July 15, 2025 • 54 mins
Ian Parr joins the conversation to share insights from his extensive background in construction and the founding of CCS International. He delves into growth strategies, emphasizing the distinction between cost management and estimating, and the integral role of the owner in successful construction projects. Ian discusses early project planning, cost savings, and risk management, illustrated through a senior facility project case study. The episode explores the development and application of Tenzing software, the evolution of construction technology, and the importance of cross-training and staffing. Ian reflects on his career, offering advice to his younger self, and shares final thoughts on business scaling.
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(00:00):
Yeah.
(00:00):
And, on the on the other three hospitals thatwe did, which were under construction
management, they came in about 10% under ourbudgets.
And understand, we're in the same market, sameprice levels, all jobs.
Ours came in about 30% under budget and savedour client.
The client says 35,000,000 because that's whatit was under budget.
(00:24):
We say 25,000,000 because he would have gotprobably 10,000,000 anyway, you know, just even
with a Centimeters.
So the the difference between what everybodyelse got and what we got was about 25,000,000.
And that was just market survey, marketrecommendation, really no risk to the owner, we
felt.
You know, obviously, we were on the job, andand we're pretty confident that our numbers are
(00:47):
good as you get out for a Centimeters.
I mean, we can you know, you you can have thatpride of territory there that they they say we
don't know the market, and we'd say, hell, wetalk to c subs all the time just like you
(01:10):
guidance on how to get more growth, wealth,
and freedom from your AEC company?
Well, then you're in luck.
Hi.
I'm Will Foratt.
And I'm Justin Nagel, and we're your podcasthosts.
We interview successful AEC business leaders tolearn how they use people, process, and
technology to scale their businesses.
So sit back and get ready to learn from theindustry's best.
(01:31):
This is building scale.
Hey, listeners.
It's Will here.
Our mission is to help the AAC industry protectitself by making technology easy.
If you've ever listened to our show, then youknow that the three pillars of scaling a
business are people, process, and technology.
(01:52):
So if you suspect technology is your weekly,then book a call with us to see where we can
help maximize your company's IT cybersecuritystrategy.
Just go to buildingscale.net/help.
Today's guest is Ian Parr, who's the presidentand founder of CCS International, a leader in
construction cost management, ownerrepresentation, and advisory services for
(02:16):
nearly five decades.
He's also the founder of Tenzing LLC, a newventure developing innovative process
management tools for project owners.
A certified professional estimator and graduateof the UK Institute of Building, Ian brings
deep technical expertise and strategic insightto every project.
And under Ian's leadership, CC has become knownfor helping owners optimize budgets, reduce
(02:39):
risk, and make confident data informeddecisions on complex construction programs.
And with all that said, Ian, welcome to theshow.
Thanks, Justin.
How are you today?
Doing great.
Doing wonderful.
One, I appreciate that you gave me a quickerintro.
Obviously, I put it together differently, butlike some people give me like three books of
(03:00):
intro, I'm like, alright.
Well, half the first half of the podcast isjust gonna be the intro, and then after that,
we'll talk about some stuff.
I said the perfect amount, I feel like.
So tell us the tell us the the backstory.
How did you get in the construction space?
What what drew you to that?
And then tell us about both your, companies,CCS and Sure.
You know, I, left school at 16 in England, andthe only profession at that point open was
(03:27):
what's called quantity surveying, which is aBritish discipline that still exists, but it
doesn't exist here in The States.
And it's really focused it's called quantitysurveying.
And what is it?
It's, it's focused on, cost and projectmanagement, but the core discipline is
producing what's called a bill of quantities.
(03:49):
And that is a contractual document that,contractors bid on.
It sends out, it contains all the quantitiesand all the information.
And, it's, it's, it's quite a document.
And so it's a five year training that you do.
And once you're finished, you are a fullyqualified quantity surveyor.
(04:10):
I, unfortunately, to my shame of my profeshprofessional peers at the time, I left the
quantity surveying discipline and went to thedark side.
I joined a contractor design build group inEngland and came up through the ranks there
qualified through the Institute of Building andbecame first of all, sort of a troubleshooter
on distress projects.
(04:31):
And that led to, I was still quite young at thetime.
I think I was 22 and I was running a regionaloffice up in Manchester.
And that led to me getting fired because wewere we were quite a large organization.
In fact, we were the biggest design builddeveloper in the British Commonwealth at the
time.
(04:51):
And the boss took me aside and said, look, youknow, I've got no place we can take you or move
you up.
So here's the deal.
I'm going to fire you, and I'm going torecommend all of our sub consult subcontractors
utilize you for preparing claims and changeorders and such, because most of them weren't
very good at it.
(05:12):
And so he felt if I went to work for them, thatwould, you know, help him.
So I got fired and got put into my own littlebusiness straight away and, you know, got a
taste of working for myself.
And I thought, don't think I ever really lookedback.
I I, as an independent, I worked as a chiefsurveyor, chief estimator for a construction
(05:33):
company at one point in London.
But then we had what became known as the threeday week when London was closing down, oil
crisis was on, and I'd frankly had enough.
It was just too hard to run a business there.
So I left for New Zealand and was the chiefestimator down there for a construction company
for three years.
(05:54):
My wife who, you know, who I'd just married wasAmerican.
We had our first child.
She got homesick.
So I came back here, got hired by thearchitects collaborative in Boston to do,
funnily enough, they were producing of allthings, a bill of quantities, which nobody at
the time knew anything about here.
So I immediately became this sort of quantitysurvey guru for for for the Architects
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Collaborative and ended up producing a bill ofquantities, went to Japan to negotiate the deal
with Shimizu, which was a pretty large Japanesecontractor on a project in Kuwait.
When that project finished, I got hired by, acost management firm that was just getting off
the ground here in The States, a British onethat had come over.
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Worked for them for a couple of years doingmainly their large international projects, and
and those were pretty interesting.
But the style of leadership was still thatkinda ivory tower British sort of thing, and I
was still a commercial guy at heart.
So I ended up leaving and setting up CCS.
And that was, as you so kindly mentioned,Justin, five decades ago.
(07:04):
It's a badge of honor.
That's a badge of honor.
Really needed to be reminded of that.
But any anyhow, formed CCS, and that was nextyear will be no.
'27 will be fifty years since the companystarted.
So I will probably transition out by then.
So, and I think I think that's long enough.
You know?
I think they need to
That's that's funny.
(07:25):
That's that's that's funny stuff.
One, I don't remember a time of hearing a aperson get fired by their boss who then told
them, look, you're obviously just set up anentrepreneurship.
Here, you start your own business.
I'm gonna fire you to go start your ownbusiness.
Like, that's that's a cool that's
a cool Well, they set me up in business.
Yeah.
You really did me a huge favor.
(07:45):
And so, you know, CCS started out in '77,really doing estimates for architects.
And, over the years, we've gone through, youknow, various growth.
You know, the projects got larger.
Our basic clients got bigger.
Our architectural clients got bigger.
We work more and more for owners, which,brought us into more than just producing cost
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estimates.
We became much more of a cost manager, costadvisory, and that led into some of our clients
asking us to manage their projects, which westarted to do for the first time, I think in
the mid eighties, about '86, I think was thefirst one.
So we've been in cost management and ownerrepresentation ever since, and, and provide
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pretty much anything to do with projectcontrols, cost management, project management,
but largely from the owner's side of the table,much at this point we've done, I think we're
closing in on 10,000 projects and, and allkinds of things, all kinds of sizes.
And it's, it's been a good ride.
Know, have nice clients.
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I've enjoyed the people we work with.
I'm very lucky here with the, the staff and thecrew that we have.
And we always value quality of life as well asthe work we do.
So we held the firm at boutique level up untilabout three years ago when our succession plans
got upended a little bit because of healthissuance.
At that point, we decided that we would have togrow the company for the future client
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ownership base.
And we've just about doubled in size in thelast three years since we took the break off
breaks off.
And it's, you know, looking back, it's probablysomething we could have done many times over,
but we've had a good ride and we've enjoyed thelifestyle and it's, you know, ready and set up
for the next generation to take it where theywant.
You know?
(09:36):
Well, that's cool.
I mean, so just for clarity for our listeners,cost management, is there a difference between
cost management and estimating?
Right?
Yes, there is.
Cost estimating as originally provided toarchitects and still the core of the base
architectural contract is producing estimatesthat were used to be schematic design
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development and work in drawings, if you'refamiliar with those stages of design.
Now we find ourselves being asked to do a muchmore conceptual and programmatic type
estimates, a predesign.
Those were in the old days, it was largely giveus a number and, and, you know, help us get
back on budget maybe, but that was as far as itwent.
(10:21):
Now as cost managers, we are for, for our ownerclients where we're working directly.
Certainly we are pretty much holding the pursestrings for the project, which means, yes,
we're, we're doing those estimates, but betweenthose estimates, we're checking in to make sure
that we're staying on track.
We're doing, you know, fiscal review ofoptions.
You know, do we have brick exteriors or do wehave precast exteriors?
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We're doing cross table negotiations withcontractors under the various delivery systems,
be that design build or, or constructionmanager of some form or PPP, whatever they are.
And we we get involved in change orders duringconstruction.
We deal with claims, and a lot of it isn't justafter the fact looking at issues.
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It's proactively trying to see the issuescoming up and then managing them or coming up
with solutions before they become problems.
So it's a much more proactive role thanestimating, which, you know, under a design
contract is regarded by many as a commodity,you know, we're sort of bean counters.
As a cost manager, we're much more advisory andwe have a little bit more, I would say,
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authority around the table when we're in thatmode or a little bit more is expected of us
around the table.
Let's put it that way.
So you work,
I don't want to offend anybody by taking theirturf, but, you know, we do, we do get put into
more decisions and, and influencing moredecisions.
Well, were you always more on sort of theowners, first rep side or did you work with
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GCs?
How did, how did it start out?
Well, the, the, you know, the, the typicalquantity surveyor was always hired by the
owner.
That's the way it was set up in England.
Obviously, I went to, went to the dark side, Ijoined the, the first company I joined was a
design build develop group.
So we were the owner and the designer and thecontractor.
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And I, I worked for the construction arm for awhile.
And then, you know, I worked for the, thedevelopment side of the company, which was
effectively ownership.
And then when I was running the Manchesteroffice, I was sort of a liaison between the
two.
And so I think I, I always had the realizationthat the key person in a construct construction
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project is not a contractor and it's not anarchitect.
It's the owner because that's the guy thatmakes the business decisions.
He's the guy that has the strategic reason fordoing the building at all.
And if, if it doesn't work for him, then peoplearen't going to be happy.
And so always felt that listening to the ownerclosely, paying attention to his goals, which
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weren't just design goals, they were usually,you know, some kind of strategic goal.
