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Contract time field

welcome everybody to this month's a young professional series webinar before we get started just an introduction my name is Matthew Fox the community development manager here at CSI and I am joined today by my coworker Caitlin Solomon Caitlin if you'd like to say hello hi thanks Matt yeah we're excited to have you guys you join us for part five and our understanding the project team series if you've been with us from the beginning welcome back we're glad you're finding continual value and I'm sure today's panel will be amazing if you haven't joined us before what we're doing is an understand the project team series so we have started out with different parts of the project team starting with owners and September's we've covered architects engineers and in December right before you all went for holiday break if anyone had a fun vacation we had a great webinar panel on specifiers and information managers so we're kicking off the new year talking about understanding the contract administrator we have a wonderful panel of volunteers who are looking forward to talking with you guys Douglas Freeman Nathan woods and Brian Varner and that's going to be giving a more in-depth bio before they speak today and please remember that we do a lot a lot of time for question and answers so feel free to either put it your questions on Twitter or in the chat box but you will have plenty of times to ask you story gentlemen anything you've ever wanted to know about contract administration as always we invite you to participate online with us I will be live tweeting on Twitter I'm using the hashtag CSI yps so feel free to tweet comments highlights questions for our panelists it's another great Avenue if you don't necessarily like the chat feature and because I like to bribe people to talk with me on Twitter if you actually tweet your biggest takeaway from this presentation or if your life tweeting with me all day you will be entered to win a CSI swag bag so I am the keeper of the swag and I hope I have the opportunity to mail some out if someone after today's webinar you also can continue today's conversation on our young professionals LinkedIn group submit questions or suggestions for next month's call you can post your own observations experiences or articles for professional development if you are not part of our LinkedIn group simply go online to LinkedIn that comm and search CSI young professional and Madam and turn it back over to you so you can kind of get some housekeeping rules before you begin Douglas Freeman has both a master's of architecture and a juris doctorate of law and has been practicing in the construction industry for nearly 30 years in addition to his work at Andre Johnson architects dubbo serves as the co-chair of the CSI construction contract administration Practice Group and as an active member of the American Institute of Architects a national organization of minority architects also known as Noma and the American Society of interior designers at this time I want to just give Douglas five to seven minutes or so to talk a little bit about his experience and how he got to areas in the industry within contract administration and what tools or information during these last thirty plus twenty five to thirty years or so of his professional career that have kind of led to him to where he is today so Douglas if you want to join the conversation we love to hear from you thank you for having me this is Douglas Freeman I'm not quite sure where to start mind it was ninth grade when I decided I wanted to be an architect so this has been a focus of my we've had to law school after meeting man after he came in there are certain records for a while went back not to change the professions but because I wanted the Education Committee and so I have worked in all phases of the profession design production management the majority of my career has been in construction administration I enjoy being able to be out in the field interact the contractors I learn something every day as matt said three cents with the CSI gave such an impression precious room invite anyone join in on those sessions as well the next one will be next Tuesday even a plug here for next Tuesday at 12:00 CSIS website in the information remember man anyone to join a madness now knows who as well as each month myself and for my generation system so practice misconstruction demonstration team not much appreciation days all right well looks like Douglas is gonna be quickened to the point for me today here I was just getting ready to type some more info but I'm sure we'll hear more from him as we get going through today's session with that I did want to introduce more formally our second panelists of the day Nathan woods there we go Nathan has over 25 years of professional architecture experience and 15 years dedicated to construction administration Nathan's expertise includes a diverse range of project types spanning the range from houses to hospitals he also has a proficiency with multiple delivery methods such as IPD design-build design assist multi-prime a more conventional project delivery barriers in this role as senior construction administrator he personally manages multiple significant projects while providing guidance and support to all project teams during the CA process in addition to maintaining healthy client relationships on major projects his in-house duties include developing training implementing the tools forms procedures and practice guidelines for staff performing construction administration Nathan provides in-house expertise and detailing guidance based on the extensive materials and constructability knowledge so Nathan at this time we'd like to hand it off to you to talk a little bit about you know the long-term path of where you got to you and how you decided on construction administration and any tips and tricks along the way for you Nathan pretty much with Legos it's just like the rest of us who became architects Legos was inspirational but I found myself instead of a plane with Legos what I enjoyed the most was building the Legos and tearing them down and building something new I never sat and played with the building model the end so it was the continual construction and development of the model where I would enjoy and that's partly into architecture and then when I got into architecture I spent the first nearly 10 years document and