This paper was derived from research I conducted at three professional design engineering service firms concerning their perceptions of the “sudden” surfacing of conflict within a project team. The data collection methods included confidential one-on-one employee interviews, employee surveys, interviews with the firms’ clients, and feedback from subconsultants (suppliers) to the firms. A review of workplace conflict literature within the design and construction industry, and also in other workplace settings, was compared to proprietary data from management assessment reports of the three firms. This second part of the trilogy will present practical conflict “navigational” guides, including project team assessment for constructive versus destructive conflict, theoretical basis and practical application of Lewin’s force field analysis, three universal metrics of project success, brief anatomies of project failures, an estimate of the cost of unresolved conflict, and a proactive risk assessment checklist.
This trilogy of papers has been developed to make a difference in professional design engineering firms, their clients, and the public at large with the introduction of new interpretations of familiar engineering management challenges. These papers reinforce and make visible the connection between the design and construction industry’s (DCI’s) role as a desired driving force in strengthening the economic vitality of our nation and the corresponding restraining forces on achieving that objective due to the lack of proactive management of anticipated project conflict. Surprisingly, the restraining forces that bind us have little to do with engineering and a great deal to do with nontechnical matters (DPIC 2003).
The first paper in the trilogy introduced the problem-seeking metaphor “Elephant in the Living Room”(Hayden 2004), addressing conflict within project teams managed by professional engineers. Based on literature, proprietary research, and interviews, the question of whether the planned management of anticipated conflict would lead to improved project outcomes was answered affirmatively, and I suggested that at least two new beliefs were required within the executive/senior management group of the professional services firm: (1) the root cause that drives or restrains project success is often nontechnical in nature; and (2) people work in the system management creates (Deming 1993a,b). Part 1 of this trilogy also identified the common characteristics of life within the management of project systems at major firms, making note of the firms’ general acceptance of conflict as part of “the cost of doing business.”
In this paper, we will turn our attention to three questions:
1.
What evidence exists to support the previous workplace assertions presented?
2.
How do others report on the cause and effect of project failures?
3.
Why do professionals in the DCI appear unable or unwilling to effect sustainable positive increases in their project outcomes?
Addressing each of these questions involves the willingness and ability to change traditional engineering management practices, while keeping in mind that project management is the management of change.
The economic contribution of the DCI to local, state, and national levels has been well recognized. The DCI is segmented into various service and product specialties, corporate business forms, and project delivery/organizational structures. The professional design engineering firm, through its project management performance of feasibility studies, planning, design, construction, and operational and maintenance services, has made a pronounced impact on the quality of life in our communities, our nation, and around the world. However, the economic impact of unsuccessful DCI project work for new nonresidential construction has been estimated to range from 8 to 15 percent of the total construction production annually (Shilstone 1983; Burati and Farrington 1987). Studies show that unmanaged conflict within project teams negatively impacts three DCI project-outcome metrics: (1) the public’s safety, health, and welfare; (2) client satisfaction; and (3) the resulting cost of project quality borne in large part by the design engineering firm.
In this second part of the trilogy, we will learn that those familiar constraints to improving project outcomes may be explored using the “force field” theory developed by Kurt Lewin. In doing so, project management teams can help to diminish the negative economic impact on these metrics. Lewin’s force field theory is presented as a starting-point tool to begin to capture, appreciate, and understand the interdependencies of workplace dynamics that simultaneously drive and restrain the desired achievement level of engineered projects’ planned outcomes.
Preliminary results described in part 1 suggested that causal factors (restraining forces) appear to inhibit engineers from initiating and continuing dialogue to proactively explore anticipated project conflict. These causal factors included:
1.
The lack of required ABET-certified university engineering courses that address Human Systems Engineering™ knowledge and skills.
2.
Traditional professional biases relative to conflict.
3.
The perception of how others might react to the proactive identification of anticipated project conflict in the absence of a clear and present crisis.
4.
An apparent lack of competency in engineering management skills to enable proactively addressing interpersonal situations that require mastery of active listening skills, focusing on understanding and validating the expectations of major stakeholders involved.
5.
The fact that most engineers are not owners of the firms they work in can lead to questions of professional ethics and business practice ethics accountability.
Literature review
Conflict is a natural human reaction in the workplace. The literature suggests that certain types of conflict can be reasonably anticipated in the context of a project, because by definition a DCI project contains contextual ingredients for potential conflict. These include the integration of multiple technical disciplines, constrained resources, the uniqueness of the work, changing parameters, a clear beginning and ending date, and, more often than not, knowledge that the people assigned to work on a project will not work together again on the next project.