Be he a developer or be he a municipality or ahospital, it really didn't matter.
You don't build buildings for the fun of it.
There is a they're very expensive.
They're very serious undertakings.
And whatever the ownership, there is some kindof strategic reason that it's needed.
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And usually they are long term investments thatevent you know, developers may be flipping
them, but, you know, a developer only lasts aslong as he's lost successful development.
So it's still a long term interest that theowner has in in the success of his project.
And obviously, if you're municipality or ahospital or something institutional or
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manufacturing, you're probably gonna be livingwith this building for thirty years.
So you want it to be right.
But the goals of the owner are not just fiscal.
And and, so paying attention not only to thethe kind of goals for the project, but the
larger goals for the owner has always been partof my DNA, I would say.
It's actually a thing I feel like we haven'tdug into deep enough will own the owner side of
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all of us because like at the end of the day,it's like, that's the start.
You know, architect isn't designing a buildingand a contractor isn't constructing a building
unless somebody has said, hey, I want abuilding.
Like that's, you know, it starts there.
But, to to get further into that, so becauseit's not a silent, you know, it's not a silent
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person in the the deal, but like there's somuch emphasis on the the constructing and the
designing of it.
Where can the owner after the owner says like,hey, I need a building.
I need it to do X, Y, and Z.
Here is, I found a design team.
I found a building team.
After that, what what are the things that theyhave, the levers they get to pull as a actual
project's being delivered?
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Well, I think that's a good question, Justin.
The, the, you know, for us as an owners rep,probably the most important part of the project
is what is called we we call it projectdefinition.
We named it that when we first set up ourhonors rep business, which is a whole other
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story, but that's a focus on doing theresearch, doing the groundwork before you put,
you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars ondesign and potentially millions on
construction, sometimes millions on design ifthe project's big enough.
So that's when we kind of get the clienttogether with, with the proposed design
professional and talk through the, the projectand, and, you know, develop the initial
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program, talk about quality levels, which sortof fixes the overall size, quantities, and
quality of what's going to go into the project,which we can then put numbers on.
It's also a time to look at the intangibleissues.
You know, with the focus on construction,people tend to focus on the construction cost
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budget.
But, you know, the fact is on most constructionprojects, the soft costs, you know, design
fees, furnishings, IT, special equipment,things like that can often be, you know, you
know, from a developer project, maybe sort of20%, but through to a healthcare project, I've
(16:20):
seen it as high as 65, 70% sometimes ofconstruction budget.
So it's a big number, and that has to getmanaged by the owner as well.
And so talking about those things early,looking for where the big numbers are, you
know, in both soft and hard costs, looking forwhere the risk issues are in both of those.
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And then I think in terms of levers that theowner can pull, you know, being present at the
table, asking the hard questions, bringing indepartment heads, you know, stakeholders that
would have that knowledge base.
But also, I think one of the things that weadvocate is if the project is big enough, and
if the issue is specialized enough, then, youknow, usually we bring, you know, we recommend
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bringing in the specialist that can answer thequestion.
You know, whether it's a structural issue,foundation issue, if it's, you know,
specialized type of equipment, then werecommend at project definition, bringing those
folks in, giving them a an overview of whatwe're trying to achieve, and then ask them to
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give us some preliminary thoughts and maybereview budgets with us.
And, and if we don't know the budget, well,then we have a range of numbers.
And, for the issues that we have a large rangeof number and a high percentage that it's going
to happen, Like, I don't know, if you'rebuilding a house in a swamp, there's a good
chance you're gonna have a foundation problem,and it's probably gonna have a wide range of
(17:54):
solutions.
Right?
So that would be a high risk issue.
And so what we say is, look, let's look intothat and find out what how bad this could be.
And then from there, we start developing arealistic risk toler tolerance, contingency,
but also we start to work sooner on the issueso that proactively we are managing it
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proactively.
We are coming up with a solution because if youdo it early on, it's, you know, it's hundreds,
maybe thousands of dollars.
If you wait till design, it's probably tens ofthousands to hundreds of thousands.
God forbid you wait till construction becausethen it comes in as a massive change order.
It could be in the millions.
(18:37):
So, so when you ask what an owner can do, Ithink it's focus on the project early and, and,
and sometimes be willing to spend money thatisn't traditionally spent.
But the fact is if you are gonna need aspecialist consultant, why not bring him in
early?
Because it's better to bring him in early thanbring him in late when it's too late.
(18:59):
Yeah.
What are the things he could have done he canno longer do?
Will, will you say an ounce of prevention
Is worth a pound of cure?
Yeah.
Well, there's there's there's another saying ina friend of mine who's an investment banker
said, you know, about investments.
He said, you know, the first loss is the bestloss.
You know, if you hang on to that losingproposition too long and it's very similar.
(19:22):
You know?
It's very similar.
It's like the gambler at the casino that can'tjust walk away.
They said, well, if I just keep, you know, if Ijust keep playing red or I keep playing this
number, it eventually is gonna come around.
Right.
And in construction, if you do that, you willkeep throwing money at it, and it's gonna
become progressively more money.
(19:42):
Mhmm.
Correct.
No one to hold them.
No one to fold them.
But anyway What are what are some examples ofthese soft cost losses?
Like, the stories that you you have.
Obviously, you have lots of experience in thisspace of where you've seen hey.
Like, this is one that we did and saved thesaved the owner a ton of money.
Well, you know, it's interesting.
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I guess the one we love to quote the most isthe one that saved the biggest number.
Yeah.
Of course.
About and and it's a good example of the kindsof things that you should be thinking about
when you're doing a building.
We did I I don't know how long ago.
Now it's 02/2011.
So, yeah, about 02/2008.
(20:26):
We finished a project 02/2011.
So 02/2007, 02/2008, the construction marketwas super hot.
Bids were coming in high.
You know, you couldn't get bidders.
It was a contractor's world, and it had beenthat way for a while.
We estimated at the time I won't tell you thenames of the hospitals or the market, but three
health care facilities, actually four in thesame market, all about the same size.
(20:54):
You know, everybody was going constructionmanager.
That was it.
We got hired by a client, not only to do theestimating, but as an owner's rep, we had a bit
more say.
We had been hearing a rumbling that, you know,this market was getting too hot and things were
about to, you know, there was, there was rumorsthat a crash might happen.
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And so we said to our clients, look, you know,it's gonna go against the flow of everything
you're hearing, but we would like you to godesign, bid, build traditional construction.
And our argument was if you go as aconstruction manager, you're gonna hire them
now.
You're gonna get a guaranteed maximum pricebased on today's prices.
And if the market does crash if the market goesup, it won't get any worse.
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But if the market crashes, you're gonna loseout on a lot of savings because those CMs won't
give you back.
You know, they're not gonna go out andcompetitively bid the market.
They're all gonna
hang There's no tatesy backsees once you signthe agreement.
Right.
So after a lot of back and forth, I had to talkthe project manager and then the president of
the hospital and then then do battle with theAE and finally got everybody convinced that
(22:05):
that this indeed was a good idea.
So what happened was the market did crash.
Spoiler alert.
Yeah.
And, on the on the other three hospitals thatwe did, which were under construction
management, they came in about 10 under ourbudgets.
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And understand, we're in the same market, sameprice levels, all jobs.
Ours came in about 30% under budget and savedour client.
The client says 35,000,000 because that's whatit was under budget.
We say 25,000,000 because he would have gotprobably 10,000,000 anyway, you know, just even
with a Centimeters.
So the the difference between what everybodyelse got and what we got was about 25,000,000.
(22:52):
And that was just market survey, marketrecommendation, really no risk to the owner, we
felt.
You know, obviously, we were on the job, andand we're pretty confident that our numbers are
good as you get out for a centimeters.
I mean, we can, you know, you, you can havethat pride of territory there that they, they
say, we don't know the market and we'd say,hell, we talk to see subs all the time just
(23:15):
like you do.
And oh, by the way, we do 200 projects a year.
How many do you do?
You know, that's a whole other, that's a wholeother issue.
Any anyhow, that, that was a pretty goodexample.
Other examples, you know, we've come intoprojects where, you know, a project has, has
happened.
I'll, I'll give you one that again, doesn'taffect bricks and mortar.
(23:38):
It was a project that was a senior facilityhere in Chicago.
It was a religious senior facility sponsored bya religious order.
They had a very big donor who was contractor,nice guy, apparently had worked with them for
years.
So they gave him this project, which was 70 or$80,000,000 We were asked to do cost work.
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There was a guy that we knew it who had retiredfrom the industry and was kind of doing this
project as their owners rep as a labor of love.
I mean, he literally was flying into Chicagoevery week, sleeping in the boiler house all
week and then going home.
I mean, he was he was a great guy, really niceguy.
(24:20):
And so, you know, he he had us do theestimates, and then he launched on the owner's
rep.
You know, originally, they were gonna hire us,and then he told us he was gonna do it as a
mission.
So okay.
He told me they were hiring this contractor,and we knew the contractor was a good
contractor, but we also knew they'd been havingsome problems having to do with the transition.
(24:41):
It transitioned from father to son, and let'sjust say it lost something in translation.
So we we recommended that they look closely atthe GMP and not only the numbers, but the terms
of it, and we recommended that they bring in aconstruction lawyer to really review it, make
sure they understood what they were gettinginto.
(25:02):
They didn't do that.
It was they used their own attorney who reallywasn't a construction expert expert who pretty
much rubber stamped what was given to them.
About a year later, yeah, eighteen monthslater, we got a phone call.
The the the, contractor was about to default,leave the contract leave the project.
(25:26):
The project manager, the guy we knew just said,I just can't do it anymore.
It's too much.
And it's getting too contentious.
Can you guys come in?
And we did, we came in and we, we struggledalong with the contractor for a while, at least
got the paperwork in order so it could besettled.
But we ended up taking over the projecteffectively and finishing up the trades with
(25:48):
the trades that needed to get wrapped up.
But that project degenerated into a claim,which, you know, the the the nuns were
mortified by.
All totally avoidable had they gone through abonafide selection process, had a reasonable
contract.
But the simple fact is they put a contract wasway overpaid before he left the project.
(26:10):
So we couldn't get much of that back because hewent belly up.
Just, you know, we, we did the best we couldfor them, got it back on track.
Didn't, you know, it didn't expand anymore.
And we managed to recover some of it for themagain, a little bit of forward planning.
It would never happen.
Yeah.
That's that's hard.
That's a that's a hard lesson that hopefullyhas now been learned.
(26:31):
Yeah.
And, you know, you're obviously a number oftimes where nobody's done any soil.
They've done soil tests, but they haven't donea lot of research.
