Building a Legacy in Construction Administration

In this episode, Matt Brennan shares exciting updates about his new website, his recent guest appearance on the Deliberate Words Podcast, and his upcoming speaking engagement at AUGI Con. He reflects on a recent stay in a unique tree house, emphasizing the importance of attention to detail in architecture and construction administration. Matt discusses the challenges faced in construction administration and encourages professionals to maintain pride in their work, pushing through difficulties to leave a lasting legacy in their projects.

Takeaways

• A new website has been launched to enhance user experience.
• The importance of construction administration is highlighted throughout the episode.
• Attention to detail is crucial in both design and execution.
• Matt emphasizes the need for architects to push through challenges in CA.
• The significance of pride in workmanship is discussed.
• Listeners are encouraged to participate in AUGI Con for valuable insights.
• The episode reflects on the beauty of unique accommodations like tree houses.
• Collaboration between architects and contractors is essential for project success.
• Matt shares personal experiences to illustrate key points.
• The legacy of one's work is a central theme in the conversation.

Sound Bites

• "This has been a very, very busy week."
• "We stayed in a tree house."
• "You want to be proud of it."

Chapters

• 00:00 - Introduction and Exciting Updates
• 02:53 - Building a New Website
• 05:58 - Insights from the Deliberate Words Podcast
• 09:01 - Preparing for AUGI Con
• 11:55 - Lessons from a Tree House Stay
• 13:50 - The Importance of Construction Administration