As graduate engineers enter the work force, most are excited about their first post-college challenges. Technically prepared, they expect that the most significant challenge they would face would be acceptance by their more technically experienced colleagues. Most graduates, however, are unprepared for the interpersonal, social, and cultural challenges that also are a common part of technical project work.
Some twenty-five years ago Shannon (1980) noted that some 80 percent of engineers would find themselves in managerial roles at some point, requiring them to guide highly trained and creative people in a dynamic environment, and navigate multilevel interpersonal relationships with peers, managers, and employees. Shannon also recognized that internal power struggles were a common part of an organization’s structure. The choice between proactively approaching conflict resolution and avoiding it impacted the project outcomes and relationships.
In Table 1, Shannon (1980) noted a manager’s transformational experience from the point when conflict first surfaced (“deny problems”) until it became recognized as anticipatory (“anticipate critical classes of problems”). The fifth entry of Table 1 (anticipate critical classes of problems) recognizes the potential within the engineering workplace to anticipate conflict and construct visible mediation models to proactively manage it. This involves empirically developing classes or categories of conflict-prone issues and then having the processes visibly in place to move potential destructive conflict toward constructive conflict.
Table 1. Five Distinct Group Conflict Process Attitudinal Phases (Shannon 1980, with permission)
Group Conflict Attitudinal Phase
Descriptive Phase Indicators
Deny problems.
“We do not have any problems between us.”
Blame problems on the other group.
“If only they would improve, we would not have any problems.”
Accept responsibilities for problems.
“We create some for them, they create some for us.”
Work out problems with the others.
“We jointly determine the appropriate steps to be taken to solve current problems.”
Anticipate critical classes of problems.
“We define mechanisms and procedures for handling recurring types of problems.”
A number of researchers have noted their findings related to the emotion, relationship, and affective dimensions of conflict. Shannon (1980) reported that operation conflicts not handled with sensitivity and tact can easily lead to emotional conflicts, which are extremely difficult to resolve due to their proximity to a participant’s ego or hurt feelings. Jehn (1997) notes, “relationship conflicts interfere with task-related effort because members focus on reducing threats, increasing power, and attempting to build cohesion rather than working on the task.” Conflict that is affective arises from personal incompatibilities or disputes, which can produce “distrust, suspicion, and hostility (Amason and Sapienza 1997).
Roethlisberger and Dickson (1946) recognized the interdependence between the product/technical side of operations and the human social needs of the workers. To achieve high performance, neither part of a business can be viewed as independent. The authors identified the significance of seeing the organization’s social system in interdependent parts. While others frequently assume a separation of external and internal climate, the success with which a business maintains external balance is directly related to its internal organization. Roethlisberger and Dickson (1946) also recognized that the individual’s social working environs have material impact on productivity.
Jehn (1997) conducted a study to learn why managers expressed confusion over what drives conflict, particularly when it appeared that their project team members understood the objective of the project. Jehn concluded that team members were quite capable of distinguishing the inherent differences between three types of conflict: task, relationship, and process. Relationship conflicts sprung from interpersonal relationships, task conflicts were related to work-inspired content and goals, and process conflict had to do with how tasks were performed (Jehn 1997).
When an identified conflict progressed (e.g., from task conflict to relationship conflict), it was treated as if it were a new and separate conflict. To provide a second dimension to the study, four interpretative frames related to the three types of conflict were identified—negative emotionality (amount of negativity felt), importance, acceptability, and resolution potential (Jehn 1997).
McElhaney (2002) and Perry (2001) agreed that emotions and feelings played a major part in the life cycle of a conflict. Both noted the need for managers to have mastery of a conflict process model that started with controlling instinctual behavior. Managers must be sensitive to the level of emotion and distress of the conflicted individual, even when that individual remains silent.
As noted by Capozzoli (1999), the most typical American reactions to workplace conflict were individualistic and competitive. It does not have to be that way, as “[t]heoretically, conflict is neither good nor bad” (Capozzoli 1999). Capozzoli suggests that managers have a choice: manage conflict proactively and constructively, or continue to suffer the negative outcomes. Based on a manager’s decisions, examples of constructive conflict include building cohesiveness among members of a team and increasing the involvement of everyone affected by the conflict. Destructive conflict is characterized by destruction of individual or team morale, which polarizes or divides groups of people.
According to Al-Tabtabai et al.(2001), while self-understanding and the understanding of the other person(s) involved in a conflict were important criteria in approaching successful conflict resolution, the level of such cognitive understanding was generally poor. Anticipating and achieving early collaborative conflict resolution relied on knowing a project’s complexity and the number of project participants it would support. Historically the word “conflict” had been associated with negative imagery. Disagreement itself was associated by many as a sign of contempt. Yet, Al-Tabtabai et al. (2001) noted that early identification and response to conflict could influence the success of the project outcomes. In this manner, conflict could be regarded as positive.
