Team builders

Team builders

DPR Inc. believes that walls must first be torn down before they can be built.

by Clair Urbain

Setting foot in the DPR Inc. corporate headquarters in Redwood City, California, you quickly realize this isn’t your ordinary construction company. From the office design to the stand-up meetings taking place here and there, you get the distinct impression that empowerment and critical thinking rule.

The lobby is airy and the corporate motto is inscribed on the vertical wall panels. It reads: “Integrity. Enjoyment. Uniqueness. Ever forward. We exist to build great things.”

Farther inside, conference rooms of various sizes named after dead rock stars line one side of the building. A glance to the other side of the building reveals a sea of expansive work areas with dividers no higher than 42" so it’s easy to see others while any worker sits at his or her desk.

It’s all part of the collaborative culture at the 15-year old firm that employs 2,000 people in 10 offices across the country.

DPR Inc. specializes in design-build work. “Almost all of our work is negotiated. We complete about 125 major projects a year that average $10 million each. We are brought into the process just as the owner decides it needs more facilities. We work in a three-way relationship with the architect and the owner,” says Peter Nosler, one of three company cofounders.

A closer look at the seating arrangement in the office reveals an accountant sitting next to a project engineer. Team members don’t sit in any particular order and employees’ jobs are described more by task than by rank and seniority.

“We are a flat organization and we don’t, as a rule, put any titles on business cards. We hire very good, self-motivated people and pay them what they are worth. No one has a private office, and every 18 months or so, we move people around. It’s random. Having unlike disciplines sitting next to one another encourages interchange of ideas. It works very well for us,” Nosler says.

The culture encourages teams to meet in one of many conference rooms or hold stand-up meetings in the large, wide aisles.

The DPR revolution
“Our mission is to revolutionize the building industry by establishing collaboration as the cornerstone of the building process,” says Nosler. “This is in great contrast to most building projects where the architect, engineer, owner and contractor work in adversarial relationships.”

In the world of DPR Inc., the collaborative process is a blend of people and systems that create optimal outcomes. It also averts disagreement over responsibilities for oversights and change orders as the planning and building progress.

As noted in the sidebar, “Collaborative process maxims,” the teams must exhibit specific traits to be successful. DPR has borrowed heavily from lean manufacturing processes and Nosler says the process works well in design-build construction relationships.

The collaborative process is entrenched in the planning stage and makes its way through the building process to the trades. The company uses the Last Planner concept to increase production reliability and remove impediments from completing work as planned.

The Last Planner concept is a short-term scheduling system that is far more detailed than the master plan or macro level. It establishes workflow with realistic and reliable work streams. It is based on the proper sequence and quantity of commitments from workers’ input on what should be done to the extent that it can be done.

Last Planner comes first
“It forces problems to surface in the planning stage, which allows time to head them off instead of dealing with them in crisis mode,” says Dan Obara, DPR project engineer on the $92 million, 250,000 sq. ft. Camino Medical Group Medical Office Building and 420,000 sq. ft. parking structure in Mountain View, California. DPR team members there worked closely with subcontractors to build a schedule based on the lean project delivery and Last Planner concepts.

“We have taken a different approach on the Camino project,” says Scott Sass, project manager. “We are doing three-dimensional coordination for crash resolution,” he says.

In a double-wide office trailer next to the main job trailer, DPR engineers work with design engineers and subcontractor engineers to plot the construction sequence in NavisWorks, a three-dimensional modeling program that also adds time as the fourth dimension; hence the process name of 4-D modeling.

“We are first building the facility on-screen and designing decks with drops in the right places. The architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems are in three dimensions so we can see spatial arrangements. This enables us to see conflicts that must be resolved. Sometimes we plot them on vellum and use a light table when the conflicts require the human touch. We believe we will avoid added labor and installation costs in excess of $1 million by utilizing this process.” says Sass.

Team builds the schedule
To get all of the trades committed to the schedule, they are asked to help build the initial schedule.

“We bring them into a room and post a timeline on the board with major project milestones. Everyone gets a sticky note and writes ‘I get/I give’ at the top, which indicates what they will get at the start of their part of the job and what they will hand off when it is completed,” says Sass. “This allows them to fully understand the project is a big network of commitments. We post the sticky notes on the timeline and review the workflow. It’s wild to see how the subs work together and tightly couple learning with action to change, break down or sequence the job. They eat this up and become the controller of their own destiny. This pulls the schedule from them and increases relatedness among the stakeholders. When we do this, we get incredible buy-in.”

Twice weekly, the group meets to discuss progress and adjust schedules to keep the project on track.

“The team must be open minded and collaborative and remember to do what is best for the project, not just for revenue,” Sass observes.