drafting and then later I moved to CAD and moving the CAD was to me a bit of a disappointment when your hand drafting you have a sense of accomplishment when you finish the drawing you know you can step back and clear out the smudges and your artwork is there on the page for all the seats in CAD you can kind of click file save as and start a new file it's not nearly as satisfying so I became interested in finding out other avenues for me to be creative and the construction administration process appealed to me and I live into that jumped in with both legs really started managing several different projects at once as more or less basic job captain level architecture and I learned such a stupendous amount of lessons through the sea a process that I rapidly increased my architectural know-how and valuable the company what what you learn in see a people at her to UNCA should never hurt you again you learn through your mistakes and as you discover through your relationship with the contractor you know what kinds of things they need on the client sources what I provided that feedback loop is just absolutely phenomenal and so I really came to enjoy that I also enjoyed the tightness and pressure you know there's a contractor up there you can imagine you have a guy throw a hammer and he'll go to hang a picture he has got there's a hammer a nail going where and you've got to answer right now or all I can guarantee you he will put it in the wrong spot so the timeliness the time pressure I guess as well as the ability to be decisive and to be awesome to have some sort of administrative acumen where you are documenting things well so you can go back to the tree and find them there's sort of the balance of these skills that really appeals to me it's not for a timid or a Wallflower tech person this is not a part of industry where you can back and and be quiet there is definitely an alpha type personality I think to a successful construction administrator because you're agreeing with a lot of other helpful and personalities out in the field and it's too easy for someone to be pushed around and manipulated especially when you're young like the very first construction administration meeting was a couple days before a big concrete pourer for the Saban base and the superintendent of old really old guy lifted me into well we're gonna for this lab and then we'll come back and follow-up visit Friday we're going to pour this lab on a Friday and then come back on Monday we'll do this archives and you looked at me with this sort of challenging expression on his face and I looked like to him then start thinking about what I knew about concrete and the fact that you need to get on it within the first eight to twelve hours to cut it so the shrinkage cracking is controlled otherwise what the point so that's what I said I looked at him right back to the eye and I said what's the point if you're gonna come back on Monday and just go ahead and literally cracks you got and may didn't burst out in the last year and he kind of joggled my elbow and yeah as a test in Judea welcome aboard welcome to the team and let's go get this thing built so right from the very beginning they've probably been a test of wills more or less and I find myself kind of thriving in one environment so that's why I do see a part of the project where the rubber really really and it's the most fun and also you get to be creative in it because there's a there is a desperate need for an immediate solution right now and I find the challenge of making the solution to come up with those those solutions to be very very rewarding I'm not sure I think that answered the question it did great that's everything a really good starting point for that Nathan as well but we want to introduce now our last of the panel speakers here so we've got to pull over here we have Brian Varner Brian Varner FCS I CCC a LEED AP is a California attorney who represents building owners contractors design professionals and product manufacturers he also coordinates the construction management certificate program at Sonoma State University and teaches courses in California construction law and contracts he attained a CCC a certification in 1997 and I'm sure at some point Brian will probably let us know a little bit more about what that acronym means so Brian will hand it over to you with the exact same question as the last two speakers thanks very much hello everyone thank you very much for making the time to hear this webinar it's a reflection of your own commitment to professional development and that's what CSI is all about contract administration I grew up in a construction family my father was a general building contractor my closest uncle was a architect who worked on very far large projects and one of the things I learned growing up as well as through my professional practice is that while it's very important that a lot of time and focus and concentration be put into developing the best construction documents and project manual we can to build things as as Nathan said it's it's when the rubber hits the pavement is when we build stuff when we finally break ground and we start building a building or something and we're using all those documents to build something it's a very very important part of the process of that being contract administration we have design professionals that put the construction documents together and the project manual we have very experienced contractors and tradespeople who know how to do their jobs in the field but there's a vitally important role I consider this very important in process quality control and quality assurance that we have individuals that understand how to administer the contract how to use all the information in the various pieces of the different contract documents and use them together in a in a comprehensive way to make sure that all the activities are performed correctly in a timely way in a coordinated way and especially in a documented way it's more important than ever in today's world that we document the way buildings are built not only from an owners and facility managers standpoint in having that record available but especially in this day and age in which we achieve goals of sustainability and it makes it's so important that the requirements that owners and design professionals put in the construction documents actually occur so the role of a contract administrator in in creating the record in creating the paperwork even