The five conflict styles developed thirty years ago—labeled forcing, withdrawal, smoothing, compromising, and confrontation—had no guidance or methodology for relating the intensity and breadth of a specific conflict into a resolution model. Each of the five suggested approaches had the underlying assumption of, “What’s in it for me?”
2.
Many conflicts flowed from the exercise of intuitive human judgment, which is inherently cognitive and subjective. Interpersonal conflict could occur even if self-serving motives were removed or did not exist.
3.
Without help, a person had difficulty in clarifying his or her decision due to the invisible and subjective nature of his or her personal judgment process. One characteristic of this behavior was the observed lack of consistency when management made decisions about the same matter regarding different persons.
4.
A model to systematically approach and resolve conflict included the timeliness of identifying the conflict itself and the approaches to resolve it; exploring and giving feedback to the participants as to documentation of the conflict’s domain; agreeing on the major issues of that conflict; providing cognitive decision feedback of each participant to the other participants regarding their judgment-making characteristics; and going back to revisit their prior individual judgments in light of this cognitive judgment feedback.
5.
The prime objective of the research was to externalize the judgment process of conflicting parties.
The proposed cognitive analysis approach helped the conflicted participants to focus on the significant issues between them. Rather than dealing mainly with the present effects of the situation, the cognitive approach focused the individuals on more substantive issues of the conflict.
May the force be with you
The underlying theoretical framework upon which this trilogy is based on the work of Kurt Lewin (1951), especially his paper, “Behavior and Development as a Function of the Total Situation.” Lewin presented the case that observable human behavior, , is dependent on the environment, , that a person, , is being observed within using the equation . Lewin noted that, relative to this equation, and are considered variables that are mutually dependent upon each other—that a person and his or her environment must be considered related and interactive factors that together comprise a “life space of an individual.” Lewin’s equation therefore includes the person and his or her psychological environment, representing a “totality of coexisting facts,” or a “field” (Lewin 1951). Viewing this life space, including the person and his or her environment, as one field is an essential part to understanding conflict.
Within this trilogy, the following symbology is adopted: . Where indicates the observed behavior of individuals or groups at a specific time, I indicated the total personality/characteristics/preferences of an individual or group of individuals. represents the environs within which the individual or group found herself or himself within a specific workplace situation at a specific time.
Lewin (1951) noted that for one to seek to understand and predict behavior , data had to be collected that was directly applicable for a particular person or persons , at a particular time within a particular environment . For a person to be understood, it needed to be with respect to that individual’s or group of individuals’ present developmental state. For example, within any professional design engineering firm, the environment was perceived as a different world of psychological life space for a recent engineering graduate , compared to other engineers who were thirty-five years and fifty-five years of age.
Environmental factors that limited the analysis of data in this trilogy pertaining to individual(s) included whether the individual(s) were feeling encouraged or discouraged when being interviewed or when completing the survey questionnaire, whether they worked in either an autocratic or democratic department, and whether their developmental years were privileged or underprivileged. However, Lewin cautioned that going too deep into such details would not tell you what you needed to know about the system of behavior you were evaluating.
With regard to the implied trilogy question, “Will the planned management of anticipated conflict lead to improved project outcomes?” the effect of the following ’s on the affected were considered: (1) , or organizational management system; and (2) , or project management system.
Lewin (1951) also developed the theory of the force field analysis as generally illustrated in Fig. 1 (Wysocki 2004). Lewin postulated that as driving forces moved one closer to achieving a desired goal (e.g., project outcome), restraining forces impeded that goal’s achievement. Fig. 1 suggests that the integrated resultant of the driving and restraining forces produce the effect or result noted as the “current state.” An example is the desire of a project manager to provide clients with exceptional service (driving force) within a limited project budget (restraining force). Further, that same project manager might know that he/she will be rewarded for client delight (driving force) and project profits (restraining force). When one integrates Deming’s system of profound knowledge (Deming 1993a, b) with Lewin’s force field analysis (Lewin 1951), it becomes clearer why exhortations to “work harder, work smarter, and do your best” cannot be sustained. It is the system, not the people.
It appears that project failure due to underdeveloped human systems management begins at the academic stage of the engineer’s career. Introducing the human systems side of engineering practice during the educational phase may be an effective start to improving sustainable positive increases in project outcomes in the DCI. The educational formation and development of engineering students equips the new graduates to use well-developed technical problem-solving processes and tools to logically and analytically reduce complex technical challenges to solvable issues. However, university educational curricula of ABET-approved programs at the undergraduate and graduate level generally exclude the common nontechnical human systems part of project work as part of their required degree courses. Professional engineering design practice, professional society, and association policies on ethics, professionalism, and professional liability attorneys tend to create risk-adverse project engineering leaders and managers.
