I have often compared a major commercial construction project to a giant 5000-piece puzzle.  Any one piece of the puzzle is highly dependent on the other 4,999 pieces.  Often the pieces must be placed in a certain sequence for a variety of reasons.  A delay in finding a lost piece can be a significant jolt to a schedule or to client relationships.  And, like any giant puzzle where multiple participants are involved, eventually all participants must coordinate their moves with others well in advance of making those moves.

In any puzzle, large or small, it is somewhat easy and quite expedient to frame up the border and there are certain areas where the scenes and colors lend themselves to quick and easy decisions.  It gets a bit more complex when you reach the difficult scenes such as a clear sky or an endless blue ocean that seems to go on forever or a forest of trees of an incredible number of leaves all bearing the same dark shade of green.

Suffice it to say that to assemble a 5,000-piece puzzle can be quite challenging and is best accomplished when you have plenty of qualified, competent, caring help.  It also takes careful upfront planning, a relentless pursuit of excellence, a positive working atmosphere, and a good deal of patience and understanding.

An easy comparison to the design and build process of a major commercial construction project.

As I participated in Lisa Reed’s lighting design podcast this morning, where the subject matter centered on the flow of owner payments in our pay-when/if-paid industry, I thought of my puzzle analogy.  I also thought of the ingredients that I feel are necessary for a successful construction project.  Of course, this thinking of ingredients led me to a possible comparison of a commercial construction project to preparing a gourmet meal.

When we think of the preparation of a good meal, the ingredients used are most important to ending up with an acceptable product.  One wrong move, one ingredient left out or possibly substituted, or maybe value engineered out in the planning and budget process, and our meal falls a bit short of expectations.

Let us look at the ingredients to successful commercial construction projects:

• An involved and transparent owner, ready and willing to communicate effectively with all team members
• An experienced and caring and competent architectural and engineering team inclusive of specialty design components, such as lighting and acoustics
• A respected General Contractor with strong subcontractor relationships and a proven track record of trustworthy performance
• A solid group of trade contractors and a hard-working, well-trained workforce that is excited about the opportunity to participate in the project
• A welcoming, diverse, safe, jobsite where all voices are heard, all concerns are addressed professionally, communication is strong throughout the chain, and the stress level is held to a minimum
• A prompt payment process that allows all participating firms to be paid for their work by the tenth of each month for work performed, billed, and approved the prior month.

Leave one of these important and essential ingredients out and your puzzle, your meal, and your project begin to fall apart.

Can we really claim to have the first five of these ingredients without having a payment process that works for all parties?  A consistent, reliable, project payment process is the key ingredient to a happy, content, productive, and cooperative work force. 

This industry has always been a pay-when-paid industry.  There is simply too much money involved to handle payments in any other manner.  The difference today is that there is no consistency, no reliable set date for payment, so many requirements for an acceptable payment application, and a lack of strong priority placed on making sure all project participants are paid timely for their work, every single month.

When we push the trade contractors to the brink of disaster every single month while expecting them to continue working, continue to meet their payroll obligations, continue to meet their union benefit obligations, continue to pay their material suppliers, we are almost assuring ourselves of a stressful and unhappy job environment.

Is this the way we want our industry to work?  Is this the way we all want life to work?  Is this the type of working environment we want the workers and business owners in our industry to take home to their families every night?

My work is with the minority contracting community and I have no answer for these business owners on major projects.  Reluctantly, I advise these good, qualified business owners to stay away from the major commercial projects in our city.  How can this advice make sense for an industry currently starved for workers and a marketplace so full of responsible owners?

In this age of AI and rapid-fire technology, there is absolutely no reason that an owner, their lending partner, the architect, and GC cannot come up with a process that will allow for payments to flow by the tenth of the month, every month. 

Of all the reasons for our current unacceptable payment processing time that has been presented to me over the years, conserving or maximizing the cost of capital is the absolute worst and most unacceptable reason.  When someone tells you this is all about saving a nickel or two on interest costs, it says clearly that they do not care about a welcoming jobsite; they do not care about a happy and content and productive work force; they do not care about a stress-free environment on their jobsites, and they really do not understand the dynamics of costs on major projects.

Design and construction is a very challenging and competitive industry.  This industry can be financially rewarding and a great career path or it can be like the puzzle that has hundreds of missing parts or the gourmet meal prepared with expired and/or missing ingredients.

A quick plea to the leaders of our industry: 

Let’s work on fixing our industry.  Let’s invite new trade contractors to participate.  Let’s recognize and accept the stress we put on those business owners, and their workforce, when they are not paid timely for their work.  Let’s make this industry fun again, for all participants.

What is holding us back from putting some sunshine and warmth into our industry?