though it may be digital to ensure that these the justification for the certifications can be obtained so that the people who come in and do commissioning and testing and eventually take over management and operation of the facilities have the information they need to do it correctly and end up with a well-built building that meets the owners and design professionals expectations so to me the contract administration role in construction is very very important and let's let's remember something else it's not it's not one occupation that that really is stands by itself you have contract administration specialists who work in the design firms you know once the project manual is done once the contracts are selected and you break ground you move into construction contract administration there are specialists in design firms that work in construction administration they may also work on design or other parts of what design professional - but they develop a real expertise concentrated in construction contract administration same with general building contractors and subcontractors in order to meet your contractual obligations in order to meet your own internal budgets your own schedules you have to make sure that everything is on a timely coordinated sequenced basis not only in the field but with all the paperwork that has to be processed the substitution requests the submittals for decisions that design professionals and owners have to make the paperwork that is necessary to process requests for information RFI progress payment requests the body of knowledge you need is a contract administrator in a subcontractors office or general construction company's office is really equal to the knowledge that a contract administrator has to have in a design firm and even in some public works and large private development companies or firms there are contract administrators in those companies so the occupation of contract administration really covers many of the of the of the player areas in construction not just design professionals as we've heard so far so I think it's a it's a field it's an occupation field that's very broad it's essentially vital to the success of a project from each player standpoint so I think the more you learn about contract administration the better you can help meet your company's contract obligations and be a good team player with everyone else on a project - to make sure the whole project is successful I am NOT a a front seat driver contract administrator as a as an attorney I'm a consultant to my clients but I very regularly get involved in questions that come up during construction about how to resolve claims and questions and issues that come up and so my my experience in looking for all these different clients as well as the education I received through the CSIs see a certification program the the CM certificate I got through the program I run at our local university even to some extent the LEED credential as well as all the other seminars that I go to regularly have helped my body of knowledge that's helped me be a better analyst of these issues on behalf of my clients and then hence a better counselor and even advocate on their behalf to help them in resolving these things again the to me one of the best ways to green our industry is to help ensure that our projects are completed in a way where we don't have the aftermath the catastrophe of post construction claims and lawsuits in the light the more we can do to keep our projects on track on budget on schedule in the first place and build them right the first time that's the best way to green this this industry I think in subby again the value of what contract administrators do in the construction process can never be undervalued can never be underestimated I think that's it for now unless I know we'll have questions and some more comments well thank you Brian in fact we do have a question already lined up for us so with those introductions of our panelists hopefully now you all on the phone know who's on the phone to talk to here we will get into the part of the session where we do ask for your feedback so we have our first question here for all three of you coming in from Ian Ian asks how do you suggest the team as a whole keeps track of all the different paperwork I guess I'll take the first day Batman I would strongly encourage each member of the team to make sure that they are attending on set of Records I think the architect ultimately in most cases is going to be the master keeper of the record for the project then it would be unless it was the CM type of a project in that case that would probably be to see him that was the ultimate regular coder but everybody should keep their own individual records with their subcontractor owner contractor design professional design consultant they need to have their own complete record you would not want to be put in a situation where you are relying on somebody else's information now in doing that if you come together as a team and have your project meetings or the sharing information need to make sure that you're looking at everybody else's documentation make sure that it is this mess with yours and it's none is major conflicts between what they're saying the record is illiteracy the record is and there are software packages out there that you could use their packages to use on a project-by-project basis or in fact is where you can use them just your own internally and not wanting to get into promote one product over another there are so well out there I found that a lot of the major ones that the contractors use are not necessarily user friendly for design professionals and the ones that design professional shoes might not cover everything that the contractor wants which again with this reason for each person make sure that they are maintained are all separate and separate record this is this is Nathan I'd like to expand on that a little bit to the question using the word team is interesting are we talking about the architectural team you know from design to construction are we talking about the owner contractors as well the I have a theory or philosophy I guess about documentation that is to do it it's interesting to me that during the design of our projects we as architects tend to pile things by who we are talking to if we are having a discussion with a landscape architect or the structural engineer or an agency or an owner we're filing things by those types of