In contrast, Cornell University had a required project management course that integrated the technical and human sides of project management with the hope that future project managers would leave the class with a better understanding of how to develop and emphasize interpersonal skills in the workplace (Wayno 2005).
Project success metrics
The results of potentially anticipated but unmanaged conflict within projects of professional design engineering firms were explored with respect to three critical subject areas based on three metrics used by the DCI:
1.
How well the public’s health, safety, and welfare were protected at any level of any project.
2.
How well the expectations of clients’ requirements were met.
3.
The shareholders of the professional design engineering firms’ satisfaction with their return-on-investment in a project.
Metric One: Public Health, Safety, and Welfare
The professional engineer’s license to practice is obtained by submitting qualifications of education and experience, obtaining the endorsement of five registered professional engineers, passing a written exam that was graded “blind,” and then becoming registered with required license renewal. This process was intended to assure the public that the protection of their health, safety, and welfare was the paramount concern of the duly licensed engineer.
While the public may be the ultimate user of a facility, such as a hotel, they are not directly involved in the decisions and processes that lead to its design and construction. The process of design and construction of a facility commonly involves the facility’s owner-client, engineers of various disciplines, architects, suppliers, vendors, construction contractors, land surveyors, materials testing services, utilities, and various representatives of the public (e.g., city building code inspectors). There was a contractual trail that differed for various project delivery systems to clients. In some cases, the entities to a project were separately contracted with the client. In other cases, the various project team entities performed as one entity for the client.
Most building failures are the result of human error—they are not due to a lack of technical knowledge, according to Kaplan (1996) and others. While building failure forensics point to certain technical matters of design and/or construction, analysis of the failures also identifies the processes and procedures relating to how decisions were actually made and communicated (Kaplan 1996).
Kaplan (1996) suggested nontechnical building failure indicators within a project team that indicate potential for conflict, including:
1.
Designer not being retained to observe the construction work onsite;
2.
Either the architect or engineer not having direct access to the client;
3.
Designer not promptly and professionally considering a complaint about the design;
4.
Design assumptions concerning the client’s expectations not being documented and translated to the client;
5.
Design firm not effectively managing project quality assurance tasks;
6.
Perception of design team members that fee budgets are not adequate to do the work as promised;
7.
Introduction of design technology requiring the advance training of a client’s staff;
8.
Lack of design firm’s access to client’s staff.
9.
Key members of the project team not working together before; and
10.
Designer reluctantly conceding to client’s direction, resulting in unwanted operational difficulties.
DiPasquale (1985) presented reasons why the performance of a building can be predicted by either studying its design phase or its construction phase. In his research, the building failure indicators were based on human relationships, in the context of a project life cycle. DiPasquale suggests that internal to the organization of the owner/client, the designer, and the contractor, there was a lack of willingness, ability, or both to anticipate and manage project conflict. Design phase indicators included unrealistic time demands of the client, and no empathetic understanding of how systems or assemblies want to work. Construction phase indicators included the designer not monitoring construction close enough to ensure compliance with the contract documents and the contractor not providing adequate experienced field supervision. Each of these warning signs is a potential constructive conflict–positive opportunity to mitigate a problem and to develop and improve the human-relationship trust levels within the various entities of a project team.
As evidence of the price for not identifying early warning signs of anticipated project conflict, various project failures are described (as proprietary claims allow). The examples of failure that follow were chosen based on reports indicating, in my opinion, techno-sociocultural project conflict. Four projects will be briefly discussed: (1) the collapse of the Quebec Bridge in the early 1900s; (2) the Hyatt Regency, Kansas City, Missouri, walkway collapse in 1981; (3) the collapse of pre-engineered roof girders; and (4) the Summerland Leisure Center fire disaster in the 1970s. In each of these projects, the common restraining force to success for the project stakeholders was the lack of open dialogue with a free exchange of ideas. This one nontechnical deficiency appeared to have raised the level of fear and mistrust between project stakeholders.
Collapse of the Quebec Bridge
Heery (2001) reported on the collapse of the Quebec Bridge in the early 1900s, which crossed the St. Lawrence River. The collapsed bridge killed seventy-five persons and seriously injured eleven more. After the collapse, it was discovered that a government engineer who expressed concern for the new redesign of the bridge was ignored due to reported personality conflicts.
