and settling disputes in court. (No thanks!)

 

Where do you want to experience the pain?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given the choice, and the luxury of time, I’ll take pain on the front end any day.

 

You must plan until it feels like there is nothing left to plan about and then plan some more. There will be lots of details you have not yet thought through. As I was planning, this went from a simple replace the roof project, to a roof and dormers project (because we had to replace flashing between roof and walls, and the siding need to be replaced anyway), to a roof/dormers/insulation project, to a roof/dormers/insulation/overhangs/aluminum wrap project. Yes, it became a big project. But imagine trying to do the project in chunks instead of all at once. In the long run, it’s much more efficient and cost effective to do it all while the ladders are out and the roof is off rather than trying to piece everything together later. Does it make for a long and anxiety-filled two weeks during the project? Of course. But when it’s done, you’re done for a lonnnnnng time, and you have a much healthier and happier home when complete.

 

Speaking of planning, did I mention I set up a paint station in the garage and PRE-PAINTED the siding before it was hung? Much easier and safer to do it that way rather than trying to hang from the dormers to get some paint up there. Plus I was able to put on three coats in the garage instead of one and a half hanging from the dormers.

 

In the final analysis, think of the planning element this way: where are you willing to sacrifice your time on the golf course: now while everything is being done properly and for the long haul? or later while you’re doing the project in 5 stages with lots and lots of rework and frustrations?? I’ll see you on the golf course.

 

 

SURPRISES

Given two years worth of planning, you wouldn’t think there would be any surprises, would you? Of course, you’d be wrong! The biggest surprise was the number of times I went on material runs. I thought I had a relatively complete material list. Nevertheless, the number of time I found myself going to the home improvement store, hareware store or lumberyard was staggering. Generally for small orders or things we had run out of, but occasionally for changes in approach (scope) as well.

The biggest such scope change is when Tony and I were sitting around chatting at the end of one day. Tony asked me what I was going to do with my back porch roof which was currently flat pitched requiring a rubber membrane or metal roof due to its flatness. After studying on it for a while, Tony suggested raising it up and putting the same shingles on it as the roof had. This was an incredible solution, and took me totally by surprise. It was a definite change in scope, but certainly nothing Tony and the Boys couldn’t handle, and it rendered the final phase of the project – the porch roof – unnecessary because we could roll it right into this project. Perhaps I should make customer service another post in this series. Tony did us a great service with that suggestion. The porch roof is without a doubt the most satisfying deliverable on the project.

Porch roof - notice how it joins the house UNDER the top floor

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increase pitch & use same shingles - for approx. same cost as metal roof installed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Final form. Nice suggestion Tony!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LESSONS LEARNED

• Even with over two years of planning, the biggest lesson learned is that I could have benefitted from more of it. There were more surprises-in-process than I would have liked. A little more planning would have corrected some of it. My relative inexperience in the construction trades shows as well. It would have been beneficial to sit down with an experienced trades person and really talk it through. The upside is with each project, I learn a little more, and will do the next project even better.
• Weather is a bugger. Overall, we really lucked out with the rain thing. The roof has never been more tight, and we did it without so much as a sprinkle while we were in process. But wind was a HUGE factor while we were spraying insulation – a process much like painting, where residue can fly for blocks with the right wind. Our window for insulation was also very small, so we had to battle wind and darkness to get it done. Hat tip to my insulators for pulling in off in difficult conditions and short notice.
• The painting approach worked so well, I will do it that way again next time. Not only could I put three coats of paint on in my paint station, I could also clean the siding meticulously before painting – something I probably would have not done up on the dormers.
• Even with all the planning, don’t forget to rely on your intuition in the midst of a project. I would have never found Tony and the Boys if I had not. Even one month prior to project start, I was not feeling good about my choice of contractors. So I made another trip to my local home improvement center for referrals which eventually led me to T & B. After the deconstruction was over and the contruction started, it became clear that we were very lucky that we had a professional, highly qualified, highly attentive to detail crew on our hands. It is by far the best crew I have ever worked with. It is without a doubt the crew I will call on all future projects, and save a lot of anxiety and hand-wringing in the process. Imaging getting to start a new project COMPLETELY CONFIDENT in the compentence and cost-effectiveness of the crew at the outset.

That settles it, I WILL build in a post on customer service into this series.

