Transforming Your Office While Protecting Your Bottom-line

It is critical to engage the right specialists to customize solutions, mitigate risks, and optimize value, since hundreds of thousands of dollars lie in the balance.

SAN FRANCISCO—In the Bay Area and beyond, companies are realizing that the workplace environment can have a significant impact on recruitment, retention, and productivity.  They are also learning that the workplace strategy, design, and construction process has become more complex and sophisticated.  Accordingly, it is critical to engage the right specialists to customize solutions, mitigate risks, and optimize value, since hundreds of thousands of dollars lie in the balance.

Before making quick decisions based on what’s trendy versus what best meets your needs, CEO’s, CFO’s, and corporate real estate executives are advised to assess the different routes toward workplace transformation.  By performing this due diligence, companies will discover the advantages and disadvantages of each approach, including the roles played by a project manager and construction manager.

Increasingly, project managers are being engaged to oversee workplace solutions, but every project is unique, and companies need to understand what resources are available and how best to utilize them.

A good place to start is by examining the difference between PM and CM.  Project managers bring a broader, strategic perspective to the overall process.  PMs not only understand design, construction, engineering, IT/AV security, and furniture procurement, but also the business implications of commercial real estate projects. They view solutions in a larger context that includes lease terms, business objectives, and other value-added client services.

Construction managers, key to the workplace solutions team, are specialists trained to manage the construction process, from pre-construction to close-out and move-in.  As such, CMs help ensure projects are delivered on time and on budget, and an experienced, knowledgeable professional is obviously required to perform this role.  However, since most high-dollar construction decisions have far-reaching strategic and business implications, the PM is better suited to take the lead. In this light, it is useful to regard CM as a subset of PM, and you may well find that the ideal approach is when the PM and CM functions are integrated.

Roadmap toward Success with Integrated Project Management

Again, this begs the need to consider an integrated PM firm that has the requisite experience and very strong CM and design components.

Trust and Full Disclosure

How can you optimize prospects for a successful outcome?  It starts with a client-relationship based on trust and openness.  Companies should regard the client/PM relationship as a partnership and share their true budget numbers from the start.  Armed with a thorough understanding of the project requirements and the budget, the PM can provide realistic plans and deliver optimal value.  If the client is not forthcoming with this critical data, the consultant will be at a disadvantage, the partnership will be compromised, and results will be diminished.

Also important to project success is that a realistic budget is established at the project’s onset.  The “all-in” budget will allow the PM firm to carefully monitor the design and assure its alignment with the budget.  To prevent budget surprises, the firm will refine and manage the project budget, including the entire cost spectrum:  permitting, design, construction, IT/AV, security, furniture, relocation, and other related expenses.

Overall, the PM model, including the CM’s involvement, brings value through a comprehensive approach that involves four project phases:  real estate/property search; preconstruction, programming, and design; construction; and close-out/move-in.  The steps in each phase are outlined below.

Project Phases

Real Estate/Property Search
Preconstruction, Programming, and Design
Construction
Close-out/Move-in  

Closing the Deal

An independent PM firm is well-positioned to provide conflict-free services that incorporate all the steps outlined above. But all project managers and construction managers—like all projects—are not created equal.  How can you find the right fit?

First, you should take into consideration that as technology continues to advance, the real estate industry will continue to evolve, and you’ll want to partner with a firm that is cutting-edge and has a long-term view… but also one that has good, old-fashioned people skills in listening and communicating.  So check references and track records. View sample projects.  Make sure there is a good comfort level.

After enlisting the firm, it’s important to collaborate and let the PM, often in concert with the CM, do their jobs.  When the client and the consultants are on the same page, the result invariably is a successful project that elicits the satisfaction of staff, improves the recruitment and retention of talent, and earns the stamp of approval from the CEO and CFO.  It’s win-win-win.

Robin Weckesser serves as president and Bob Garcia serves as senior project manager at a3 Workplace Strategies. The views expressed here are the author’s own and not that of ALM’s Real Estate Media Group.