According to Heery (2001), prior to the bridge’s construction, to save money the client refused to pay for the redesign of the bridge despite the earlier design proposals of piers were opened from 1600 feet to 1800 feet (due to water and ice flow concerns). Rather than recheck the original design, the specifications were modified for higher unit stress. Even with the project delayed three years, the original design was never reviewed. When the project delay ended, the drawings were rushed to the fabricator without any recomputation of the assumed weights under the new specifications. During construction, compression members began to buckle, resulting in increased alignment difficulty. Still, no one intervened. Though this collapse happened before the advent of technology, it is a reminder that every engineer must perform a second check of his or her work, and that “peer and supervisory review should not be replaced with blind faith” (Heery 2001).
Hyatt Regency Walkway Collapse
Sixteen hundred people were dancing during the Kansas City, Missouri, Hyatt Regency’s opening reception on July 17, 1981, when two interior pedestrian walkways collapsed. The walkways’ vertical suspension rods failed, leaving114 dead and another two hundred seriously injured (Levy and Salvadori 2002). The results of the forensics of the failure noted the following causal factors:
1.
The structural design engineer made a significant design change to the support system after the contractor was awarded the construction contract. However, the structural engineer was not under a field supervision contract to observe the installation process.
2.
The design architect, for aesthetic reasons, did not allow structural redundancy. Neither the engineer nor the architect considered the scenario of a fully loaded walkway.
3.
Design changes to rod connections were approved by the engineer without performing a structural analysis. The change doubled the load to be transferred at the floor beam of the upper walkway.
4.
The client had requested and paid for a full check of the building’s structural design due to a previous failure at a different part of the structure. The design engineer did not include checking the revised walkway structure.
Collapse of Pre-Engineered Roof Girders
Kaplan (1996) describes a situation in which a structural design engineer provided the performance requirements for structural steel truss girders, which were to be the principal structural members in the large-span flat roof of the main hall of an addition to an existing building. A relatively inexperienced specialist subcontractor designed, detailed, and erected the girders. After the building was ready for occupancy, there was a snowstorm and the roof collapsed. Some key contributors to the failure were (Kaplan 1996):
1.
The subcontractor used a computer program to design the structural members. When certain steel members were not available, the configuration of the truss was changed and the program was re-run. The new layout parameters within the program were not changed.
2.
The first subcontractor’s designer handed the work off to another designer. Each assumed that the other had done the quality assurance checking, resulting in the task not being done.
3.
While simple hand calculations could have been done to check the truss, the computer results were accepted without any such manual checking.
4.
The structural design engineer did not observe on-site that the actual trusses supplied were not fabricated as shown on the shop drawings.
Summerland Leisure Center Fire
Fifty people died and almost as many were seriously injured in a fire at a 5000-person multifunction “leisure palace” in the United Kingdom during the early 1970s. According to Kaplan (1996), a commission of inquiry made the following conclusions related to significant contributions impacting the fire:
1.
Appointing a small, inexperienced architectural office was wrong, even though he/she associated with a larger firm. The client did not exercise critical control over the design that was appropriate for the scale of the project.
2.
In their desire for an early opening, the client did not check for compliance with safety standards.
3.
The client refused the insurer’s offer of a substantially reduced premium in exchange for the installation of a sprinkler system.
4.
Communications between the design firms was poor, with decision making neither coordinated nor controlled.
5.
No analysis of alternative building materials was made.
6.
Scenario planning for fire and safety was not done.
While redundancy in terms of safety and quality control checks may introduce additional time and cost above what is minimally required by building codes, it increases reliability. For example, in the case of a facility that is beginning to fail, the time between the early signs of failure and the actual collapse can increase or decrease the number of people able to exit safely. DiPasquale (1987) noted that not only bridges but also buildings are structurally redundancy challenged. He compared the failure of a thirteen-story apartment building in Bridgeport, Connecticut, with the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse in Kansas City. In both, the complete lack of structural redundancy meant there were no alternative load-transfer paths. This resulted in little warning of the impending disaster. DiPasquale (1987) advised that in the design office it was “essential that management set the pace and that staff understood the importance of the back-up strategy…. [which] should be reflected in the design documents and clearly delineated in the details.” He concluded, “cost should not be a consideration in deciding whether a major system should be approached with built-in redundancy.”
The provision of a secondary structural support system was limited mainly by costs and budgets, which were two sensitive topics for the engineer’s potential client. The exploratory discussion about the matter of increased cost for a non-building code-required redundant system with a potential client could well lead to the engineer losing that assignment.