categories but during construction the the nature of the dialogue changes and now we're talking to people about things so instead of filing by people we're gonna file by thing so we're having dialogue about RFI is request for information we're having our dialogue about you know change orders a dialogue about construction issues or build reports or you know whatever it may be so instead of there's a clear break I think in filing method from designs you construction when we're in CA again I file I attend my our file is everybody you documents whatever it isn't going to do I file them with the RFI that we were discussing or whether it's a similar because some other type of document I get to be extremely useful in going back and finding the history of those things and now there's some tools that help us do that you know more or less automatically like new forma is excellent at appending all the correspondence to goes back and forth to a given issue or document or file so that is one way of keeping trying to cut paperwork logging is a big part of what we do just from document management what drawings are issued and when and what belt they look old and what ASI what comprises the bids versus the permit that versus the issue for constructions that me sure that everybody has the same documents I am a believer that the architect maintain the most current set of drawings so when you're working with the field and the contractor is such a large job you get two to three hundred subcontractors making sure that people are using the most current and correct clause and the major undertaking and I believe that's the architects responsibility because they are the issuer of those documents so developing a system having a shared repository for those over such as polluting studio or box or Dropbox those types of things are huge evaluate for team collaboration but if the architects try to maintain it and that usually falls to the CAA because they're the ones were so intimately involved with issuing those updated drawings during the course to work all right I'm not sure if Brian you wanted to add to that but that seems like we got a pretty good breakdown of some of that question Ian if there's any more to your question you'd like to ask feel free to type and then we can continue to visit that conversation meantime I did have kind of a question here for nope I could have just a little little ending chapter on that on these comments really really good question in comments you know the administrative process of administrating the contract should be delaney ated in division 1 general requirements specification division and so once we're in construction the the administration of you say paperwork will usually be tracked in what become logs as Nathan mentioned or alluded to you know RFI's will end up having a logging system so we'll substitution requests change orders progress payments field inspection reports everything that's used and if we have one general contractor then they will be processing all of the downstream paperwork submittals RFI's substitution requests product samples and I like to come from downstream subs through them and with their point person transact administrator in the design professionals firm so there's a natural logging process that's developed on how paperwork is tracked and I think the two best or contract administration players that have the most complete set of everything would be the design professional CA and the general contractor CA who are working one-on-one the design professional will be handling all the communications through the owner and various consultants professional and consultants while the GC is handling the logging and the processing of all the various submittals that come from downstream sources and many of those people don't have to see all the other paperwork from the other players you know plumbers don't have to see the submittals of roofers and the like necessarily unless that becomes necessary when they're working in penetrations through the roof for example but there's a natural logging system that's developed and you know that just keeps everything running smoothly and predictably and again so everybody can look in the right places to find the information they need at any given time okay thank you thank you Brian yeah interesting how the industry though as as delivery methods become more collaborative with design-build high PD and persists those documentation methods are evolving very rapidly and so one of the things I want to talk about today was the CC 8 certification process becoming a certified construction contract administrator was extremely helpful to me back in the past as sort of establishing a baseline and knowing how things were supposed to go according to the book you know in a perfect environment this is how the project relationship should be that baseline helps tremendously an understanding or predicting the outcome of deviations from those baseline so we have a hybrid contract for every method you can kind of anticipate how it's going to modify you know from base my house going to deviate so you can kind of predict the outcome the ramifications and how to protect yourself and how to document things more carefully I just think that's really interesting this in the industry today I'm seeing such a rapid evolution in the collaboration and confrontational projects it's phenomenal it's changed eating I'm working on several large projects with the same contractor different owners the same contractor it just in the last three years the same teams we have evolved tremendously it's fun to watch all right now I'm going to take over for a second we have some Twitter activities first of all thank you for those who have been joining the conversation online we'll give a shout out to Jonathan Ryder but Nathan actually did a great comment on Twitter and Nathan by the way way to hold out on me that you had a Twitter account um you can follow him at 4wd photo for anyone on Twitter the Nathan you brought up a great point about how you said there was a tipping point in office eyes in project type that justified having contract administrator specialist can you elaborate on that a little bit more it might be easier on the phone that in 140 characters and then really talk about how what those smaller firms or projects can do to make sure they still get the expertise that contract administrators provide on a project yes good shot to try to do that um so in my response