And we've gotten into schematics, and all of asudden, we've got a redesign on the
foundations.
And nobody's even thought that that was likelyto happen.
That doesn't happen too often these days.
I think everybody I think the industry as awhole is is getting more risk aware that that
(26:56):
that there's still a tendency to tell an ownerwhat he wants to hear as opposed to what he
should hear.
Let's just leave it at that.
Yeah.
And so, you know, you do sometimes get, youknow, into design and all of a sudden, that
wasn't included.
So, yeah.
I mean, in spite of all the delivery systemsthat have been created, construction litigation
(27:19):
is is still a problem.
Yeah.
It is.
Litigation is a problem, but a little pre, youknow, a little, pre work there and kinda Yeah.
Address some of those issues.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We we've been.
Yeah.
So when we talked to you previously, you defineyourself as more of your process management
(27:40):
rather than necessarily project management.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure.
I think we were actually talking about the theTenzing software that we we developed think in
which we that.
Yeah.
Other company I never really talked about.
Tenzing is, a software company that we have setup separately from CCS.
It's, and it and it's developed a piece ofprocess management software, which we are
(28:02):
applying to the construction industry, butactually as a process management tool, it could
be applied to any industry.
We as a company back in the mid eighties whenwe got into owner's rep, you know, struggled
along, you know, doing what we thought was ourbest for probably ten years, I would say.
So by the mid nineties, we had a fair body ofwork.
(28:24):
More people were getting into it.
And it was a bit of a massive confusion.
You know, what an owner expected, what wethought they wanted and what they really
wanted, what architects thought we did, whatcontractors thought we did, how owners reps
were selected, what an owner's rep shoulddeliver.
Yada.
It just went on.
(28:44):
It wasn't aligned.
Everybody had different opinions.
So you, you know, tell them one thing, contractfor that.
They thought you'd contract something slightlydifferent.
So you had all these gaps, which, you know, weplugged, but it wasn't it wasn't a smooth
process.
Anyhow, we we felt that there was an evolvingbusiness here.
(29:04):
And so we went to Northern Illinois Universityand their entrepreneurship program, explained
our situation and asked them to take us on as aproject.
And so for two years, we worked with thestudents and alumni out there to strategically
plan the business of being an owner's rep inconstruction.
(29:25):
That's what we did.
And the two, there were several things thatcame out of it, but the two big ones that I
think that had the most impact were, first ofall, they came to the conclusion that the
construction industry, unlike any other majorindustry, if you look at automobiles or if you
look at, you know, the aero industry or thesoftware business, you know, there is a process
(29:48):
management element that controls the way theyrun the business that they're in.
Right?
Nothing like that existed in the constructionindustry for the for the overall process that
the owner has to control.
I would say that process management existsinside a contractor's office and exists inside
(30:10):
an architect's office, but it exists inside acontractor's office to manage the business of
building a building, and in an architect'soffice to manage the business of designing a
building.
In the owner's office, there is no or there waslittle or no process, probably leaning towards
(30:33):
no process to managing the business of thetotal project, the development of a project,
whatever you want to call it, the sponsorshipof a, of a project, nobody had that down.
And that's what, that's what we needed as anowners rep.
That's what owners needed.
And then the other thing was in almost anyother industry, there is a focus on this early
(30:55):
planning project definition.
Well, that it, And, in fact, the students atNorthern Illinois came over and gave us a
presentation.
And by, you know, defined this focus on earlyresearch and early definition of the project
and they of the components of the project.
And they said, that's what we call projectdefinition, and that's what we then called it.
(31:20):
I believe we might have been the first peoplein the industry to use that term, but those
were the two key game changers.
And so the reason, Will, coming back to yourquestion, that we talk about process management
instead of project management is that processmanagement or process is what enables you to
(31:40):
manage your piece of a project.
Right?
Which in the owner's case is the whole project,you know, with the with the architect.
It's so so when you hear about projectmanagement and project management software,
most of the stuff that's out there now isproject management software focused on
construction.
There is software for owners, but I don't knowthat any of it contains a process, fully
(32:05):
developed process.
Ours does.
Lots of them have pieces of a process, and I'mnot saying they're all bad.
There's some good software out there, but Idon't think there's one that's quite as
complete.
And the other thing is because we were using itourselves and we've, we've worked on the
process.
We've used the map, the process that wedeveloped manually for over twenty years now.
(32:26):
So we know it works because we know the resultsthat come out of the process.
All we've really done with the software isautomate what we've been doing for years.
So it's a proven process, which is important.
And so, really enabling owners to manage theirprojects better.
And so that's the difference between processmanagement and project management.
(32:48):
Process management enables you to projectmanage.
Right?
I love, the insight that you had there becausea lot of people come to us, and AI is obviously
a big topic now.
But automation, just as in generality, how do Iautomate things?
And Will and I laughed because it's usuallylike, well, what are your processes?
Like, what what do you actually want toautomate?
(33:09):
Like, you know, like, it's not magic.
You have to have in your point, we had twentyyears of doing this process and and making it a
little bit better all the time.
And to put it into an actual system, which isvery robust of what you've achieved.
But, like, even just, hey.
This is how we interact with a new client.
(33:30):
Like, this is our onboarding process.
What that looks like means an email.
It means, hey.
We're gonna have a meeting with the serviceteam and the person that sold the project.
We're gonna bring everybody together and and doall these things.
So that's that's a huge component here thatit's not just we built the process as we were
building the technology.
It's like, No.
No.
No.
We had the process.
(33:51):
It was very vetted.
And now we've just made it into a piece oftechnology.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm on the board of a local communitycollege.
It's one of the sponsors of a, incubator.
So lots, lots of guys doing software.
Anyway, friend of mine was the executivedirector over there.
So we went over to see what they were doing.
(34:12):
And that's really where this all startedbecause he was talking about these guys with
software.
And I said, well, we don't know anything aboutsoftware.
You know, it's not us.
So we've been trying to automate this for yearsand yada yada.
And we started telling him what we got and hesaid, look, you know, technology has moved on
and the software that developed it, you can getthat done anywhere.
It's the knowledge that goes in.
That's the value.
(34:33):
And so, you know, he got us kind of excited,and we gradually got sucked into moving further
and further down the software chain and evenended up developing it, you know, going we we
we are fully on it now.
Everything we run runs on on Tenzing.
And, you know, I was I think it was the latenineties.
I was sitting in this conference, well,conference room like this, and there were, you
(34:56):
know, flowcharts over the walls.
I've still got them rolled up somewhere.
I refused to let them throw it away.
It was too much work.
You know, but it's got literally probably 90%of the tasks that you would think of.
In fact, it's probably got a 100% of them.
We only put about 90% of them into the, intothe software, because there are some tasks that
(35:20):
every organization, manages uniquely.
You can't build a product that is gonna fiteverything that everybody might do.
So for instance, you know, if you wanna linkyour accounting system into Tenzing, you can't
just do that because, you know, everybody's gota different system.
(35:40):
Everyone's got different cost codes, you know,yada yada.
And so, you know, we can take information andput it into Tenzing, but it can't automatically
flow in.
We can build that link, but then you're taught,you know, you you've gotta have enough use for
it that you're willing to sponsor the cost ofdeveloping it specific before you.
Coming back to something you were sayingearlier, Justin, you know, with a with a
(36:02):
process management tool, the way we've builtTenzing, you know, we we've got our profile of
senior project managers here.
You know, we've got the young guys that run andgun and sleep on their computer.
You know, then we've got the old dogs like me.
(36:22):
It's interesting to watch how they how they useit, but the thing that, we realized is it's
gotta be user friendly, gotta be easy to use,and, and it's gotta be logical.
So, you know, building the things so that itmade common sense and starting from a user's
perspective, as opposed to a programmingperspective.
(36:44):
I mean, we had out there, there were somethings that would have been a lot easier if we
just let the developers have their way, butyou'd be clicking and dropping and dragging.
And when we first developed this, it was likethree clicks to move an email.
Now it's seamless.
But if you get 50 emails a day, which isn'tuncommon for a project manager, that get that
(37:05):
gets old very quick.
That's so that soft cost loss we talked aboutearlier.
If you have to click three times
Yeah.
For every email
That's death by a thousand paper cuts rightthere.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Super cool in terms of just and alsounderstanding that, you know, you can't just
automate unless you have a process and kind ofgoing through the going through the process of
(37:26):
developing, even though you don't have anybackground in software development.
When you initial what gave you the idea toactually talk to a college and have them help
you?
Well, wow.
You know, as I said, we developed the processtwenty years ago.
It's it's it is ever you know, it is andcontinues to be, evolutionary.
(37:49):
When I first started thinking about this thisprocess, I went up to University of Michigan
just to talk to them because I I, you know, Ithink I ran into one of their guys at a
convention or something, and he was telling methings they were doing, which sounded kinda
cool.
And I was really focusing on, at the time, onhow estimating would affect technology.
(38:11):
So I went up there to talk to him about that.
And then we saw what they were doing in termsof, at that time, sort of time study things.
I had videos where they were monitoringprocesses.
And I started thinking about process and talkedto them about this flowcharting of process.
(38:34):
One of their, I think he was a doctoral studentat the time, was working on something along
those lines, not quite what we were doing, butsomething similar.
And so we engaged him and said, have a go atautomating this one.
We did actually have a product that worked, butit never it never worked.
(38:54):
It was never user friendly.
It was always too you know, just it it createdmore problems than it solved frankly.
And so we, we, we, we, you know, let it go and,and continued on manually.
But I always had this thought that one daytechnology is gonna catch up.
And I think, you know, I was on the board.
I was on the foundation board.
I am on the foundation board at the college.
(39:16):
And, you know, when I went over and talked totheir executive director and sort of had this
conversation, which was really scientific, Heintroduced me to a bunch of their young
programmers that were working on gamingsoftware and all kinds of applications.
And he was talking about it.
And I said, well, I hope they had more luckthan we did.
(39:36):
That was the throwaway comment.
And he said, what do you mean?
So I told him this tale of woe, and he said,hang on a minute.
You've got a developed process.
You've been using it for twenty years.
Yeah.
You've got clients at network.
Yeah.
You've got a database of clients that you cango back.
Yeah.
You know, do you realize you've got 80% of whatthese guys are still trying to get to get?
(39:56):
And I guess that's where he piqued my interest,and it morphed from there.
Okay.
I think that's where, you know, historically,the software industry has kind of, you know,
burned the construction industry historically.
Now I think that there's a lot of good productsout there that exist that that help, but it
usually comes from somebody that has been doingit.
(40:16):
So if it's a, you know, if it's a projectmanagement system, you were actually in
construction before that or have the feedbackfrom construction to then build it.