Allman (1988) noted the dilemma that arises when the self-interests of clients, engineers, lawyers, and insurance carriers become the framework for design and construction methods—that the designing engineer is the most qualified to spot errors during construction, yet surprisingly few engineers visit their building sites because of the fear of possible legal complications when the interests of parties clash. Allman acknowledged that this lack of presence was not due to a lack of knowledge about locating design flaws or construction methods that led to structural failures. Instead, there were legal and institutional barriers to widely sharing the details of findings and assuring their application to new projects.
Gonzales (1997) stated that the cooperative collaboration of engineers and architects was essential on multidisciplined projects. As one principal of an architectural and engineering firm reflected, “historically these two professions haven’t wanted to be in the same office” (Gonzales 1997). Architectural principals argue that subcontracting for engineering services was better than co-locating architects with engineers, while engineers ask, “Why do architects have to be in charge?” This situation illustrates avoidance of the anticipated conflict by the physical isolation of project team members, which prohibits adopting a constructive conflict-management approach. Historically, such isolation has led to patterns of project failure that range from cost overruns to physical collapse and loss of life.
Metric Two: Project Client Satisfaction
The professional design engineering firm expects the client to actively participate in the project team as the design evolves and to fund project scope changes. The client expects the design professional to understand the client’s business and project needs. He/she is to anticipate problems so that the client is not suddenly surprised or inconvenienced. Also, he/she is to stay within the initial budget and schedule regardless of changes. Despite the obvious incompatibility of these common expectations, professional design engineering firm principals rarely discuss these expectations in advance with their clients.
The Federal Construction Council (1992) identified attitudinal paradigms of clients and designers that had to change before the client, design professional, and contractor could work as an effective team. The noted paradigms actually are industry-known cryptic expressions. For example, the idea that “the client is always right” illustrates the misunderstanding of a designer who confused client service with client servitude. Another example of a paradigm that must change is that designers accept and contract for work with a client as soon as possible while catching up to their requirements later—a principle guides the design engineer to submit understated fees with a proposal, expecting that their fees will be adjusted upward after the project is awarded.
As a counterpoint to traditional but unproductive paradigms, the total cost of upfront collaboration early in the project’s life cycle was found to be lowest in terms of money and time, while maximizing trust building and the ability to positively impact downstream improvement was greatest. Fig. 2 (Project Management Institute 2004) illustrates that once a project had begun and was up to 15-20 percent complete, the level of hassle-free willingness to cooperate, collaborate, and change with the least amount of cost was at its limit [Fig. 2(b)]. As shown in Fig, 2(a), once construction passed the 20 percent complete part of a project’s life cycle, the opposite was true. Despite these commonly agreed upon facts, major project entities waited until the construction phase to address change issues. At that point in time, the relationship and construction costs would be orders of magnitude more than if the changes were addressed during the project formation phase.Fig. 2. (a) Typical project cost and staffing level across the project life cycle; (b) Stakeholders’ influence over time (reproduced with permission, PMI 2004)
In the course of writing this trilogy, I have asked engineers and their clients to name the most detailed parts of their professional service contracts. The most frequent answers included the liability of the engineer, payment terms, and who owns the drawings. When asked what part of the contract has the least amount of words and the least clarity, most stated it was the scope of services.
According to ASCE (2000) the level of clear understanding of the project’s objectives within the professional design engineering firm and the client’s expectations for the project are key determinants to achieving the mutual goals for the project. Despite the evidence to support this perspective, the expectations of the client are generally not explicitly documented by the design engineer.
Until the client has expressed her/his expectations to the project manager, the likelihood of project success is lowered. A productive relationship involves working through such matters by addressing any conflicting expectations of the client and the design professional at the earliest possible time, as suggested in Fig. 2.
ASCE listed seven sequential strategies (see Appendix A) to more effectively surface and resolve project conflicts. These strategies emphasize the need to immediately make the disagreement visible and get to the heart of it before it escalates to a conflict. This involves using collaboration, cooperation, and varied communication skills. If such efforts are not effective in moving toward a team-agreed solution, the issue will rapidly move to higher levels of authority within each entity. A core complaint of higher levels of authority within the engineering firm as well as within the client’s organization is frustration with not being clearly advised much earlier when the disagreement first surfaced.
Metric Three: Cost of Quality
Quality may be operationally defined as meeting mutually agreeable requirements. Then, one can equate the project’s cost of quality with the total cost of unresolved and ineffectively resolved project conflict. ASCE suggests that when a disagreement is permitted to remain unresolved, it develops into a conflict and then a dispute. This will involve the cost of legal remedies to either litigate or arbitrate a solution for the dispute. Table 2 identifies general categories of cost once a conflict is allowed to grow into a dispute. Principals of engineering firms appear to generally agree that the actual cost to their practice of an unhappy or “barely satisfied” client is unknown and unknowable.