I said that there are certain types of projects that really are are worthy of having of focus is specialists somebody who does VA for a living multifamily construction is very litigious and that's a great example where you're really somebody who knows the product type and has built them before knows what though what's a watch for and helps guide that's just the contrary from the owner three best practices to get that program the other example is school I think that's another very litigious sort of publicly funded environments where things can go sideways quick and you're used to dealing with the lowest common denominator contractor and it requires special handling to do that well on the flip side there are small commercial t-i-is residential projects there's things like that that are really could be the best managed by whoever put together the drawings and the tipping point can mean is I guess that the type of work I think also if you're doing have as a firm if you have a lot of repeat works like little similar and helper projects you guys for years I did talk about them Starbucks I must have built 150 of them in a short period of time I became an expert in those and it made sense to have one or two people do their own little CA Department for that type of project and they just ended not one after another so so those kind of lent themselves wrong but where it doesn't make sense to have a specialist I think again is very small premise where you may have you know two or three people that these hacks change during the course of working that the gospel and job captain in the project manager now you're the CA or our projects where you have the opportunity to expose more people to it in my career I had a hundred person firm and we specialized in multifamily but what we did is we created a group of people who are CAS we had about 40 projects under construction I had about five people who are doing dedicated full-time VA and then we took the job captain's for each of those projects or under construction and it rotated them into the CA a pod and so they got to build their own projects and they did it under the direct supervision of a full-time see a person but what that job captain would learn in the course of handling the RFI about beautiful why doesn't this dimension had up and how the job happens learning you know he's finding no mold in his drawings and by oh my gosh they never do that again when we finished that project they got a significant sense of accomplishment but they go back into the office on the whole and they share that experience with what they've learned and makes them a much stronger architect they no longer make the same mistakes the next project that came out becomes faster cheetah excluded and they required less supervision that is they become the supervisors that much faster we had this sort of a this rotational system where we educate mentors our job captain's hustling through the see a pod but that was nice to having the rooty kind of work would have enough dedicated CAS to do that small offices or firms and focus on smaller projects you're going to be wearing all the hats and you know again it's the education it's the immediate feedback of your get through it and you brought the feeling that dint work you have learned a Bible out and it's how you respond to those scenarios that I think we ought to talk about as well but it's a it's such a phenomenal experience you can't be competent Technical Architect without having gone through the CA process you just can't thank you I didn't know if any of our panelists that was kind of taken from one of Nathan's personal tweets but anyone else have any thoughts on this subject I think Douglas and Nathan covered it very very well and speaking of Twitter just wanted to give you all at Dai roof seamers gave contract administrators a little shout out they said CAS are a vital part of our relationship with customers and builders and thanks for your contributions and insights so a little appreciation for you panelists hope you appreciate it today speaking on a comment that was brought up in passing about the CCC a because this is a young professional series what professional development opportunities have you guys had as CAS or do you recommend people getting involved with and how does that really help you in your day-to-day lives and how people view you in the industry I work for a firm that that trusted me to make you know be as the expression they used was don't make more mistakes in the morning making erasing you afternoon so they gave you a great deal I stood and Trust and they you know they monitor what I did before they let me go out into the field fairly early and develop myself while that was happening the CCA program was starting within the CSI the certification program and the the manual practice field chapter seven the manual practice was a phenomenal guide for me now it's been replaced by the construction contract administration practice guide but that document is is such a brilliantly written concise book in a short amount of pages they've really covered with scope and depth or what does it ca you how should they do it what's the mentality they should do and what to watch out for so I really recommend that that program I learned a lot from it he's the biggest takeaway from that program for me like I said earlier was to learn the baseline how would power things you know what in a perfect world how would they be done and so then I could you know monitor how far from the baseline I was deviating and at any given job another thing I learned was a mindset as a construction administrator whether or not you prepare the documents or not you're going to come across scenarios where you wish something was in the drawings and you know it's going to be a pad it's going to be a change order the owners gonna be ugly but this is no way around it in construction ministration we have to be faithful to what's in the documents we're our interpreters of the documents and you know it has to be reasonably inferable if it's not very own up to be that really helps guide us in our responses to you RFI's from the field or even change order requests we we have to be prepared or what's in the drawings and the CPA program really echoes like that and it helps make me a much more balanced and fair individual out of the field and with that sort of mentality contractors are much more willing to work with me instead of just somebody who says let's do