Because a developer who is extraordinarilyskilled at what they do, their brain doesn't
work the same or don't have the same experienceas somebody that has worked in, you know,
twenty years of running through a owner's repprocess.
(40:39):
Yeah.
I mean
They don't they have zero concept of how wouldwe create this because it doesn't that's just
them trying to build what you've built overtwenty years.
Yeah.
I mean, there there are owners that have, well,you know, some we've seen that have good, you
know, really good process, but oftentimes theyare owners of the fact that I think in every
(40:59):
instance I'm aware of, they are owners who arebuilding the same product or a similar product,
you know, they're building, I don't know,they're, they're building,
like a Starbucks
medical office building, Starbucks, McDonald's,something like that, you know, or they're a
developer that knows their product that they'reputting in different load, you know, things
(41:22):
like that.
Some of the guys that are managing hotels thatare running hotels, you know, so there there
are groups, but there's a huge for, you know,there's a huge need, I think, there for owners
to get the discipline of process because Ithink it would really help them.
Yeah.
That's, interesting.
So when you so obviously you had, I'm gonnacall it the estimating center cost management
(41:44):
side.
Yeah.
So you had people in that realm.
The owner's rep side comes around a little bitlater and now you have this software technical
component.
I know it's a separate entity, but like how didhow did the hiring of that and is there cross
training?
What's what's that look like for your people?
One of the benefits for us of having the costside of things is that, you know, our project
(42:07):
managers, we do cross train them.
We do encourage them to work alongside the costpeople.
And some of them have some cost backgroundsanyway.
In fact, Mark Rogers, who leads our, projectmanagement group with Graham Harwood, worked
here as an intern before he before he went tocollege.
He was still in high school as a as a costestimator, and then, you know, years later came
(42:30):
back to work full time.
But we do benefit from that because if aproject manager is between projects, we can
usually use them on the cost side because thatthe cost side is, you know, with, with, with
project management.
So fairly even assignment over a couple ofyears with cost estimating cost management.
You come in, you go away, you come in, you goaway.
(42:52):
So you're always dealing with peaks andvalleys.
And so we've always got that we've always we'vebuilt a flexible backup team.
And our project managers, if they're betweenjobs, are able to just fit into the cost side,
which gives them continuity of employment andhelps us with staffing for valleys.
So, you know, they do intermingle.
We encourage that.
When the software came along, I would say atfirst there was a little suspicion, that that
(43:18):
basically was, oh my God, what's he up to now?
But that that has now evolved.
I think we've made believers out of everybody.
And, you know, PMs are all on board.
The cost guys are seeing the benefits.
And, indeed the three have come together underwhat we call project Sherpa, which is something
(43:40):
that through the Tenzing software, if you are aTenzing software user, we will help any client
that is managing their own project.
We're able to we're offering that that to anyclient that's managing their own project that
we can offer what we call fractional projectmanagement, project support, where let's
suppose, and, you know, you've got a good guysof village manager and, he's running a
(44:05):
construction and he's doing a decent job, buthe gets hit with a big change order.
We can parachute in a specialist estimator,deal with the problem, pull back, and let him
continue again.
Or if he has a scheduling issue, or even if,you know, a staff member running the project
gets sick or something and you needed somebodyto put their finger in the dam, we can do that
(44:30):
because the way Tenzing is set up for anyissue, wouldn't matter what it was or or task,
all the data associated with it, emails,drawings, specs, are filed against that issue
or task.
So that means for us, we can parachute in, readthe story of what's happened, and immediately
(44:50):
be up to speed so we can we can help outquickly, cost effectively.
So it kinda gives clients the best of bothworlds.
If you don't want a full time owner's rep forwhatever reason, you know, you get a process,
you get everything you need to implement thatprocess with Tenzing.
And then if you get over your skis, ifsomething goes wrong, if you need technical
support, you've got a whole team of projectmanagers, project control guys ready to step in
(45:17):
and help out.
Interesting.
So then, obviously, owners makes tons of sense.
Developers as well is my guess.
Like beg your pardon?
Developers as well.
Right?
So, like, actual owner of whoever it is, butthen if somebody is utilizing a developer in
inner you know, to essentially be the owner'srep, it's effectively what comes into play
(45:38):
here.
Is that that's another place would make sensewith tensing.
Is there anything else?
Is it a con can a contractor utilize thissoftware in some way, or is it not really built
for them?
Well, it's not really built for contractors.
We I mean, but construction is just a processlike anything else.
So Tenzing could be, you know, you a contractorcould use Tenzing to build a process.
(46:00):
I think in fairness, most contractors know whatthey're doing.
And so there is a, they've got a processalready, whether it's internal or not.
And, but I think there's plenty of software outthere that, that services contractors.
So I'm, I'm not sure a contractor, you know, I,I'd have a hard time imagining why a contractor
would need to build a process inside Tenzing.
(46:25):
They've probably got one that works or they'reusing one already that works for them.
Where where Tenzing can help contractors is ifa, if a, if a contractor, let's say a
Centimeters or design build team is dealingwith an owner and they find out early on that
that owner doesn't have a lot of constructionprocess, then, you know, depending on who the
(46:46):
owner is, if there is a need for transparency,if there is a need for, you know, that
independent buffer, then I think Tenzing canhelp that owner and certainly Tenzing plus
either a full owner's rep or, you know, projectSherpa availability can help the contractor.
It makes life it depends which school ofconstruction you come from.
(47:07):
I believe that an informed owner benefitseverybody.
I would say less scrupulous members of ourprofession don't feel the same way.
Got it.
But I do think I have to say this.
I have a healthy respect for my fellowprofessionals.
I think contractors generally are trying to dothe right thing for the owner.
(47:30):
They're trying to do a good job.
And I think the same is true of architects andjust about all the disciplines.
So I haven't run into, you know, too manypeople that I would say start out being
unethical.
I think sometimes they get forced intosituations where they have to dig in and make
sure their own interests are taken care of, butI don't think anyone starts out looking for war
(47:51):
or looking to hoodwink beyond.
Okay.
So I've got a question here because a lot ofestimation, right, you've got your cost of
goods sold.
There's a service side, right, thecommunication side.
Right?
A lot of this stuff can be estimated.
But what about safety?
How do
you estimate safety?
You know, safety is is really a contractorissue.
(48:15):
Safety programs, I think, are pretty muchrequired almost everywhere these days.
And so it's, it's genuinely built into acontractor's overhead.
It's built into the way they run their tradesand coordinate everything.
So it's sort of built into everything else.
You know, sometimes you'll see safety as a lineitem in general conditions.
(48:36):
Other times it's built into the numbers.
You know, if you have a defined safety program,you can usually, you can usually estimate the
value of safety if that's what people arelooking for.
But generally, it's sort of built into someother numbers.
Having said that, one of the dangers that tipfor owners here and even architects, we had a
(48:56):
project that came in way over well, we didn'thave it.
A large public client who I can't name forobvious reasons had it.
And their project was, I don't know,$250,000,000 came in at $3.50 and they hit the
panic button.
We got a call.
And so we, five weeks, we had to sort of well,actually, five days, we had to tell them if the
(49:20):
bid was reasonable, which it was.
But then we had to get into this exercise overabout five weeks to try and figure out what we
could do about it.
And one of the big issues was this programinvolved five or six different locations.
So somebody pulled the specification off theshelf and the specification said that the
(49:40):
safety program had to have peer review at everyproject and that every, superintendent on every
site had to have a peer review superintendent.
They were basically doubling up supervision.
That wasn't what they meant, but that's whatcame up.
So I don't know if the lesson there is issafety as much as when you use standard
(50:03):
documents, make sure that, you know, thatstandard document is customized to your project
because we had some real howlers in Yeah.
It's good insight.
Right?
That's something you can't find in a softwareprogram if you've never had, like, the
experience Yeah.
In construction.
Right?
In this particular instance, it was, it was a,it was a transportation project.
(50:32):
And what they did is they were looking for adecent safety program.
So they had a guy that used to be with the Navyand he went and pulled a standard Navy spec for
a whole different type of project.
It happens.
I mean, you know,
every different approach in
your position.
I said that's a different type oftransportation.
(50:53):
Yeah.
Ian, this has been amazing.
We have one final question though we wanna askyou.
Okay.
We ask all of our guests.
If you could go back twenty years, what advicewould you give yourself?
If I could go back twenty, what advice would Igive?
That's a good question.
02/2005.
The White Sox are gonna win the World Seriesthis year.
(51:14):
So, you know, take you back to that moment intime.
I would say get rid of your get get rid of yourseats at Wrigley Field, probably.
That's right.
I love that answer.
But, no.
Seriously, I think I think it's I don't thinkit's really changed since I got got into into
the business.
It's kinda keep your eyes on the horizon.
(51:37):
And and I think, you know, you could see 20 agothat technology was a snowball that was going
to keep rolling and get bigger and move faster.
And so I think, you know, keep your eyes in thehorizon.
I think that's still true.
You with the advent of AI, we're starting tolook at how cautiously, how, how that could be
(51:58):
used.
And I think with delivery systems, some ofthem, I mean, they they've all got their place.
There's always, there's a reason for all ofthem existing, But I think those will probably
continue to evolve as, as the industry becomesmore collaborative.
But as an old timer said to me, he said, it'sreally funny now.
(52:19):
We spend hours and weeks and days trying tocome up with delivery systems and contracts
that used to be a handshake.
And he said even with them, we and even evenwith those contracts, we still end up with more
disputes than we ever used to.
But I think I think, look at what's evolvingand use judgment as to how to best apply it.
(52:46):
You know?
Yeah.
That's good advice.
Would be my advice.
Awesome.
We're gonna throw all the social links and allthat fun stuff into the show notes.
But if somebody wanted to get ahold of you,what's the best way for them to do that?
IPAR@iparratccs, and the word difference, d I ff e r e n c e, dot com.
(53:13):
And we'd love to hear from them.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Is there anything else you'd like to tell theguests before we say our goodbyes?
Yeah.
Listeners, not guests.
Listeners, not guests.
I think, you know, enjoy what you do.
Enjoy the day, and I think the rest of it getseasier if you do that.
(53:33):
Love that.
Love that.
Thank you, listeners, so much.
I hope you had as good of a time as me and Willdid.
And until next time, adios.
Adios.
Thanks for listening to Building Scale.
To help us reach even more people, please sharethis episode with a friend, colleague, or on
social media.
Remember, the three pillars of scaling abusiness are people, process, and technology.
(53:57):
And our mission is to help the AEC industryprotect itself by making technology easy.
So if you think your company's technologypillar could use some improvement, book a call
with us to see how we can help maximize your ITcybersecurity strategy.
Just go to buildingscale.net/help.