Table 2. Price of Unresolved Project Conflict (from ASCE 2000)
Key personnel time spent with attorneys to prepare for deposition and trial, making them unavailable for other project leadership needs
Indirect costs
Impact on common business operations, cash flow interruption, other overhead accounts
Client relationship
Temporary loss; possible permanent loss
Note: The cost, due to the loss of business and loss of employee confidence when current and potential clients in the marketplace became aware of the project work being impacted by the dispute, was unknown and unknowable.
Burati and Farrington (1987) studied thirteen projects, and then based their final analysis on nine of those projects. The research objectives of their study included the identification of quality problems in construction along with their associated costs. The resulting number-one recommendation relative to reducing a project’s cost of quality is to reduce large numbers of design changes by firmly establishing project scope, performing constructability reviews with participation of the parties, and establishing controls to limit scope modifications (Burati and Farrington 1987, p. 8).
ASCE (2000, p. 41) offers the least-cost method for reducing the cost of quality. It suggests that the design professional evaluate a project’s risk potential prior to creating a contractual obligation to deliver services. This prevention-investment cost includes addressing the answers to the ten questions noted in Appendix B. One question notably missing is “What is the level of clarity between stakeholders regarding accountability, proactive problem-seeking, and trustworthy dialogue?” I strongly assert that whatever the answers to the ten questions posed and to the one just asked, the immediate follow-up question to ask is, “How do you know?”
Profit generally is calculated as:
Fee is the amount, within a competitive marketplace, that the client is willing to contractually pay. Cost is whatever it took to both produce the project as contractually bound and to satisfy any project obligations resulting from the work not specifically noted in the contract. Profit is what is left over after the client accepts the project work and removes any claims or pending claims. Any non-value-added cost of quality that a project requires comes directly from the bottom-line of each project’s profit.
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, the financial value for the shareholders of a professional design engineering firm is the annual total of profits, which is derived mainly from project work. For example, assume a professional design engineering firm may have 117 active projects during one year. To lose the profits earned only requires that one to four of their projects lose money, excluding the long-term impact of such matters.
Finally, I would like to propose a simple way to roughly estimate what your firm now pays to continue “working harder” or “working smarter” without changing the way the technical/production side of your practice is balanced with the social/human systems side. I have learned that many engineering firms propose services marked up at 20–30 percent. These same firms, with minor variation, experience annual profits trending at 4–8 percent. I believe the difference to be the cost to overcome root-cause restraining forces that are not yet identified and understood.
Conclusion
Considering the literature and examples presented herein, I make the following conclusions:
1.
Ineffective conflict identification and resolution models have lead to serious and fatal impacts on the public’s heath, safety, and welfare; to lowered levels of client satisfaction; and to lowered design engineering firms’ shareholder profit levels required to reinvest in their corporate strategies.
2.
The ABET-approved educational programs do not prepare the engineer to appreciate and engage the human systems within and external to the project teams.
3.
The working environment of projects assures the anticipatability of common differing perspectives by project team members. Continuing to treat such conflict as a “special” cause when they are in fact“common” causes will continue to raise the cost of providing critical infrastructure with no increase in value-added.
4.
The move from a belief that “I am right, you are wrong” to “How can we collaborate to handle differing views” is a definable process.
5.
Leadership by and trust in an organization’s management is a prime requirement to change from the perceived traditional punitive approach to the nonpunitive resolution of project conflict.
6.
The process of constructing Kurt Lewin’s force field analysis provides for the separation of the people from the problems. It moves the emphasis towards shared interests rather than individual positions.
7.
Instinctual reactive behavior to a conflict can be managed within a previously agreed visible conflict process model.
8.
A key to the successful resolution of conflict appears to be the early identification of the conflict’s likelihood, its perceived importance, and the presence of a visible conflict process model.
9.
The professional’s lower-than-desired interpersonal communication skill level, when combined with a lower-than-desired level of trust in the management of an organization, can be the prime root cause of unacceptable project results.
10.
While professional specific advice and guidelines for proactive means to address conflict exist, the use of such guidance does not appear to be part of the engineering profession’s standard of practice.
11.
The prevention side of the cost of quality is far more beneficial than the “fix-it stage.” And yet, the bulk of the cost of quality dollars goes to corrective “fix-it” measures.
Recommendations
Part 3 of this trilogy will be present overall recommendations for Human Systems Engineering™ and conflict resolution. For now, I suggest the following for dialogue and application:
1.