it my way you know I don't care from time the growing the citizen you know that was with the land in tents is do it anyway and that never goes long so having a very clear mind size is very important I learned that who the CCA program to followup on that mic Nathan said I was fortunate fortunate enough to when I first got into doing construction administration work for a firm that gave me the latitude to go out and learn it and make mistakes and learn from my mistakes I think that's probably the best way to learn is to actually learn by doing the way I try to train people is I will have them watch me do whatever it is first with us reviewing an RFI or conducting a meeting or whatever nothing watch me do it first then have them do it under my clothes supervision until we're comfortable with that and then take the next step to letting them do it on their own and following up and reviewing what they did so to me the best way to learn is to actually learn by doing now there are webinars and I've mentioned mine that I do with Jim rains before and we rely on Henry on the practice booklet construction administration breakfast book in fact Jim helped author that book and as Nathan said it's a great resource for not only those sort of doing it for the first time but it's a refresher for those have been doing it for a long time to get a baseline as to what the process is supposed to be like so that looks a good resource webinar that we do want something on is I think a good source CSI is great at trying to help advance the profession in those type of efforts and there are other seminars webinars conferences that you just have to keep an eye out for Norman educational group David will have some educational learning opportunities as well but you have to kind of seek them out they are out there listen this is Bryan I'd like to chime in a little bit on this topic first I think the one of the best opportunities you have to develop knowledge and expertise in contract administration is to become a member and get involved in si si si si is not a profession or occupation specific concentrated trade association it's composed of construction professionals from literally every technical niche and occupation and profession in our entire industry and that makes the organization unique compared to all the other organizations that are occupation specific participating in the si si environment immerses you in this very rich diverse room full of talent and knowledge and through the conversations through the technical programs that are offered regularly that constantly vary in in subject matter you cannot help but learn and learn all the time from the presenters and the people around you in the organization about how to do contract administration because si si is a broad-based organization I think it's really the industry's leader in teaching everyone in construction everyone and all the other trade associations about the importance of putting construction documents and project manuals together correctly and then correctly using an administrative process to build out these projects to make sure as we've all mentioned buildings are built the way owners and designers intended them in the first place and on budget and on schedule si si have certification program one of which is for contract administrators that at least two if not all three I think all three of us have the CA certification there's another in specification writing and consulting there's another one in product representation so this organization is probably the leader in the industry in giving you these opportunities but other organizations I'm sure have some some programs as well and there are commercial education providers as has already been mentioned that that produced this kind of programming I'd look locally the construction management certificate program I run here at the local university I happen to have John well he's a CSI member nationally renowned educator on specifications and CA he will be teaching his course 30 our course on CA this winter starting in in February so look in your local area at your local community colleges and other organizations that have these kind of topics from time to time but again in passing the best place your best task for professional development for the rest of your career is in CSI and if you get involved and participate to some extent it won't be too long before you realize this and it will help you grow and learn for the rest of your career and beyond I know Matt and I like that pitch thank you Brian and then notice everybody everyone to join as a notice everybody I did put a couple of links into the chat box for you all related to if you are interested in the practice group that Douglas and Jim Raines work on together that does meet the fourth Thursday of every month from 12:00 until 1:00 Eastern as he mentioned next week we do have part three of a four-part series and are actually a part two sorry part two of a four-part series on mistakes and architects can make we're not implying that they do the same that sometimes they can and then we do real-life examples of how to potentially work through some of those issues so if you're interested in that feel free to check that out and additionally I did put the links in there for both CSI certificate which is the CDT as well as the certification the CCC a links to both of those in the audience chat box as well for all of you I did have one more question here before we kind of start to wrap up today's session for all of you it's been mentioned a couple of different times that while we may talk about people as being the contract administrator or the contract administrators as a title it's been mentioned many times that it isn't necessarily an independent profession and it's something that potentially anybody can kind of get involved in and you've all done a great job of a sales pitch of kind of making it sound like something that might be exciting and interesting to get involved in so for those on the call that may be art you know a background in architecture and design or don't have a background in law like the three of you all kind of have those backgrounds for those other people on the call that maybe have a background you know in engineering or have a background in one of the skilled trades what would be a good first thing that they can look into to maybe get a first-hand experience of this is it's something where you just ask the boss to sit in on some you