In the next lesson we’ll get into the basics of project management. But there are some things that need to be in place before we can practice successful Full Contact Project Management. In athletics, it’s a rare individual who can step onto the varsity field without first having toiled for years at a lesser level. And even the varsity players, themselves, understand that it must come together and practice as a team in the summer if it expects to be excellent in the fall.
“Individual commitment to a group effort-that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” Vince Lombardi
How do top athletes do this? They have God-given natural abilities (you really can’t “coach” speed very much). And they have taken these abilities and used them in developing skills that set them apart from most.
Now before you start complaining to this coach, and you worry that you possess neither natural abilities or skills for being a competent PM, let me set your mind at ease. If you follow Coach Gary’s guidelines, you will become one of the most effective PMs around, because you’ll become a Full Contact PM. Once you finish this book and adopt the Full Contact PM mentality, you will find yourself actually developing a swagger as you want onto the jobsite or into a meeting.
“Baseball is like church. Many attend; few understand.” Leo Durocher
Why? It’s an attitude, sure. But it’s more than that. No smoke and mirrors. It’s a realization that you understand the most important aspects of the project management process. There is both bad and good news for you.
Bad news. If you are a brand new or relatively new PM, you do have a lot to learn. That is the bad news. Most of the CMs and larger general contractors you might work for will have broader backgrounds and may have superior knowledge in the way they like to do things.
But here’s the good news, and it is, indeed, good: for the things that really matter to you and your company, you will be able, at the very least, to keep pace with these more experienced people. Often, you will outperform them. Again, that’s on the issues most critical to you and your firm. And if you ask yourself what your company needs most, in your abilities, right now, it is probably as simple as making your projects more profitable-improving the bottom line-and that is exactly what you are about to do!
Practice Begins
Some things are just obvious, and we’ll begin there. First, let’s assume that you might have more than one project to manage at a time. And even if you are brand new, and only have one project now, rest assured that you will someday have multiple projects to handle. In any event, let’s agree that it makes perfect sense to get organized for success.
“Drive your business; let not your business drive you.” Benjamin Franklin
Get Your Gear Together
As our mythical sports team gathers together in the locker room, everyone picks up uniforms and other gear. Then Coach gathers them around, talks philosophy, preaches hard work, expects excellence, promises victory, and invites any dissenters to leave.
What next? Coach passes out playbooks. But the playbooks are empty! Sure, he has plays left over from last year, and he might even use some of them for this season. But he has a particular strategy in mind for this particular group of athletes, because he knows a little bit about them. And he’ll devise plays which he knows his new team can run effectively.
Likewise with our own “team”. As we go through the next several chapters you’ll be given effective plays which you can run. You’ll also be given plays that the “defense” may run against you. Be aware of these because, if you are, you can effectively counter them. You’ll also learn that the only plays the defense can dream up are very predictable. The defense runs the same plays over and over.
“Champions aren’t made in the gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them-a desire, a dream, a vision.” Muhammad Ali
Let’s use another sports analogy to illustrate this. Think of your own favorite football team, a team with a winning tradition. One of their basic plays might be “Student Body Right”. This works simply. They have the biggest, “baddest” linemen in the country, and they blast holes through the defense, and the running back follows their lead. Bam! Several yards!
How does the defense counter such a play? At the simplest, they try and get even bigger or “badder”, or faster linemen themselves. Or they try and get sneaky. But everyone recognizes this fact: if you can’t stop the run, you are in heap big trouble, and the day will be long.
More Good News
You are thinking, “Coach, how does this relate to the mess that I’m in right now?” Glad you asked. I am going to promise you something which you can take to the bank. Don’t miss this: For our purpose, which is to maximize our project’s potential revenue and to collect it, your Full Contact PM team will always need to have the biggest, baddest, fastest and smartest players! Then, the worst you’ll ever do is to tie the game, and you’ll win the vast majority of them. Promise.
Back to the Gear & the Basics
You need to pick up your own gear. You have this book, and that’s a great start. But you need another book. Like our athletes, you need a playbook, too. Only for you we’ll call it a job book. Actually, it’s a Winning Job Book. And you need it right now. Pay attention now, and Coach will explain what all goes in it.
The Winning Job Book
For each project you manage, you’ll create a Winning Job Book. Lots of PMs use job books. Full Contact PMs use Winning Job Books-and the difference is immense.
Coach Gary has simplified this process for you. Go to Appendix A, and you’ll see everything you need to create the Winning Job Book. Take the time right now to scan through Appendix A, and get a flavor for how the Winning Job Book is laid out. You’ll soon see why it is such an effective weapon.
What’s so different? First, it is organized-maybe more so than you might be expecting. Probably more organized than you are. This is the way I set up mine. Ignore these guidelines at your own peril. Mine work!
You’ll see we use lots and lots of sections. For instance, we use a separate section for letters from our company and letters to our company. They never go in the same section. They are tracked differently. More importantly, it will be easier for you to find something if it is filed correctly.
You’ll also see separate sections for things like RFIs, schedules of values, billings, meetings, specs, permits and so on.
Coach’s Tip. Trust me on this. Do it this way. Know that the “big boys” also do things this way, and they do so for a reason-to maximize their own project potentials-sometimes at your expense, if you’re not up to the task.
You are about to find out that, in order to implement the plays you’ll be given, you will need to have a Winning Job Book. You should also check in from time to time to our website, www.fullcontactPM.com, because updates are posted when something new or relevant comes along.
What you’ll also want to do is to set up your job file on your company’s computer in the same manner. Only the first project setup takes any time. Once you do the first, everything else is easy, because you will use it as a template.
“It’s not the will to win, but the will to prepare to win that makes the difference.” Paul Bear Bryant
The Winning Computer Setup
At the very least, the Full Contact PM needs to have his job set up on his computer, and preferably on the company network, if you have one. Here’s how mine works.
On the Desktop, I have a folder (or a link, if on a network) which says “Job Files”. When you open it, you’ll see a list of company projects, which should be numbered. When you click on a particular job file, you’ll see a bunch of other subfiles, similar to your Winning Job Book. Go to Appendix B to see how Coach Gary sets up his computer, and do likewise. Create your own sample letters, RFIs, Change Order Requests, Issues/PCOs, Schedule of Values, 2-Week Look-ahead Schedule, and so on.
Some of these will be more important to you than others. For right now, create a sample RFI and a sample letter. You need those from Day 1. Go to Appendix C for RFIs and Appendix D for letters and get some samples. For your letterhead, import your company’s if you have it available digitally. Get someone to help you if you don’t know how. If you don’t have a digital copy of your letterhead, or someone to help you, no problem! We’ll just do it with text-just like in the samples in Appendix C & Appendix D. It is so easy.
What it all comes down to is that we want this to be as automated a process as possible. For instance, when an issue comes up that might result in some extra work for your company, you want to be able to send out an RFI (Request for Information) as quickly as possible. Once you automate your process, you’ll find this to be the easiest thing imaginable.
Same with letters. And we’ll deal with these more fully later in the book. For now, just realize that this system is extremely simple to institute and to run. It will dovetail perfectly with what you are already doing, although you’ll soon want to manage all of your projects the Full Contact PM way. But for now, we’ll just start with the first one.
Here’s the beauty of this kind of a setup: it simplifies your life as a PM and makes you look good!
Well all right, then. Let’s look at some basic steps to becoming a better PM: Full Contact PM 101.