Select a project wherein “all is not well in paradise.” Review Table 1 (“Five Distinct Group Conflict Process Attitudinal Phases), and develop a version most appropriate to your organization. Assemble the parties, including the client and any subcontractors, and using the modified version, start an open dialogue to determine each party’s attitude toward solving the conflict. Discuss each party’s position and perception of the other parties’ positions. Identify what their shared interests are. Ask where each sees themselves, and then each other. After some discussion, ask what each party can do to resolve the conflict focused on their shared interests and move toward anticipating any further conflict.
2.
Ask the CFO to use Table 2 and estimate for five projects within the last three years what those numbers look like. For those projects not yet closed out, what additional costs might be incurred? Have you identified anticipated conflict?
3.
Select people from the engineering and architectural departments and other disciplines within your practice. Provide each person/discipline with an adaptation of Appendix A, pinpointing strategies relevant to your organization. Ask them to hold a facilitated internal meeting, discussing the steps on the list and their clarity/usefulness. Ask each group/discipline to recommend two projects where the use of the steps makes sense to apply now. Have you identified anticipated conflict?
4.
Convene a forum of project managers. With proposals either released within the last five weeks or about to be released, use Appendix B (“Project Risk Management Cost Evaluation Impact”) as an evaluation guide. What does it tell you about your go/no-go decisions and pricing? Have you identified anticipated conflict?
Appendix I. Proactive strategies to improve project conflict resolution (from ASCE 2000)
Suggestions for Resolving Disagreements among Project Team Members
1. Handle disagreements as soon as possible. Postponement can lead to frustration and the hardening of opposing positions.
2. Identify the project requirement(s) at the heart of the disagreement to help the team avoid irrelevant issues.
3. Address the easier issues first, proceeding one issue at a time.
4. Encourage participants to listen to the relevant facts and feelings before attempting to resolve the problem.
5. Develop more than one alternative for resolution.
6. Strive for team consensus on a course of action.
7. If the project representative closest to the problem could not resolve team differences within a reasonable time, it was beneficial to move the dispute to a higher management level so that the work at lower levels continued.
Note: ASCE noted that ineffective coordination and communication had heavily contributed to project failures and problems, and to the dissatisfaction of team members.
4. What is the potential financial loss to the various team members?
5. What is the potential for personal injury or property damage?
6. What is the potential for uninsurable losses (e.g., policy exclusions)?
7. Does the project have significant environmental impacts?
8. Does the project involve novel or unfamiliar delivery system techniques?
9. Is the project’s public profile such that professional reputations are at risk?
10. What is the reputation, experience, litigation history, safety record, and financial strength of each of the project’s project entities?
Note: Avoid anecdotal responses or personal opinions as answers to the above ten questions. Obtain the facts from reliable sources. Note the financial mark up, if any, to the specific risk management category.
Acknowledgments
The author gratefully acknowledges the funding of this research by the three professional design engineering firms noted. Many thanks also go to the many more firms whose work also contributed to the author’s dissertation and this trilogy. The author’s final degree was granted by California Coast University, a thirty-years young nontraditional distance learning institution in Santa Ana, California, on September 18, 2003. The author also singles out Dr. Herbert C. Newsom, associate dean of the School of Engineering Management, with gratitude for the advice and challenging questions given over the last six years of the author’s eight-year journey.
References
Al-Tabtabai, H., Alex, A. P., and Alou-Alfotouh, A. (2001). “Conflict Resolution Using Cognitive Analysis Approach.” Proj. Manage. J., 32(2), 4–16.
Amason, A. C., and Sapienza, H. J. (1997). “The Effects of Top Management Team Size and Interaction Norms on Cognitive and Affective Conflict.” J. Management, 23(4), 495–516.
Burati, J. L., and Farrington, J. J. (1987). “Cost of Quality Deviations in Design and Construction.” Report 29, Construction Industry Institute, Austin, Tex., 29, 87,133.
Federal Construction Council (FCC). (1992). “New Tools to Achieve Client Satisfaction in BuildingDesign.” Symposium of the Federal Construction Council Consulting Committee, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 56–64.
Lewin, K. (1951). “Behavior and Development as a Function of the Total Situation.” Field theory in social science: Selected theoretical papers, D. Cartwright, ed., Harper Collins, New York, 238–297.
McElhaney, M. (2002). “Helping cool Heads Prevail: Problem Resolution is not Nearly as Much About Talking as it is About Listening and Finding a Basis for Agreement.” Secur. Manage., 46(7), 26–27.
Shilstone, J. M. (1983). “Program Objectives.” Quality assurance in the building community: Proceedings of the National Conference, J. M. Shilstone, ed., Shilstone & Associates, Dallas, Tex.
William M. Hayden Jr. is a senior member of the American Society for Quality, former chief operating officer of an A/E design engineering firm, and president of Management Quality by Design, Inc, in Buffalo, New York. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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