know administration related tasks or is there a specific person in the building team they should go to to get that experience or that input from we'd love to for me on that idea this is Nathan it would be challenging for someone outside of the design environment to be able to do CA you could theoretically have a contractor come in and do it there is a mindset there may be nothing guard against I'll given that minute I have had one of my most successful employees was a structural engineer and he did he answered specialized with his own firm he even understood the process the process of za but he also wanted to explore more of the opportunities in design and how you know it's obviously the technical mindset he's not the kind of guy that starts off with a blank piece of paper but he valued and preserved the design intent and was able to know the technical he knew materials very well so an engineer type who can come in with a good materials knowledge and some basis of understanding how construction works Kankan do an adequate job of it in this particular case the structure engineer came in and quickly it was promoted to associate partner he just did a fantastic job he understood the materials he understood the process and once learned once he learned you know how to preserve and protect the design sense he is fantastic and and you know those was a straightforward master for those very lateral move for him to go from structural engineering architecture but he did it successfully I've had contractors come in to always a lot of a lot of young people who have gone to school and studied architecture and then they get out of the program and start being a contractor and after a few years then you come a little bit disillusioned and they want to be more on the creative side I welcome them with wide open arms they can come right in we kind of got a start and over again and they have to learn more about the process what will the architect do it's different from the contractor and the the first thing they realized that it takes so much more than thinking you know we sit there and reduce produce produce without acid and think before we can produce accurately and that's just something that contractors don't understand and have a difficult time providing a value to on the field as well but once they learn that process then something that has had construction experience can be implemented very successfully this is Brian very quickly besides getting involved in in CSI I think a really really the best place to get a an excellent foundational body of knowledge to develop your your knowledge in the CA area would be to go through CSIS construction document technologist certificate program its curriculum that covers what the project delivery systems are and then and then reviews some of it in more concentrated detail in how particularly the design bid build a process works what the various contract documents are what's contained in them what requirements are there how those requirements affect and modify other terms and conditions and requirements and other contracts contract documents and then therefore how all the documents are used together to administer projects I can't think of a better place to start in developing a CA body of knowledge than to go through CSIS construction document technologists program non-members can go through it it's available to everyone in the world I think that's a great place to start I agree with both of them two previous speakers speaking in terms of an architect the intent during the construction administration phase is to ensure that the design intent is displayed in the documents as being follow through unit so you have to have that understanding of what the design intent was to be able to perform the stennis effective and it might be tougher for some folks that don't have that architectural training on a design background to be able to do that we are the initial in most cases interpreter of the documents and so you have to have to have that within you now that said I do I had an administrative assistant who worked with me over several years who came to develop that base of knowledge and I felt comfortable in allowing them to get more involved in reviewing RFI's do on-site business and that type of thing and this person had a front entry background had no proper technical training at all so it can be done but I think it takes longer and it may be harder and if you don't have that and you want to get into this I think starting with CSI and I'm the world pregnancy assigned it's not because this is sponsored by CSIS because the truly is a wonderful organization that is goal is to advance the knowledge and convince the construction industry all right well I'm not gonna turn down a plug like that well we are getting to the end of the hour and we do like to see on time so I'm gonna do similar to the question I asked every month for all of you on the call we've talked a lot about you know instruction administration now but looking into next month where we'll be looking at contractors and understanding what they do if you could give us a brief story or a brief anecdote or something related to your work as a contract administrator and how you have or have never in some cases maybe worked with a contractor as a way to kind of tie into next month hope they're all quiet nobody wants the topic for next month is one containing the contractor this is doc we interact with contractors on a daily basis I could tell stories forever good and bad among interactions with contractors but I guess the the key to me is having a good open line of communication between the contractor and the opportunity early design professional open honest communication that is timely if you have that then you're 99% to having a successful project and that includes the documents being put together in the will because you're the drawing suspects that's the formal communication those have to be put together well when you're processing our advice they need to be answered and asked in a precise clear manner processing payment applications whatever it is that you're doing that communication has to be there and you need to build a relationship with the contractor and build a sense of trust and sometimes that's difficult to do in in in a typical design gig scenario we kind of think it's adversarial but you have to find a way to overcome that for the good of the projects were good at your owner so without getting into