Different skillsets
To work at this high level of collaboration, it takes a self-starting type of individual who is not afraid to share his or her viewpoint, says Mike Humphrey, a 14-year DPR employee.

“The secret to success in this environment is to be accountable, be a fantastic problem solver and be a good communicator,” he says.

“We look at every job as a puzzle. We have done some things no one else has. For example, we worked with a NASA subcontractor charged with building a new lens for the Hubble telescope. Their engineers found that a lens made of beryllium could provide superior optics when compared with conventional lenses. The problem was there was no plant to make this type of lens. A plant had to be designed and constructed in less than eight months. We did it. That’s the type of job we take on.

“We also build clean rooms for semiconductor manufacturers. They are incredibly expensive to build to meet clean room requirements throughout the construction process. We decided to try building one that was not totally clean, and then super-clean it when it was finished. We found we can do it for a much less than using conventional clean room construction practices.

“We also set a standard to have zero punch lists at the job’s end. We accomplished that in 1994, and most jobs are that way today,” he says.

Master the mundane
To concentrate on the strategic issues of the day, DPR works to streamline common activities.

“We have consistency and procedure, but it’s not stifling. We simplify and streamline the mundane, repeatable jobs. We don’t waste our time on the mundane; we want to concentrate on the tough problems,” Humphrey says.

Nosler concurs. “The general accounting system is standard across all work groups, but each team decides what variations in estimating, scheduling and project management practices are appropriate in serving a particular owner.”

The system builds estimates based on complete input from the team. When the building plan and budget is presented to the team, DPR Inc. employees also include ideas that can lower costs or improve construction. “The cost-saving ideas can be implemented with the team’s review and approval,” says Nosler. Similarly, the architect and owner are asked to come up with their own cost-saving ideas. All ideas are open for discussion and are accepted, rejected or put into a pending status.

“The pending ideas are discussed later as the project’s design is finalized and other cost savings are needed to accommodate changes in the building plans,” says Nosler.

“Complex buildings can take from three to five years to construct, when you consider the time from the first design program to occupancy,” says Nosler, “In that time, needs change, technology changes, and even people on the project change. You need to be able to adjust the plan without incurring huge costs.”

Cost vs. price
While the collaborative design-build process can save time and money, Nosler guarantees it won’t produce the lowest priced bid. “A collaborative price can never be the lowest priced bid because the partners in the process understand the gaps in the drawings.

“Traditional bids can’t see the gaps which don’t get handled until the building process starts. What do you gain from a low bid if the work is not done on time or what change orders are needed to get the work done correctly? The lowest price isn’t always the lowest cost,” he concludes.

Collaborative process maxims
Peter Nosler, one of the founders of DPR, outlines the maxims of collaborative construction. These truths drive how DPR works within its organization and with team members on projects.

Integrity and trust are essential for true collaboration. Integrity – you will do what you say – and trust – I believe what you say – are the cornerstones of any collaborative relationship. “If you break your promises or I question your credibility, the relationship will eventually become adversarial,” says Nosler.

The long run is more important than the short run. “For collaboration to work, all participants must have a fundamental concern for the long-term implications of their actions,” he says.

Teams make better choices than individuals. Teams, which are diverse groups of individuals organized for a common purpose, are good at achieving optimal outcomes for three reasons. They enlarge the set of possible solutions; they have more capabilities than one individual; and they are more likely to identify the best solution from among the possible options. “Creative thinking and extraordinary outcomes are more likely to occur in a team setting,” Nosler says.

In building a team, pre-qualify firms and select people. It is tempting to select team members by picking the organization on the basis of size, experience, financial strength, fee or other factors driven by cost or convenience.

“A team is not made up of organizations; it is made up of people. While some organizations foster collaboration more than others, personal chemistry, individual capabilities, and teamwork skills are, in general, better determinants of team performance than organizational factors,” he says.

True creativity focuses on option generation. Bad design is not the result of selecting the wrong item from a list of possible solutions, but rather from starting with too short of an idea list. “The ‘great idea’ is generally found only after examining a multitude of options. It takes enormous dedication to continue the search for greatness after finding two or three ‘pretty good’ solutions,” Nosler says.

Change is inevitable: be prepared for it. As a project progresses, market conditions change, user requirements evolve, and new ideas and technology emerge. The collaborative process minimizes the effects of change through better planning and analysis, but the unforeseen, by definition, cannot be fully anticipated. “The collaborative process treats change as an opportunity, not for windfall profits, but rather for exploring solutions which were unachievable under previous conditions.”

The basis for decision making should be facts and reason, not opinions and emotion. “Since building projects involve large investments of other people’s resources, it is critical that project teams make rational decisions, rather than following conventional wisdom or promote personal biases,” he concludes.

Published in the September 2005 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.