(Mis)Communications
This post is a lesson-learned example of why it is crucial to ensure effective communication from a concept study project.
LESSONS LEARNED
2 min read
Time and time again, I'm reminded of the importance of communication. The story goes that I submitted a concept study report with a deliverable that was completely omitted because of a miscommunication.
I was working on a bulkhead wall project that required a joint effort with a highly reputable design subcontractor (they did a fantastic job). Overall, the project had been going well. We had a successful negotiation and award with the customer, productive internal and external kickoff meetings, a site investigation with heavy equipment to help assess the condition of the bulkhead, a geotech investigation, a 2D CAD design deliverable, a concept study, and then finally a 3D rendering deliverable to illustrate to the customer the proposed type of bulkhead wall. We were still on schedule for a project that took a little over six months to design. But back to the lesson learned and what didn't go right. Part of the project was to work with a new structural design engineer who would be creating the 3D rendering of the bulkhead. So, the submittal package is delivered on time of the due date. Everything appears to be going fine. The project is under review by the customer, and the ball is in their court. A few days went by and I got an email stating the submittal package was unacceptable because the geotech report (waterside boring investigation was still ongoing) was incomplete. This was the first issue where I failed to communicate. I didn't explicitly tell the customer that the geotech waterside borings would not be included in the geotech report (well...b/c I thought it should have already been inherently
known since that same customer was a stakeholder in helping coordinate the approval to conduct the waterside borings). It is not uncommon for preliminary submittals to not include the final geotech report. Furthermore, unless the water boring investigation/report revealed something highly unlikely, the design would not change. However, that was noted as the first issue. Bad on me regardless. The second issue is that I failed to properly communicate with my structural engineer who was taking the 2D CAD drawings from the subcontractor and converting them into a 3D model for renderings, which were then to be included as part of the submittal package. This miscommunication on my part became evident when the customer stated in the same email that the rendering only appeared to be of the existing bulkhead wall. I researched this observation a bit more, and it seemed like the customer was right. I had a meeting with the new structural and asked the same question. And that is exactly what happened. The existing bulkhead wall was what was submitted, and the new bulkhead design was not submitted; it had even been designed in 3D.
To this day, I'm not sure where the disconnect happened, despite having a meeting to review the project and its deliverables.
Conclusion
I will do things differently. I will take the additional time to review project deliverables to ask the discipline leads of the design team to explain their understanding of what the deliverables are. I will also spend additional time with new coworkers or coworkers on unique or atypical projects.
