Many years ago, I was lent some sage advice from an astute mentor who, ironically enough, was the former author of this column. His recommendation regarding management style was delivered rather sternly, but it served me well for a good stretch of my career: “Vince, you’ll never be a decent project manager unless you’re a successful estimator as well.”
Before that, my management experience had been limited to performing the duties of a drywall boss for a small commercial outfit nestled in the peaks and valleys of the Colorado Western Slope. I was a general foreman of sorts, but my designated title was “ramrod,” and I don’t mind saying I was pretty good at what I did.
Then, a more lucrative opportunity in Georgia led me into the new environment of project management, where my mentor nailed me with the above-quoted adage. I took his constructive criticism to heart and worked nights and weekends at learning the newly conceived construction estimating programs (Fred Flintstone stuff at the time), and in a little over a year, I managed to land a full-time estimating position in Denver.
The gist of this little odyssey of upward mobility lies more with the evolving nature of construction management—particularly commercial drywall management—than with my personal career development, although the parallels can be instructive.
Many of you may recall that I have often visited the topic regarding the pros and cons of an integrated management style over a dual model. The basis for those multiple monologues stemmed from the sometimes contrasting and sometimes overlapping roles emanating from estimating versus project management job descriptions. As I recall, some of those debates were often rather contradictory. Be that as it may, I believe I inadvertently provoked some serious confusion from those past binary arguments due to a glaring omission of a critical element: the superintendent.
Of course, my exclusion was intentional at the time for a purpose. I was presenting line of reasoning that was deliberately limiting. Nevertheless, I blinded myself in doing so to a much more meaningful inquiry: that of what some clever wordsmiths have dubbed “the iron triangle.”
Now, the iron triangle of construction management can become a pretty sophisticated model, but it really boils down to three essential components: scope, budget and schedule. When you ponder these elements, you can’t possibly miss that they’re describing the primary functions of an estimator, a project manager (PM) and a superintendent. To continue this discussion with better clarity, a brief recap of the job descriptions of this trio would be helpful:
Estimator: The many facets of pricing a job can be innumerable. In addition to simply doing takeoffs, a short list would include sales promotion, screening and selecting potential bids, setting up bid documents, pricing addenda, requesting material quotes, reviewing production rates (usually with a superintendent), creating proposals (scope letters), negotiating awards, co-authoring a handoff meeting (with the PM), and logging bid results.
Project Manager: A PM’s task starts where the estimator’s leaves off. The PM reviews the contract, creates labor and material budgets, assembles submittals for the architect’s approval, generates a schedule of values for billing, purchases materials and equipment, prices and submits change orders, tracks job progress, approves monthly billings, initiates a quality control program, verifies and reports on expenditures, and functions as the main client contact.
Superintendent: Labeled by many titles—including general foreman, production manager, field supervisor and even “ramrod”—a superintendent can best be described as an all-around personnel manager and planner. The superintendent’s duties include manpower scheduling and allocation, hiring and firing, oversight of advancement, tracking hours spent, supervising day-to-day activities, training, equipment management, and various other duties as they arise.
While these job descriptions don’t by any means plumb the depths of the responsibilities that each distinct side of the iron triangle entails, they do adequately describe a three-part division of authority that holds together the foundation of commercial construction management. Clearly, “division” can be considered the key word for this model, although some overlap of authority invariably occurs.
And while this overlap is usually formed in the spirit of cooperation, (such as the shared responsibility between the estimator and the PM for the handoff meeting or the shared hours tracking between the superintendent and the PM), the iron triangle certainly has some potential for professional friction as well. Consider the scenario in which the PM is responsible for expenditures, while the ongoing costs of the project (such as the overtime factor) are controlled by the activities of the superintendent. Or suppose the PM discovers a negative error in the estimate but refuses to make a reasonable budget adjustment. It’s the PM’s call, really.
These and other potentially significant impacts to the iron triangle model will be explored in the next installment of “Estimator’s Edge.”