Need to home remodel inside or out? Call Tony & The Boys @515-451-3833

After a two week layoff focusing my time, attention, and most of all energy elsewhere, it’s FANTASTIC to get up in the morning and hit the ground blogging, reading other blogs, discovering new helpful tools online (www.pandora.com). Where I’ve been is in the throes of a home remodel project, and a fairly large one as those things go.

It started a couple years ago when we simply needed and wanted a new roof. No problem, right? Then as I was going about the process of taking bids, a contractor told me I would need to replace flashing between roof and walls (dormers). So the roof project became the roof and siding project on the upper half of the house. THEN during the winter months I noticed a fair amount of heat escape based on the snow melt-off on the roof. That meant poor/no insulation in certain areas. So I took the better part of the next year researching insulation options. THEN as long as the roof was off, it was an internal back and forth debate with myself as to whether or not we build overhangs across the roof line. After all, we did this on the new garage project a few years back and it would be nice to match the garage, right?

So the roof project had become: 1. the roof project 2. the dormer siding project 3. the insulation project 4. the overhang project and 5. wrap all soffit and facia in aluminum so I would never have to get up and scrape and paint them and instead go golfing forevermore project. I knew I had a project on my hands, and my wife was getting impatient that our roof (it was still just a roof project to her) had not been replaced yet. After all, the condition of the roof and upper portion of the house was not getting any better. In fact it was getting noticably worse by the month.

Well, the purpose of this post is simply to share the progression of the project in photos. We’ll get into other aspects of project management and leadership in later posts this week.

One of the trickiest (and most time consuming) aspects of any project like this is finding the right contractor who is professional, diligent, cleans up and leaves quality results behind. I’m happy to report that we got really lucky on this one. All future project should go much quicker because I have one call to make to Tony and his crew based in Ames Iowa. More on them later. For now, if you’re in the middle of any kind of a remodel, simply do yourself a favor and call 515-451-3833.

Here are some photos to show the progression:

Our little insulation problem: the heating (and cooling for that matter) escapes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Additional problems caused by the melt-off were ferocious ice-dams in the gutters and outragiously slick steps leading up to the front door. The mail carrier had to attach ice-cleats just to deliver the mail every day. (Kidding, but probably should have.)

 

Enter phase 1: Insulating what we could from the attic and inside the house in the fall of ‘08. That’s right, implementation of the roofing project actually started 6 months earlier insulating what we could from the inside. (We went with foam insulation.) One of the considerations was we had to WAIT long enough for it to be cool enough up in the attic so contractors and project managers would not die, pass out, or suffer brain damage from heat and fume exposure – which put us at about early October in our part of the world. This created urgency for getting the new insulation in while probably not leaving enough time for the rest of the roof project (UH OH – more WAIT TIME!)

 

Phase 1 BFI (before foam insulation). The cellulose (worst stuff in the world) first had to be removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After foam insulation. (Works much better than cellulose.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The progression of Phase 2, strategically timed (after more wait time) for late May – to avoid both April showers and June heat. Happy to report we avoided both.

 

Roof before - notice lack of overhangs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Before

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Front dormer before

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No turning back now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yikes - we're exposed!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enter insulation phase 2.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reconstructed dormers - with overhangs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LOTS of overhang construction

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Increased pitch on garden roof so we could use shingles. (It's nice to match!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tony & the Boys jammin on the siding. Blog post on teamwork forthcoming.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That's Tony on the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All over but the touch up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So that’s where I’ve been, my friends. I’m happy to report the end product exceeded my expectations and we came in relatively on budget – good for a project this size. My larger reason for sharing this with you is there are larger lessons of project management and leadership to share with you in subsequent posts.

Y’all come back now…….

Related posts:

Get the best roof for your house.

Building and Remodeling blog (you can never get enough advice.)

The imperative tips for hiring contractors  (my tip? call Tony!)

The 10th Biggest Mistake Project Managers Make: Make NEW and More Exciting Mistakes!

Nothing is more frustrating to those who serve on project teams than to see the same common mistakes being made on project after project. Instead, why not make new and more exciting mistakes on each and every project?!?

New and more exciting mistakes are much easy to understand and cope with than the same old “poor plan/no plan; failed to communicate; lousy leadership; no stakeholder buy-in” commonalities.

New and more exciting mistakes each time comes from a commitment to learning from the past, and then not allowing those things to happen on subsequent projects. It’s been said that most projects get 90% complete, and then they stay that way forever. That’s a perfect scenario for experiencing the same learning curves project after project. Instead, take the time and make the commitment to learn from experience, and your learning curves will start to stack up on each other – and increase your productivity in the process.

