What are some potential risks in managing a project, okay? Knowing your contract, or better yet, not knowing your contract, is a potential risk, and not knowing the owners closest to your contract is definitely a risk. Now, what are some both inside and outside risks that can potentially derail a project? Okay, things that you certainly have to be aware of, or you've come across and so forth and so on. And again, I'm speaking in very broad strokes because it's such a broad orients. For those of you who are saying, of course, we know that. Well, I apologize because I'm also trying to convey the message to those who don't have, who haven't come across in some of these, or perhaps in the early stages of their careers and should be able to understand a look form. Some of these risks that are appointed out here, and again, this is not all, okay? I'm sure some of you out there can probably take a look and say, okay, well, you forgot this, you forgot this, and you're probably right. These are some of the things that I've come across in my almost 30 years of construction management, and I'm not gonna go through every one of them because we'll be here for the next day and a half talking about them. But some of the ones that, I think, require attention to is the changing known as requirements. I've come across too many projects where the owner, again, I'm not badmouthing the owners because, let's face it, without them, none of us would be here. Where the owners would come in and increase the scope, change the sequencing, change the scope of the contract, of the project, not contract, excuse me. Change the scope of the project and then expect to be delivered within the same amount of time within the same amount of costs. Big problem, it doesn't always fare well. It has to be tended to very carefully, very politically, but nonetheless, it's something you should be aware of because it could do serious damage to your project. The last, not last, the next I would say, critical aspect is poor performance of subs. We all have our favorites, okay? And we usually bid out a job, we all look, somebody who you worked with in the past. You've had success with, and we all want those kind of individuals as part of our team. You want a contractor that has helped you succeed in the past to help you succeed in the future, and there's a level comfort there. Okay, but the one thing that you've taken in consideration is the fact that the performances of a subcontractor is only as good as the performance of the leader and the people in the field. So managing to a subcontractor and not taking anything for granted by planning the process through, okay and keep something in mind, what is the subcontractor's most important goal, right? It's to develop a process of productivity which, of course, will lead to profitability. As long as they're working, as long as they're not delayed, they'll be successful, they'll make money, and everybody will live happily ever after. Safety, poor safety planning can destroy your project, can absolutely destroy it, and let's face it. Going to the human aspect, which I just mentioned earlier, it's not just about money, it's not just about schedule. You're talking about people, okay? And you want these people as I mentioned before to that, when they come in to work in the morning to make sure that they go back to their families that night. I have seen accidents before, and I've seen what they can do both emotionally. I've seen what they can do both financially. I've seen what they can do in terms of delaying a project and a kind of, let's call it, for lack of a better term, cleanup that's required after the fact to get the project back to rolling again. Cuz a serious accident can really do a considerable amount of damage to your project, and the progress of your project, and the people that are working there. Cuz, let's face it, if it's not a safe project, okay, there's a level of comfort there with the tradesmen. And if they're comfortable, they'll produce. If they're worried, if their heads are elsewhere, if they're afraid to work in your site, you will be so unsuccessful that your project will just gonna go down the tubes. And everybody's gonna severely sustain a great level of damage. So another one is design errors. And again, not to badmouth our designers or their design consultants, but errors do occur, will occur. And the question is how do you deal with them? Of course, there's the financial, there's the scheduling implication, which you're gonna talk about in the change orders. But the key component to this is how do you deal with it, okay? And again, the most important part of dealing with designers is what plan is in place in the event of a designer to be able to solve it quickly, effectively and to minimize any sort of delays. The rest of the items, I'm sorry, one more, poor quality, okay. I mentioned the three legged stool before about the owner, the designers, the contractor, well, here's another three legged stool. For you to think about, it's schedule, quality, and cost. Many people have said to me is well, something always has to give. If you push, if you push to get a project done, something's gonna give. If you want quality, it's gonna cost you more, it's gonna take longer. If you want to meet schedule, it could potentially affect the financial side, or more importantly, affect the quality of the project you're gonna get. Well, there has to be a happy medium somewhere, right? There always is. The question is, how do you achieve that happy medium? And that's to really think through the type of project that you have. Of course, the quality control in a warehouse is gonna be considerably not as, what's the word I'm looking for, not as critical, right, as it is to constructing the lobby of a Four Seasons Hotel on 57th Street, okay. Everything has to be absolutely perfect. But that doesn't mean that you can forgo quality just because it's a warehouse, and you can turn over a poor project that looks like absolute garbage. Because it's a warehouse and because it's low cost and so forth and so on. Because you know what, even though it might be a warehouse to you, it's a client's facility that they have to live in, function in, work in, and people will be working in that facility. So if you turn over a garbage product, those people have to look at that so-called garbage product a lot longer than you will, so keep that in mind when you're working on such a projects. Let's talk about contractor relationships for a minute, okay, and the buy out of a good contractual relationship, working relationship, functional relationship, okay? First and foremost, memorialize the scope of services. Make sure that you, and I'm using the word contract in generic terms because it could very well be a subcontractor. Because we've come across in our line of work at STV where we actually managing as CMS agents, managing general contractors or managing CM builders, or in the case of program managements we're managing CM at both agents and or at risk. So some of the key components to a successful process in managing a project is to make sure that everybody understands what the scope of services are being purchased, okay? What is everybody responsible for delivering, okay? What's the schedule, safety requirements, housekeeping, let's face it, which goes right back to safety. And of course, something as minimal that people tend to take for granted is when you're negotiating on particular contract on a buyout, right, after a bid. What's the date on the documents that you're buying? Because let's face it, your foundation drawings, when you bid out the foundation package is dated, let's say, January 1st. When you're buying painting, those documents could be dated November 1st. So obviously, there's a lot of deltas, a lot of differences between what transpired between the January 1st documents and what happened with the November 1st documents. So you have to be aware what documents you bought with every contract. Understand project specific requirements. Where are the utilities coming in? How will that affect your logistics plan? What are the hours of operations? Where are you working? If you're working in a residential environment where you have residences next to you, let's face it, you can't make noise at night, which kind of prohibits you to work after hours. You can't start too early. Cuz a project a few years back, we had an emergency. So we used a hoist, which let's face it, the outside hoist can very, very noisy. And we need to go up in the building literally at 5:30, 6 o'clock in the morning. Well, guess what? This was a very high end residential neighborhood with people with a lot of money and a lot of power politically, and of course, we had the cops down our throat so fast. We did a lot, of course, they understood, or did a lot of explaining, and we ended up killing an hour plus explaining what transpired. And then trying to restore the relationship that we had built over the past few months with a neighborhood. So understand and appreciate the type of a work environment that's surrounding your project, okay? So your hours of operation, your change orders, right, what are the mark ups? What are your payment procedures? How will we get access in and out of the building safely? And the next six bullet points, I'll leave it up to you to read. I'm certainly not gonna through any one of them. Cuz I kinda touched on them in some form or fashion. But there's two I want to, three actually, that I wanna really focus on, right? Fairness and honesty, I believe that, I've always been a big believer that if you shake hands with an individual, your word is a bond. But you do have to follow-up, going back to bullet one, before realizing understand the scope of services. So whatever you shake hands with, live up to that, create a good level of communication and most importantly, live up to your commitments.