(54:20):
And until next time.
Keep building scale.
Yeah.
(00:00):
And, on the on the other three hospitals thatwe did, which were under construction
management, they came in about 10% under ourbudgets.
And understand, we're in the same market, sameprice levels, all jobs.
Ours came in about 30% under budget and savedour client.
The client says 35,000,000 because that's whatit was under budget.
(00:24):
We say 25,000,000 because he would have gotprobably 10,000,000 anyway, you know, just even
with a Centimeters.
So the the difference between what everybodyelse got and what we got was about 25,000,000.
And that was just market survey, marketrecommendation, really no risk to the owner, we
felt.
You know, obviously, we were on the job, andand we're pretty confident that our numbers are
(00:47):
good as you get out for a Centimeters.
I mean, we can you know, you you can have thatpride of territory there that they they say we
don't know the market, and we'd say, hell, wetalk to c subs all the time just like you
(01:10):
guidance on how to get more growth, wealth,
and freedom from your AEC company?
Well, then you're in luck.
Hi.
I'm Will Foratt.
And I'm Justin Nagel, and we're your podcasthosts.
We interview successful AEC business leaders tolearn how they use people, process, and
technology to scale their businesses.
So sit back and get ready to learn from theindustry's best.
(01:31):
This is building scale.
Hey, listeners.
It's Will here.
Our mission is to help the AAC industry protectitself by making technology easy.
If you've ever listened to our show, then youknow that the three pillars of scaling a
business are people, process, and technology.
(01:52):
So if you suspect technology is your weekly,then book a call with us to see where we can
help maximize your company's IT cybersecuritystrategy.
Just go to buildingscale.net/help.
Today's guest is Ian Parr, who's the presidentand founder of CCS International, a leader in
construction cost management, ownerrepresentation, and advisory services for
(02:16):
nearly five decades.
He's also the founder of Tenzing LLC, a newventure developing innovative process
management tools for project owners.
A certified professional estimator and graduateof the UK Institute of Building, Ian brings
deep technical expertise and strategic insightto every project.
And under Ian's leadership, CC has become knownfor helping owners optimize budgets, reduce
(02:39):
risk, and make confident data informeddecisions on complex construction programs.
And with all that said, Ian, welcome to theshow.
Thanks, Justin.
How are you today?
Doing great.
Doing wonderful.
One, I appreciate that you gave me a quickerintro.
Obviously, I put it together differently, butlike some people give me like three books of
(03:00):
intro, I'm like, alright.
Well, half the first half of the podcast isjust gonna be the intro, and then after that,
we'll talk about some stuff.
I said the perfect amount, I feel like.
So tell us the tell us the the backstory.
How did you get in the construction space?
What what drew you to that?
And then tell us about both your, companies,CCS and Sure.
You know, I, left school at 16 in England, andthe only profession at that point open was
(03:27):
what's called quantity surveying, which is aBritish discipline that still exists, but it
doesn't exist here in The States.
And it's really focused it's called quantitysurveying.
And what is it?
It's, it's focused on, cost and projectmanagement, but the core discipline is
producing what's called a bill of quantities.
(03:49):
And that is a contractual document that,contractors bid on.
It sends out, it contains all the quantitiesand all the information.
And, it's, it's, it's quite a document.
And so it's a five year training that you do.
And once you're finished, you are a fullyqualified quantity surveyor.
(04:10):
I, unfortunately, to my shame of my profeshprofessional peers at the time, I left the
quantity surveying discipline and went to thedark side.
I joined a contractor design build group inEngland and came up through the ranks there
qualified through the Institute of Building andbecame first of all, sort of a troubleshooter
on distress projects.
(04:31):
And that led to, I was still quite young at thetime.
I think I was 22 and I was running a regionaloffice up in Manchester.
And that led to me getting fired because wewere we were quite a large organization.
In fact, we were the biggest design builddeveloper in the British Commonwealth at the
time.
(04:51):
And the boss took me aside and said, look, youknow, I've got no place we can take you or move
you up.
So here's the deal.
I'm going to fire you, and I'm going torecommend all of our sub consult subcontractors
utilize you for preparing claims and changeorders and such, because most of them weren't
very good at it.
(05:12):
And so he felt if I went to work for them, thatwould, you know, help him.
So I got fired and got put into my own littlebusiness straight away and, you know, got a
taste of working for myself.
And I thought, don't think I ever really lookedback.
I I, as an independent, I worked as a chiefsurveyor, chief estimator for a construction
(05:33):
company at one point in London.
But then we had what became known as the threeday week when London was closing down, oil
crisis was on, and I'd frankly had enough.
It was just too hard to run a business there.
So I left for New Zealand and was the chiefestimator down there for a construction company
for three years.
(05:54):
My wife who, you know, who I'd just married wasAmerican.
We had our first child.
She got homesick.
So I came back here, got hired by thearchitects collaborative in Boston to do,
funnily enough, they were producing of allthings, a bill of quantities, which nobody at
the time knew anything about here.
So I immediately became this sort of quantitysurvey guru for for for the Architects
(06:17):
Collaborative and ended up producing a bill ofquantities, went to Japan to negotiate the deal
with Shimizu, which was a pretty large Japanesecontractor on a project in Kuwait.
When that project finished, I got hired by, acost management firm that was just getting off
the ground here in The States, a British onethat had come over.
(06:38):
Worked for them for a couple of years doingmainly their large international projects, and
and those were pretty interesting.
But the style of leadership was still thatkinda ivory tower British sort of thing, and I
was still a commercial guy at heart.
So I ended up leaving and setting up CCS.
And that was, as you so kindly mentioned,Justin, five decades ago.
(07:04):
It's a badge of honor.
That's a badge of honor.
Really needed to be reminded of that.
But any anyhow, formed CCS, and that was nextyear will be no.
'27 will be fifty years since the companystarted.
So I will probably transition out by then.
So, and I think I think that's long enough.
You know?
I think they need to
That's that's funny.
(07:25):
That's that's that's funny stuff.
One, I don't remember a time of hearing a aperson get fired by their boss who then told
them, look, you're obviously just set up anentrepreneurship.
Here, you start your own business.
I'm gonna fire you to go start your ownbusiness.
Like, that's that's a cool that's
a cool Well, they set me up in business.
Yeah.
You really did me a huge favor.
(07:45):
And so, you know, CCS started out in '77,really doing estimates for architects.
And, over the years, we've gone through, youknow, various growth.
You know, the projects got larger.
Our basic clients got bigger.
Our architectural clients got bigger.
We work more and more for owners, which,brought us into more than just producing cost
(08:11):
estimates.
We became much more of a cost manager, costadvisory, and that led into some of our clients
asking us to manage their projects, which westarted to do for the first time, I think in
the mid eighties, about '86, I think was thefirst one.
So we've been in cost management and ownerrepresentation ever since, and, and provide
(08:31):
pretty much anything to do with projectcontrols, cost management, project management,
but largely from the owner's side of the table,much at this point we've done, I think we're
closing in on 10,000 projects and, and allkinds of things, all kinds of sizes.
And it's, it's been a good ride.
Know, have nice clients.
(08:51):
I've enjoyed the people we work with.
I'm very lucky here with the, the staff and thecrew that we have.
And we always value quality of life as well asthe work we do.
So we held the firm at boutique level up untilabout three years ago when our succession plans
got upended a little bit because of healthissuance.
At that point, we decided that we would have togrow the company for the future client
(09:16):
ownership base.
And we've just about doubled in size in thelast three years since we took the break off
breaks off.
And it's, you know, looking back, it's probablysomething we could have done many times over,
but we've had a good ride and we've enjoyed thelifestyle and it's, you know, ready and set up
for the next generation to take it where theywant.
You know?
(09:36):
Well, that's cool.
I mean, so just for clarity for our listeners,cost management, is there a difference between
cost management and estimating?
Right?
Yes, there is.
Cost estimating as originally provided toarchitects and still the core of the base
architectural contract is producing estimatesthat were used to be schematic design
(09:59):
development and work in drawings, if you'refamiliar with those stages of design.
Now we find ourselves being asked to do a muchmore conceptual and programmatic type
estimates, a predesign.
Those were in the old days, it was largely giveus a number and, and, you know, help us get
back on budget maybe, but that was as far as itwent.
(10:21):
Now as cost managers, we are for, for our ownerclients where we're working directly.
Certainly we are pretty much holding the pursestrings for the project, which means, yes,
we're, we're doing those estimates, but betweenthose estimates, we're checking in to make sure
that we're staying on track.
We're doing, you know, fiscal review ofoptions.
You know, do we have brick exteriors or do wehave precast exteriors?
(10:45):
We're doing cross table negotiations withcontractors under the various delivery systems,
be that design build or, or constructionmanager of some form or PPP, whatever they are.
And we we get involved in change orders duringconstruction.
We deal with claims, and a lot of it isn't justafter the fact looking at issues.
(11:08):
It's proactively trying to see the issuescoming up and then managing them or coming up
with solutions before they become problems.
So it's a much more proactive role thanestimating, which, you know, under a design
contract is regarded by many as a commodity,you know, we're sort of bean counters.
As a cost manager, we're much more advisory andwe have a little bit more, I would say,
(11:32):
authority around the table when we're in thatmode or a little bit more is expected of us
around the table.
Let's put it that way.
So you work,
I don't want to offend anybody by taking theirturf, but, you know, we do, we do get put into
more decisions and, and influencing moredecisions.
Well, were you always more on sort of theowners, first rep side or did you work with
(11:56):
GCs?
How did, how did it start out?
Well, the, the, you know, the, the typicalquantity surveyor was always hired by the
owner.
That's the way it was set up in England.
Obviously, I went to, went to the dark side, Ijoined the, the first company I joined was a
design build develop group.
So we were the owner and the designer and thecontractor.
(12:17):
And I, I worked for the construction arm for awhile.
And then, you know, I worked for the, thedevelopment side of the company, which was
effectively ownership.
And then when I was running the Manchesteroffice, I was sort of a liaison between the
two.
And so I think I, I always had the realizationthat the key person in a construct construction
(12:38):
project is not a contractor and it's not anarchitect.
It's the owner because that's the guy thatmakes the business decisions.
He's the guy that has the strategic reason fordoing the building at all.
And if, if it doesn't work for him, then peoplearen't going to be happy.
And so always felt that listening to the ownerclosely, paying attention to his goals, which
(13:01):
weren't just design goals, they were usually,you know, some kind of strategic goal.
Be he a developer or be he a municipality or ahospital, it really didn't matter.
You don't build buildings for the fun of it.
There is a they're very expensive.
They're very serious undertakings.
And whatever the ownership, there is some kindof strategic reason that it's needed.