war stories that's kind of a big overview is having that communication established and trying to build a trustful relationship at the contractor this is Brian I think Douglas is absolutely spot-on I'm reminded of something my father taught me growing up he was a general building contractor he said that you know success in construction is not only about performing your work really well in producing a really good product for the owner equally important is the quality of the service that you provide your owners and others along the way it's how you get referrals and repeat work and then to draw from today's conversation the more your expertise has developed in the area of contract administration and the spoon of those communications go with with all the players particularly the design team you will please the owner you'll please the owners first right left-hand consultant design professionals and this is how you get repeat work and referrals and build your business so it's about good work it's about really good service and that includes really excellent contract administration it looks like Nathan's going to be quiet on us so contractor you get really going to understand what their needs are and you know you gotta get in the mindset of the enemy for this week it's what cost was you say but you have to uh you need to understand the training of one they need the information yeah they're they're doing what I consider to be phenomenally difficult projects the third process they've got to look at a ceiling plan and know that a conduits gotta go there for a light fixture that has to be in this slab before the wall goes and so they've got to have the condo rabbit to the footing it's not really shown on the bonus show you have to be able to figure all that out and the sequence of construction before they really begin and that's a that's a difficult thing to do they don't always do it right and that's why we're here we help them get through to the endgame process but understanding their needs you know dementia Nukem hard to sauce using grid lines instead of you know partition walls and aren't built yet you know how do you locate a toilet well the waste lines got to go on that slab first well you can't dimension the toilet to a wall the wall not there so they're out in the middle of the dirt field going where so understanding what they need to dimension from that's really important understanding that cost pressures they're under knowing you know document control events about before what is your baseline what's your bid set and how does that evolve is that when did they fit how are you tracking the changes between growing issuances so that they can accurately price them it's it's a very very very collaborative issue now it is we're getting contractors on board earlier and earlier in the design process with design assistant IPD they truly are collaborators and it's it's it's it's absolutely phenomenal to work with a great team I'm doing project simultaneously where I have the worst contractor I've ever experienced 79 square foot building was taking over four years to build and I'm also working with all the best contractors I've ever experienced it's just 160,000 square foot building to get built 18 months I mean that goes to tell you that it's the relationship and not the difficult not the challenge of the project to be successful so you know working very collaboratively early on is is a huge thing to do understanding the contractors needs and what do they need out of the relationship and also have methodology of mentality a process where we provide philosophy of being firm air and fast we talk about firm earlier in the project being shared within the contract documents started to run fair you can pair within the contract documents firm when the proctor wasn't deviate from those documents you have to say no unless I've got a really compelling reason and then and then fast you've got to be able to respond to things in a very timely fashion because they need it now they're scheduling their price team they got deliveries they have long lean items we have to respond immediately or else it's too late so firm fair and fast is my methodology of dealing with contractors great I think that's a great way to wrap up that session as we go to the last slide I just want to say thank you not only to all of the people in attendance today but also to Brian Douglas and Nathan I think your input was invaluable and especially for you offering to do it for free it's even better so I thank you all for donating your time and your knowledge and your experience at today's call but just wanted to wrap up here as we've alluded to for next month's call but as a reminder for those if you have questions or comments after this session about this session past sessions or of upcoming sessions feel free to reach out to both Caitlin and I you see our information both our email and our twitter handles on the screen as well as the the web address is for both csi's homepage and the young professional series what we call a microsite or secondary website and this reminder again to everybody next month you will be meeting on February 19th again from 2:00 until 3:00 p.m. Eastern we're gonna go on to the next session like you said to understanding the contractors so see here with a quick little short blurb I is kind of a funny here I was up learning that they're more than just the guys at hard hats that you see in truck commercials but what they actually do and the work they have to deal with managing buffa demands of the design side as well as the skilled trades that they may be overseen so we look forward to you I do have fun so again thank you to our three panelists as well as those in attendance and thank you to Caitlin I'll leave it to her to close up with any last comments or look forward to seeing you in February yeah as matt said we just invite everyone to encourage the conversation with us online we have our young professionals LinkedIn group so if you have any questions for the panelists or any questions you want to ask each other about this session or about coming up for next month's session feel free to go to our LinkedIn group or on Twitter we had some Twitter action today which always makes me happy and again the hashtag if you want to share anything involving the industry or professional development our hashtag is CSI yps and we invite you to join us next month thank you all for attending and I hope you enjoyed this session