I hope you have found this list of “The Ten Biggest Mistakes Project Managers Make” useful, and that you will take great care in attempting to avoid these potential pitfalls. Rather than considering all of them “must-do’s”, look at the top ten as more of an a la carte menu. Pick one you really want to focus on, and get a handle on that one. Each one that you focus on and improve will significantly increase your project team’s effectiveness and productivity. When you think you have one under control, pick another to focus on. Project management mastery is a process, not an event.

I also suspect you have encountered other “biggest mistakes” in your own practice that didn’t make this list. I welcome your comments and reactions to this blog series. Comment on any of the entries, or forward them to me at info@steinsway.com.

Best wishes for success and satisfaction on your projects!

Related Blogs:

PM Lessons Learned – http://pmlessonslearned.blogspot.com/ Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction : Lessons Learned – http://www.sigir.mil/reports/lessons.aspx Remodeling Lessons Learned – http://contractorsfromhell.blogspot.com/ Spring-Hibernate-Maven lessons learned – http://mikenereson.blogspot.com/

The 9th biggest mistake project managers make: Losing Touch With the WBS

Project management is the fine art of breaking down something large into do-able, manageable pieces. Any other approach than that becomes project MANGLEMENT!

Project manglement is exactly what happens when you take a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach to a project. At the core of breaking a project into do-able parts is the work breakdown structure (WBS). The WBS is a statement of confirmed scope, inclusive of phases and deliverables. It is useful for creating the bigger picture of project requirements, and then for using it as a reference throughout.

If you’re using software, I recommend saving the complete WBS as a baseline before you tack the rest of the schedule on top of it. This way it expands its usefulness beyond the planning phase, well into the launch and control phases. Regrettably, many project managers set this key document aside once it’s created, assuming they create it at all. And they miss out on a key opportunity to plan-do-check-act their way through the project. The WBS: shape it in the scoping phase, complete it in the planning phase, and use it as the key control document that it is throughout the rest of the project life cycle.

Related Posts:

3 Project Pitfalls - more interesting perspectives on project pitfalls.

Mind Mapping and the Work Breakdown Structure

Undercorrelated WBS Elements Means Understated Cost Risk - interesting stuff from the Herding Cats blog

Nice slideshow here on the changes in project management

Project Management Then & Now

View more OpenOffice presentations from spenkar.

The 8th Biggest Mistake Project Managers Make: Neglecting Risk Management

When it comes to project risk, it pays to be paranoid!

Unfortunately, too many project managers treat risk management as a nice-to-do agenda item rather than a need-to-do recurring review in the planning and controlling phases. You can be more proactive in identifying and preventing risk. Taking the time to brainstorm and identify what can go wrong is the first and most important step. Minimizing and mitigating the fall-out from that risk element follows quite naturally once the potential risk has been identified.

Only after all other means of prevention have been attended to should you join a good religion and pray that nothing happens to the project.

Photo from Flickr by astabraksabah

PMI Risk Management Professional Training Quick Book

View more presentations from Pmo Resources.

Smile & Move™: A reminder to happily serve (a smovie)

7th Biggest Mistake Project Managers Make: Act “Solid-line” in a “Dotted-line” Environment

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

New ideas are not born in a conforming environment.

Some of the biggest, and most impactful mistakes are made in the “behavioral” domain of project management – the space of “how people work”  – also known as the “art” of project management. Your first responsibility is to recognize where you are. Most projects these days happen in ad hoc, temporary, dotted-line reporting structures. So when the project manager gets too authoritative, as if operating in a solid-line reporting structure, breakdowns occur. Conversely, under-supervising in a hands-off, “you can do it” or “I’ll handle it myself” mode isn’t constructive either.

So what’s a project manager to do?

In most cases, a high-involvement, coach-approach works best. In a high involvement approach, once the team is acclimated, you need to ask more questions than provide answers. It’s a matter of helping your team come up with their own answers. Therefore, high doses of listening are also required. You’re interested in the development of your team as well as successfully completing the project. Check your “expert” hat at the door. The team will need more of an expert facilitator, leading them through the minefields of scope creep, budget shortfalls, and change orders, than a project guru who has seen it all, knows it all and knows exactly what to do in every situation.

For best results, take a coach approach, and lend a helping hand when necessary.