(13:21):
And usually they are long term investments thatevent you know, developers may be flipping
them, but, you know, a developer only lasts aslong as he's lost successful development.
So it's still a long term interest that theowner has in in the success of his project.
And obviously, if you're municipality or ahospital or something institutional or
(13:42):
manufacturing, you're probably gonna be livingwith this building for thirty years.
So you want it to be right.
But the goals of the owner are not just fiscal.
And and, so paying attention not only to thethe kind of goals for the project, but the
larger goals for the owner has always been partof my DNA, I would say.
It's actually a thing I feel like we haven'tdug into deep enough will own the owner side of
(14:09):
all of us because like at the end of the day,it's like, that's the start.
You know, architect isn't designing a buildingand a contractor isn't constructing a building
unless somebody has said, hey, I want abuilding.
Like that's, you know, it starts there.
But, to to get further into that, so becauseit's not a silent, you know, it's not a silent
(14:29):
person in the the deal, but like there's somuch emphasis on the the constructing and the
designing of it.
Where can the owner after the owner says like,hey, I need a building.
I need it to do X, Y, and Z.
Here is, I found a design team.
I found a building team.
After that, what what are the things that theyhave, the levers they get to pull as a actual
project's being delivered?
(14:51):
Well, I think that's a good question, Justin.
The, the, you know, for us as an owners rep,probably the most important part of the project
is what is called we we call it projectdefinition.
We named it that when we first set up ourhonors rep business, which is a whole other
(15:11):
story, but that's a focus on doing theresearch, doing the groundwork before you put,
you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars ondesign and potentially millions on
construction, sometimes millions on design ifthe project's big enough.
So that's when we kind of get the clienttogether with, with the proposed design
professional and talk through the, the projectand, and, you know, develop the initial
(15:37):
program, talk about quality levels, which sortof fixes the overall size, quantities, and
quality of what's going to go into the project,which we can then put numbers on.
It's also a time to look at the intangibleissues.
You know, with the focus on construction,people tend to focus on the construction cost
(15:58):
budget.
But, you know, the fact is on most constructionprojects, the soft costs, you know, design
fees, furnishings, IT, special equipment,things like that can often be, you know, you
know, from a developer project, maybe sort of20%, but through to a healthcare project, I've
(16:20):
seen it as high as 65, 70% sometimes ofconstruction budget.
So it's a big number, and that has to getmanaged by the owner as well.
And so talking about those things early,looking for where the big numbers are, you
know, in both soft and hard costs, looking forwhere the risk issues are in both of those.
(16:41):
And then I think in terms of levers that theowner can pull, you know, being present at the
table, asking the hard questions, bringing indepartment heads, you know, stakeholders that
would have that knowledge base.
But also, I think one of the things that weadvocate is if the project is big enough, and
if the issue is specialized enough, then, youknow, usually we bring, you know, we recommend
(17:07):
bringing in the specialist that can answer thequestion.
You know, whether it's a structural issue,foundation issue, if it's, you know,
specialized type of equipment, then werecommend at project definition, bringing those
folks in, giving them a an overview of whatwe're trying to achieve, and then ask them to
(17:31):
give us some preliminary thoughts and maybereview budgets with us.
And, and if we don't know the budget, well,then we have a range of numbers.
And, for the issues that we have a large rangeof number and a high percentage that it's going
to happen, Like, I don't know, if you'rebuilding a house in a swamp, there's a good
chance you're gonna have a foundation problem,and it's probably gonna have a wide range of
(17:54):
solutions.
Right?
So that would be a high risk issue.
And so what we say is, look, let's look intothat and find out what how bad this could be.
And then from there, we start developing arealistic risk toler tolerance, contingency,
but also we start to work sooner on the issueso that proactively we are managing it
(18:17):
proactively.
We are coming up with a solution because if youdo it early on, it's, you know, it's hundreds,
maybe thousands of dollars.
If you wait till design, it's probably tens ofthousands to hundreds of thousands.
God forbid you wait till construction becausethen it comes in as a massive change order.
It could be in the millions.
(18:37):
So, so when you ask what an owner can do, Ithink it's focus on the project early and, and,
and sometimes be willing to spend money thatisn't traditionally spent.
But the fact is if you are gonna need aspecialist consultant, why not bring him in
early?
Because it's better to bring him in early thanbring him in late when it's too late.
(18:59):
Yeah.
What are the things he could have done he canno longer do?
Will, will you say an ounce of prevention
Is worth a pound of cure?
Yeah.
Well, there's there's there's another saying ina friend of mine who's an investment banker
said, you know, about investments.
He said, you know, the first loss is the bestloss.
You know, if you hang on to that losingproposition too long and it's very similar.
(19:22):
You know?
It's very similar.
It's like the gambler at the casino that can'tjust walk away.
They said, well, if I just keep, you know, if Ijust keep playing red or I keep playing this
number, it eventually is gonna come around.
Right.
And in construction, if you do that, you willkeep throwing money at it, and it's gonna
become progressively more money.
(19:42):
Mhmm.
Correct.
No one to hold them.
No one to fold them.
But anyway What are what are some examples ofthese soft cost losses?
Like, the stories that you you have.
Obviously, you have lots of experience in thisspace of where you've seen hey.
Like, this is one that we did and saved thesaved the owner a ton of money.
Well, you know, it's interesting.
(20:05):
I guess the one we love to quote the most isthe one that saved the biggest number.
Yeah.
Of course.
About and and it's a good example of the kindsof things that you should be thinking about
when you're doing a building.
We did I I don't know how long ago.
Now it's 02/2011.
So, yeah, about 02/2008.
(20:26):
We finished a project 02/2011.
So 02/2007, 02/2008, the construction marketwas super hot.
Bids were coming in high.
You know, you couldn't get bidders.
It was a contractor's world, and it had beenthat way for a while.
We estimated at the time I won't tell you thenames of the hospitals or the market, but three
health care facilities, actually four in thesame market, all about the same size.
(20:54):
You know, everybody was going constructionmanager.
That was it.
We got hired by a client, not only to do theestimating, but as an owner's rep, we had a bit
more say.
We had been hearing a rumbling that, you know,this market was getting too hot and things were
about to, you know, there was, there was rumorsthat a crash might happen.
(21:14):
And so we said to our clients, look, you know,it's gonna go against the flow of everything
you're hearing, but we would like you to godesign, bid, build traditional construction.
And our argument was if you go as aconstruction manager, you're gonna hire them
now.
You're gonna get a guaranteed maximum pricebased on today's prices.
And if the market does crash if the market goesup, it won't get any worse.
(21:39):
But if the market crashes, you're gonna loseout on a lot of savings because those CMs won't
give you back.
You know, they're not gonna go out andcompetitively bid the market.
They're all gonna
hang There's no tatesy backsees once you signthe agreement.
Right.
So after a lot of back and forth, I had to talkthe project manager and then the president of
the hospital and then then do battle with theAE and finally got everybody convinced that
(22:05):
that this indeed was a good idea.
So what happened was the market did crash.
Spoiler alert.
Yeah.
And, on the on the other three hospitals thatwe did, which were under construction
management, they came in about 10 under ourbudgets.
(22:26):
And understand, we're in the same market, sameprice levels, all jobs.
Ours came in about 30% under budget and savedour client.
The client says 35,000,000 because that's whatit was under budget.
We say 25,000,000 because he would have gotprobably 10,000,000 anyway, you know, just even
with a Centimeters.
So the the difference between what everybodyelse got and what we got was about 25,000,000.
(22:52):
And that was just market survey, marketrecommendation, really no risk to the owner, we
felt.
You know, obviously, we were on the job, andand we're pretty confident that our numbers are
good as you get out for a centimeters.
I mean, we can, you know, you, you can havethat pride of territory there that they, they
say, we don't know the market and we'd say,hell, we talk to see subs all the time just
(23:15):
like you do.
And oh, by the way, we do 200 projects a year.
How many do you do?
You know, that's a whole other, that's a wholeother issue.
Any anyhow, that, that was a pretty goodexample.
Other examples, you know, we've come intoprojects where, you know, a project has, has
happened.
I'll, I'll give you one that again, doesn'taffect bricks and mortar.
(23:38):
It was a project that was a senior facilityhere in Chicago.
It was a religious senior facility sponsored bya religious order.
They had a very big donor who was contractor,nice guy, apparently had worked with them for
years.
So they gave him this project, which was 70 or$80,000,000 We were asked to do cost work.
(23:59):
There was a guy that we knew it who had retiredfrom the industry and was kind of doing this
project as their owners rep as a labor of love.
I mean, he literally was flying into Chicagoevery week, sleeping in the boiler house all
week and then going home.
I mean, he was he was a great guy, really niceguy.
(24:20):
And so, you know, he he had us do theestimates, and then he launched on the owner's
rep.
You know, originally, they were gonna hire us,and then he told us he was gonna do it as a
mission.
So okay.
He told me they were hiring this contractor,and we knew the contractor was a good
contractor, but we also knew they'd been havingsome problems having to do with the transition.
(24:41):
It transitioned from father to son, and let'sjust say it lost something in translation.
So we we recommended that they look closely atthe GMP and not only the numbers, but the terms
of it, and we recommended that they bring in aconstruction lawyer to really review it, make
sure they understood what they were gettinginto.
(25:02):
They didn't do that.
It was they used their own attorney who reallywasn't a construction expert expert who pretty
much rubber stamped what was given to them.
About a year later, yeah, eighteen monthslater, we got a phone call.
The the the, contractor was about to default,leave the contract leave the project.
(25:26):
The project manager, the guy we knew just said,I just can't do it anymore.
It's too much.
And it's getting too contentious.
Can you guys come in?
And we did, we came in and we, we struggledalong with the contractor for a while, at least
got the paperwork in order so it could besettled.
But we ended up taking over the projecteffectively and finishing up the trades with
(25:48):
the trades that needed to get wrapped up.
But that project degenerated into a claim,which, you know, the the the nuns were
mortified by.
All totally avoidable had they gone through abonafide selection process, had a reasonable
contract.
But the simple fact is they put a contract wasway overpaid before he left the project.
(26:10):
So we couldn't get much of that back because hewent belly up.
Just, you know, we, we did the best we couldfor them, got it back on track.
Didn't, you know, it didn't expand anymore.
And we managed to recover some of it for themagain, a little bit of forward planning.
It would never happen.
Yeah.
That's that's hard.
That's a that's a hard lesson that hopefullyhas now been learned.
(26:31):
Yeah.
And, you know, you're obviously a number oftimes where nobody's done any soil.
They've done soil tests, but they haven't donea lot of research.
And we've gotten into schematics, and all of asudden, we've got a redesign on the
foundations.
And nobody's even thought that that was likelyto happen.
That doesn't happen too often these days.
I think everybody I think the industry as awhole is is getting more risk aware that that
(26:56):
that there's still a tendency to tell an ownerwhat he wants to hear as opposed to what he
should hear.
Let's just leave it at that.
Yeah.
And so, you know, you do sometimes get, youknow, into design and all of a sudden, that
wasn't included.
So, yeah.
I mean, in spite of all the delivery systemsthat have been created, construction litigation
(27:19):
is is still a problem.
Yeah.
It is.
Litigation is a problem, but a little pre, youknow, a little, pre work there and kinda Yeah.
Address some of those issues.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We we've been.
Yeah.
So when we talked to you previously, you defineyourself as more of your process management
(27:40):
rather than necessarily project management.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sure.
I think we were actually talking about the theTenzing software that we we developed think in
which we that.
Yeah.
Other company I never really talked about.
Tenzing is, a software company that we have setup separately from CCS.
It's, and it and it's developed a piece ofprocess management software, which we are
(28:02):
applying to the construction industry, butactually as a process management tool, it could
be applied to any industry.
We as a company back in the mid eighties whenwe got into owner's rep, you know, struggled
along, you know, doing what we thought was ourbest for probably ten years, I would say.
So by the mid nineties, we had a fair body ofwork.
(28:24):
More people were getting into it.
And it was a bit of a massive confusion.
You know, what an owner expected, what wethought they wanted and what they really
wanted, what architects thought we did, whatcontractors thought we did, how owners reps
were selected, what an owner's rep shoulddeliver.
Yada.
It just went on.
(28:44):
It wasn't aligned.
Everybody had different opinions.
So you, you know, tell them one thing, contractfor that.
They thought you'd contract something slightlydifferent.
So you had all these gaps, which, you know, weplugged, but it wasn't it wasn't a smooth
process.
Anyhow, we we felt that there was an evolvingbusiness here.
(29:04):
And so we went to Northern Illinois Universityand their entrepreneurship program, explained
our situation and asked them to take us on as aproject.
And so for two years, we worked with thestudents and alumni out there to strategically
plan the business of being an owner's rep inconstruction.
(29:25):
That's what we did.
And the two, there were several things thatcame out of it, but the two big ones that I
think that had the most impact were, first ofall, they came to the conclusion that the
construction industry, unlike any other majorindustry, if you look at automobiles or if you
look at, you know, the aero industry or thesoftware business, you know, there is a process
(29:48):
management element that controls the way theyrun the business that they're in.
Right?
Nothing like that existed in the constructionindustry for the for the overall process that
the owner has to control.
I would say that process management existsinside a contractor's office and exists inside
(30:10):
an architect's office, but it exists inside acontractor's office to manage the business of
building a building, and in an architect'soffice to manage the business of designing a
building.
In the owner's office, there is no or there waslittle or no process, probably leaning towards
(30:33):
no process to managing the business of thetotal project, the development of a project,
whatever you want to call it, the sponsorshipof a, of a project, nobody had that down.
And that's what, that's what we needed as anowners rep.
That's what owners needed.
And then the other thing was in almost anyother industry, there is a focus on this early
(30:55):
planning project definition.
Well, that it, And, in fact, the students atNorthern Illinois came over and gave us a
presentation.
And by, you know, defined this focus on earlyresearch and early definition of the project
and they of the components of the project.
And they said, that's what we call projectdefinition, and that's what we then called it.
(31:20):
I believe we might have been the first peoplein the industry to use that term, but those
were the two key game changers.
And so the reason, Will, coming back to yourquestion, that we talk about process management
instead of project management is that processmanagement or process is what enables you to
(31:40):
manage your piece of a project.
Right?
Which in the owner's case is the whole project,you know, with the with the architect.
It's so so when you hear about projectmanagement and project management software,
most of the stuff that's out there now isproject management software focused on
construction.
There is software for owners, but I don't knowthat any of it contains a process, fully
(32:05):
developed process.
Ours does.
Lots of them have pieces of a process, and I'mnot saying they're all bad.
There's some good software out there, but Idon't think there's one that's quite as
complete.
And the other thing is because we were using itourselves and we've, we've worked on the
process.
We've used the map, the process that wedeveloped manually for over twenty years now.
(32:26):
So we know it works because we know the resultsthat come out of the process.
All we've really done with the software isautomate what we've been doing for years.
So it's a proven process, which is important.
And so, really enabling owners to manage theirprojects better.
And so that's the difference between processmanagement and project management.
(32:48):
Process management enables you to projectmanage.
Right?
I love, the insight that you had there becausea lot of people come to us, and AI is obviously
a big topic now.
But automation, just as in generality, how do Iautomate things?
And Will and I laughed because it's usuallylike, well, what are your processes?
Like, what what do you actually want toautomate?
(33:09):
Like, you know, like, it's not magic.
You have to have in your point, we had twentyyears of doing this process and and making it a
little bit better all the time.
And to put it into an actual system, which isvery robust of what you've achieved.
But, like, even just, hey.
This is how we interact with a new client.
(33:30):
Like, this is our onboarding process.
What that looks like means an email.
It means, hey.
We're gonna have a meeting with the serviceteam and the person that sold the project.
We're gonna bring everybody together and and doall these things.
So that's that's a huge component here thatit's not just we built the process as we were
building the technology.
It's like, No.
No.
No.
We had the process.
(33:51):
It was very vetted.
And now we've just made it into a piece oftechnology.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm on the board of a local communitycollege.
It's one of the sponsors of a, incubator.
So lots, lots of guys doing software.
Anyway, friend of mine was the executivedirector over there.
So we went over to see what they were doing.
(34:12):
And that's really where this all startedbecause he was talking about these guys with
software.
And I said, well, we don't know anything aboutsoftware.
You know, it's not us.
So we've been trying to automate this for yearsand yada yada.
And we started telling him what we got and hesaid, look, you know, technology has moved on
and the software that developed it, you can getthat done anywhere.
It's the knowledge that goes in.
That's the value.
(34:33):
And so, you know, he got us kind of excited,and we gradually got sucked into moving further
and further down the software chain and evenended up developing it, you know, going we we
we are fully on it now.
Everything we run runs on on Tenzing.
And, you know, I was I think it was the latenineties.
I was sitting in this conference, well,conference room like this, and there were, you
(34:56):
know, flowcharts over the walls.
I've still got them rolled up somewhere.
I refused to let them throw it away.
It was too much work.
You know, but it's got literally probably 90%of the tasks that you would think of.
In fact, it's probably got a 100% of them.
We only put about 90% of them into the, intothe software, because there are some tasks that
(35:20):
every organization, manages uniquely.
You can't build a product that is gonna fiteverything that everybody might do.
So for instance, you know, if you wanna linkyour accounting system into Tenzing, you can't
just do that because, you know, everybody's gota different system.
(35:40):
Everyone's got different cost codes, you know,yada yada.
And so, you know, we can take information andput it into Tenzing, but it can't automatically
flow in.
We can build that link, but then you're taught,you know, you you've gotta have enough use for
it that you're willing to sponsor the cost ofdeveloping it specific before you.
Coming back to something you were sayingearlier, Justin, you know, with a with a
(36:02):
process management tool, the way we've builtTenzing, you know, we we've got our profile of
senior project managers here.
You know, we've got the young guys that run andgun and sleep on their computer.
You know, then we've got the old dogs like me.
(36:22):
It's interesting to watch how they how they useit, but the thing that, we realized is it's
gotta be user friendly, gotta be easy to use,and, and it's gotta be logical.
So, you know, building the things so that itmade common sense and starting from a user's
perspective, as opposed to a programmingperspective.
(36:44):
I mean, we had out there, there were somethings that would have been a lot easier if we
just let the developers have their way, butyou'd be clicking and dropping and dragging.
And when we first developed this, it was likethree clicks to move an email.
Now it's seamless.
But if you get 50 emails a day, which isn'tuncommon for a project manager, that get that
(37:05):
gets old very quick.
That's so that soft cost loss we talked aboutearlier.
If you have to click three times
Yeah.
For every email
That's death by a thousand paper cuts rightthere.
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Super cool in terms of just and alsounderstanding that, you know, you can't just
automate unless you have a process and kind ofgoing through the going through the process of
(37:26):
developing, even though you don't have anybackground in software development.
When you initial what gave you the idea toactually talk to a college and have them help
you?
Well, wow.
You know, as I said, we developed the processtwenty years ago.
It's it's it is ever you know, it is andcontinues to be, evolutionary.
(37:49):
When I first started thinking about this thisprocess, I went up to University of Michigan
just to talk to them because I I, you know, Ithink I ran into one of their guys at a
convention or something, and he was telling methings they were doing, which sounded kinda
cool.
And I was really focusing on, at the time, onhow estimating would affect technology.
(38:11):
So I went up there to talk to him about that.
And then we saw what they were doing in termsof, at that time, sort of time study things.
I had videos where they were monitoringprocesses.
And I started thinking about process and talkedto them about this flowcharting of process.
(38:34):
One of their, I think he was a doctoral studentat the time, was working on something along
those lines, not quite what we were doing, butsomething similar.
And so we engaged him and said, have a go atautomating this one.
We did actually have a product that worked, butit never it never worked.
(38:54):
It was never user friendly.
It was always too you know, just it it createdmore problems than it solved frankly.
And so we, we, we, we, you know, let it go and,and continued on manually.
But I always had this thought that one daytechnology is gonna catch up.
And I think, you know, I was on the board.
I was on the foundation board.
I am on the foundation board at the college.
(39:16):
And, you know, when I went over and talked totheir executive director and sort of had this
conversation, which was really scientific, Heintroduced me to a bunch of their young
programmers that were working on gamingsoftware and all kinds of applications.
And he was talking about it.
And I said, well, I hope they had more luckthan we did.
(39:36):
That was the throwaway comment.
And he said, what do you mean?
So I told him this tale of woe, and he said,hang on a minute.
You've got a developed process.
You've been using it for twenty years.
Yeah.
You've got clients at network.
Yeah.
You've got a database of clients that you cango back.
Yeah.
You know, do you realize you've got 80% of whatthese guys are still trying to get to get?
(39:56):
And I guess that's where he piqued my interest,and it morphed from there.
Okay.
I think that's where, you know, historically,the software industry has kind of, you know,
burned the construction industry historically.
Now I think that there's a lot of good productsout there that exist that that help, but it
usually comes from somebody that has been doingit.
(40:16):
So if it's a, you know, if it's a projectmanagement system, you were actually in
construction before that or have the feedbackfrom construction to then build it.
Because a developer who is extraordinarilyskilled at what they do, their brain doesn't
work the same or don't have the same experienceas somebody that has worked in, you know,
twenty years of running through a owner's repprocess.
(40:39):
Yeah.
I mean
They don't they have zero concept of how wouldwe create this because it doesn't that's just
them trying to build what you've built overtwenty years.
Yeah.
I mean, there there are owners that have, well,you know, some we've seen that have good, you
know, really good process, but oftentimes theyare owners of the fact that I think in every
(40:59):
instance I'm aware of, they are owners who arebuilding the same product or a similar product,
you know, they're building, I don't know,they're, they're building,
like a Starbucks
medical office building, Starbucks, McDonald's,something like that, you know, or they're a
developer that knows their product that they'reputting in different load, you know, things
(41:22):
like that.
Some of the guys that are managing hotels thatare running hotels, you know, so there there
are groups, but there's a huge for, you know,there's a huge need, I think, there for owners
to get the discipline of process because Ithink it would really help them.
Yeah.
That's, interesting.
So when you so obviously you had, I'm gonnacall it the estimating center cost management
(41:44):
side.
Yeah.
So you had people in that realm.
The owner's rep side comes around a little bitlater and now you have this software technical
component.
I know it's a separate entity, but like how didhow did the hiring of that and is there cross
training?
What's what's that look like for your people?
One of the benefits for us of having the costside of things is that, you know, our project
(42:07):
managers, we do cross train them.
We do encourage them to work alongside the costpeople.
And some of them have some cost backgroundsanyway.
In fact, Mark Rogers, who leads our, projectmanagement group with Graham Harwood, worked
here as an intern before he before he went tocollege.
He was still in high school as a as a costestimator, and then, you know, years later came
(42:30):
back to work full time.
But we do benefit from that because if aproject manager is between projects, we can
usually use them on the cost side because thatthe cost side is, you know, with, with, with
project management.
So fairly even assignment over a couple ofyears with cost estimating cost management.
You come in, you go away, you come in, you goaway.
(42:52):
So you're always dealing with peaks andvalleys.
And so we've always got that we've always we'vebuilt a flexible backup team.
And our project managers, if they're betweenjobs, are able to just fit into the cost side,
which gives them continuity of employment andhelps us with staffing for valleys.
So, you know, they do intermingle.
We encourage that.
When the software came along, I would say atfirst there was a little suspicion, that that
(43:18):
basically was, oh my God, what's he up to now?
But that that has now evolved.
I think we've made believers out of everybody.
And, you know, PMs are all on board.
The cost guys are seeing the benefits.
And, indeed the three have come together underwhat we call project Sherpa, which is something
(43:40):
that through the Tenzing software, if you are aTenzing software user, we will help any client
that is managing their own project.
We're able to we're offering that that to anyclient that's managing their own project that
we can offer what we call fractional projectmanagement, project support, where let's
suppose, and, you know, you've got a good guysof village manager and, he's running a
(44:05):
construction and he's doing a decent job, buthe gets hit with a big change order.
We can parachute in a specialist estimator,deal with the problem, pull back, and let him
continue again.
Or if he has a scheduling issue, or even if,you know, a staff member running the project
gets sick or something and you needed somebodyto put their finger in the dam, we can do that
(44:30):
because the way Tenzing is set up for anyissue, wouldn't matter what it was or or task,
all the data associated with it, emails,drawings, specs, are filed against that issue
or task.
So that means for us, we can parachute in, readthe story of what's happened, and immediately
(44:50):
be up to speed so we can we can help outquickly, cost effectively.
So it kinda gives clients the best of bothworlds.
If you don't want a full time owner's rep forwhatever reason, you know, you get a process,
you get everything you need to implement thatprocess with Tenzing.
And then if you get over your skis, ifsomething goes wrong, if you need technical
support, you've got a whole team of projectmanagers, project control guys ready to step in
(45:17):
and help out.
Interesting.
So then, obviously, owners makes tons of sense.
Developers as well is my guess.
Like beg your pardon?
Developers as well.
Right?
So, like, actual owner of whoever it is, butthen if somebody is utilizing a developer in
inner you know, to essentially be the owner'srep, it's effectively what comes into play
(45:38):
here.
Is that that's another place would make sensewith tensing.
Is there anything else?
Is it a con can a contractor utilize thissoftware in some way, or is it not really built
for them?
Well, it's not really built for contractors.
We I mean, but construction is just a processlike anything else.
So Tenzing could be, you know, you a contractorcould use Tenzing to build a process.
(46:00):
I think in fairness, most contractors know whatthey're doing.
And so there is a, they've got a processalready, whether it's internal or not.
And, but I think there's plenty of software outthere that, that services contractors.
So I'm, I'm not sure a contractor, you know, I,I'd have a hard time imagining why a contractor
would need to build a process inside Tenzing.
(46:25):
They've probably got one that works or they'reusing one already that works for them.
Where where Tenzing can help contractors is ifa, if a, if a contractor, let's say a
Centimeters or design build team is dealingwith an owner and they find out early on that
that owner doesn't have a lot of constructionprocess, then, you know, depending on who the
(46:46):
owner is, if there is a need for transparency,if there is a need for, you know, that
independent buffer, then I think Tenzing canhelp that owner and certainly Tenzing plus
either a full owner's rep or, you know, projectSherpa availability can help the contractor.
It makes life it depends which school ofconstruction you come from.
(47:07):
I believe that an informed owner benefitseverybody.
I would say less scrupulous members of ourprofession don't feel the same way.
Got it.
But I do think I have to say this.
I have a healthy respect for my fellowprofessionals.
I think contractors generally are trying to dothe right thing for the owner.
(47:30):
They're trying to do a good job.
And I think the same is true of architects andjust about all the disciplines.
So I haven't run into, you know, too manypeople that I would say start out being
unethical.
I think sometimes they get forced intosituations where they have to dig in and make
sure their own interests are taken care of, butI don't think anyone starts out looking for war
(47:51):
or looking to hoodwink beyond.
Okay.
So I've got a question here because a lot ofestimation, right, you've got your cost of
goods sold.
There's a service side, right, thecommunication side.
Right?
A lot of this stuff can be estimated.
But what about safety?
How do
you estimate safety?
You know, safety is is really a contractorissue.
(48:15):
Safety programs, I think, are pretty muchrequired almost everywhere these days.
And so it's, it's genuinely built into acontractor's overhead.
It's built into the way they run their tradesand coordinate everything.
So it's sort of built into everything else.
You know, sometimes you'll see safety as a lineitem in general conditions.
(48:36):
Other times it's built into the numbers.
You know, if you have a defined safety program,you can usually, you can usually estimate the
value of safety if that's what people arelooking for.
But generally, it's sort of built into someother numbers.
Having said that, one of the dangers that tipfor owners here and even architects, we had a
(48:56):
project that came in way over well, we didn'thave it.
A large public client who I can't name forobvious reasons had it.
And their project was, I don't know,$250,000,000 came in at $3.50 and they hit the
panic button.
We got a call.
And so we, five weeks, we had to sort of well,actually, five days, we had to tell them if the
(49:20):
bid was reasonable, which it was.
But then we had to get into this exercise overabout five weeks to try and figure out what we
could do about it.
And one of the big issues was this programinvolved five or six different locations.
So somebody pulled the specification off theshelf and the specification said that the
(49:40):
safety program had to have peer review at everyproject and that every, superintendent on every
site had to have a peer review superintendent.
They were basically doubling up supervision.
That wasn't what they meant, but that's whatcame up.
So I don't know if the lesson there is issafety as much as when you use standard
(50:03):
documents, make sure that, you know, thatstandard document is customized to your project
because we had some real howlers in Yeah.
It's good insight.
Right?
That's something you can't find in a softwareprogram if you've never had, like, the
experience Yeah.
In construction.
Right?
In this particular instance, it was, it was a,it was a transportation project.
(50:32):
And what they did is they were looking for adecent safety program.
So they had a guy that used to be with the Navyand he went and pulled a standard Navy spec for
a whole different type of project.
It happens.
I mean, you know,
every different approach in
your position.
I said that's a different type oftransportation.
(50:53):
Yeah.
Ian, this has been amazing.
We have one final question though we wanna askyou.
Okay.
We ask all of our guests.
If you could go back twenty years, what advicewould you give yourself?
If I could go back twenty, what advice would Igive?
That's a good question.
02/2005.
The White Sox are gonna win the World Seriesthis year.
(51:14):
So, you know, take you back to that moment intime.
I would say get rid of your get get rid of yourseats at Wrigley Field, probably.
That's right.
I love that answer.
But, no.
Seriously, I think I think it's I don't thinkit's really changed since I got got into into
the business.
It's kinda keep your eyes on the horizon.
(51:37):
And and I think, you know, you could see 20 agothat technology was a snowball that was going
to keep rolling and get bigger and move faster.
And so I think, you know, keep your eyes in thehorizon.
I think that's still true.
You with the advent of AI, we're starting tolook at how cautiously, how, how that could be
(51:58):
used.
And I think with delivery systems, some ofthem, I mean, they they've all got their place.
There's always, there's a reason for all ofthem existing, But I think those will probably
continue to evolve as, as the industry becomesmore collaborative.
But as an old timer said to me, he said, it'sreally funny now.
(52:19):
We spend hours and weeks and days trying tocome up with delivery systems and contracts
that used to be a handshake.
And he said even with them, we and even evenwith those contracts, we still end up with more
disputes than we ever used to.
But I think I think, look at what's evolvingand use judgment as to how to best apply it.
(52:46):
You know?
Yeah.
That's good advice.
Would be my advice.
Awesome.
We're gonna throw all the social links and allthat fun stuff into the show notes.
But if somebody wanted to get ahold of you,what's the best way for them to do that?
IPAR@iparratccs, and the word difference, d I ff e r e n c e, dot com.
(53:13):
And we'd love to hear from them.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Awesome.
Is there anything else you'd like to tell theguests before we say our goodbyes?
Yeah.
Listeners, not guests.
Listeners, not guests.
I think, you know, enjoy what you do.
Enjoy the day, and I think the rest of it getseasier if you do that.
(53:33):
Love that.
Love that.
Thank you, listeners, so much.
I hope you had as good of a time as me and Willdid.
And until next time, adios.
Adios.
Thanks for listening to Building Scale.
To help us reach even more people, please sharethis episode with a friend, colleague, or on
social media.
Remember, the three pillars of scaling abusiness are people, process, and technology.
(53:57):
And our mission is to help the AEC industryprotect itself by making technology easy.
So if you think your company's technologypillar could use some improvement, book a call
with us to see how we can help maximize your ITcybersecurity strategy.
Just go to buildingscale.net/help.
(54:20):
And until next time.
Keep building scale.
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