🎙️Website - WhattheRFI.com

🍏Apple Podcast - What the RFI?
🎧Spotify - What the RFI?
🎥YouTube - @WhatTheRFI

Transcript

0:00

A new website? And what did you leave behind? Let's get into it. Welcome to What They RFI. I'm Matt Brennan and this is the podcast all about construction administration, CA, from the lens of an architect, project coordinator, you name it. So this has been a very, very busy week, needless to say, right? All the way from last weekend to this weekend, it just is not stopping, okay? So what did the busy week look like? Well, A, there's a brand new website out. That's amazing. We're gonna talk about that and go into details in a moment here. I was a guest on the Conspexuous Deliberate Words podcast. I got word and an acceptance that I will be speaking at AugieCon. Okay, I'll go into the details of that in a minute. And what did you leave behind? We'll come back to that end there of kind of that CA item alone. So let's start off with the website. Exciting news, okay? Over the last month, I've been building a brand new website from scratch, you know, right from head to toe, a brand new looking site that is a fresh look. It just helps you navigate through the episodes a lot better. You can search the episodes, you know, even if there's I've done a number of speaking engagements, they're listed now on there. You can watch them, you know, get tips about CA, get how to release the best tender package available. All that's been laid out on that website with it. And heck, there's even a blog now too. So I'm going to start getting into that, start writing articles, tying into the whole thing that we're doing with the CA aspect of this. just again, another useful tool, resources that you can grab any moment and just want to learn, be better in your daily CA and that side. And ultimately I just really want this podcast to grow at the end of the day. So this website is going to be CEO optimized, you know, all that technical jargon. But the reality is there's a lot to it. There's a lot of power behind it. And I'm very excited. And most of all, if you're listening and you've got something to offer and you want to talk to your passionate like me about it, there is a whole drop your line, drop a, be a guest on the show, go and fill your info. Let's connect and let's do one of these shows online. Hey, two. The Deliberate Words Podcast. This is by a group of Conspectuous. Conspectuous, what is it? Well, they are a spec writing software, which is very cool. And I met with Dave, Steve and Tina from the group. We had a great pre-chat. We did the recording. It was so natural, so relaxed between really the three, four of us. And just what a great way to talk about specs, know, talk about construction administration. how the two interacts, when specs should be engaged in that respect, and just looking at those details to ensure that job runs very through, right through it. So, like I said, we went through that. We talked about some beautiful places in BC and their trips, my trips, and kind of what we do. So really cool. It's gonna be live in the next coming weeks. I'm very excited to be part of it. And I was even back. invited back to the show in other go around. I'm very excited. More details come. You'll see just watch the channels. But yeah, Augie con. Well, first of all, what the heck is Augie Autodesk user group international, there's like 300,000 members, think, or maybe 500,000 members is a lot. I was actually a member back I started being a member in February of 2005. I'm daint myself here. I was always on the forums and this was the days of Revit when Revit was becoming a thing. And it's just a nonprofit user group that comes together and just basically helps each other out, right? That's where it kind of originated. But every year they do this thing called AugieCon. And this case is happening on May 1st and 2nd. So it's a virtual event in this case. You know, free to join, welcome there. Lots of live sessions. I will be giving a speaking engagement on one of the topics, one of the many topics I submitted. And there's of course a bunch of pre-recording catalog stuff. Lots of great contact if you're using Revit or if you're trying to do things better in the industry. Of course, as you guessed it, my talk is going to be about CA and just kind of be better in respect to that. So again, more details to come. Mark your calendar, May 1st to 2nd. It's all online. AugieCon.com I believe, but just double check, Google it, you'll find it, ChatGPTD it, whatever you want, whatever you pick your poison there. But the point is, take a look into it, definitely register as you won't want to miss that. So getting to this kind of episode, what did you leave behind? So what's that relating to? How is this kind of a CA thing? Well, last weekend I was in Squamish, And if you're kind of new, to the province of beautiful British Columbia, Canada. If you know we're Whistler, we know the Olympics were there, right? It's kind of just north of Vancouver. So Squamish is just basically south of Whistler about an hour, give or take, and of course, north of Vancouver. And it's like a little mini mountain town, right? Very similar if you know Whistler, Squamish is very much like that. And, you know, what a really cool place. Lots of... I do overlanding on the side, know, as a kind of a hobby, lots of roads, lots of snowshoeing. Take your pick. Beautiful place, whether it's winter or summer. So when they're celebrating an anniversary with my partner, we went there and we actually stayed in a tree house. And I mean, literally a house in the tree. And anytime we go away, we always kind of pick up. these really cool Airbnbs. Okay. We want something with character in that sense and something that has a story. It's just, it's just neat versus staying in a condo or, you know, something really simple. It's nice to find these little hidden gems. And this one was definitely hidden gem. was out, out the outskirts. It was down, you know, some of the deep roads, very private. It was amazing. Backed onto a river. Very, very cool. Okay. But Like I said, this was one really cool tree house. Okay. And it got me thinking when I was kind of hanging around, you know, getting ready, making dinners, you know, whatever, like, you know, taking a shower, all these things. And just the attention to detail that went into this thing was really remarkable. Like a big kudos. I got to still delete my Airbnb review on it, but And I really should because the owner, the person put this together, took their time. They thought about all the details, right? They literally like said, hey, they made it to a tree, you know, and they attached it to the physical trees and that, you know, with some additional, of course, seismic restraints and supports and everything. But you know, I'm an interior finisher, right? I did that in my early days before going to school and getting my education and... I just appreciate everything they did, all the nooks and crannies, the corners, the kitchen, the moldings, the different type of materials, how they terminated inside a corner versus outside, all these little details that we look for. And it was really well done, finished very clean. The attention to details, the furniture, the lighting, you kind of gain my point is that there was thoughts into this and kind of as architects, designers. That's what you're doing, right? At the beginning of this stage, you're putting these details in your plans, right? Which is awesome. And so you should. You're pushing the boundaries and you're being creative and you're investing all this time into these details. And that is incredible once it's all on paper and you render it, you put in Lumion, know, 3 Max, whatever you use. And it looks incredible. And the vision's there. You've worked your heart and soul on this. And now it's being built. And that's where the construction administration, the CA side of it starts to come in. And the tension, the detail that you put in the drawings needs to be reflected throughout the CA to the end of the process. So let me explain. All right. So as we're going through this whole process, the hard thing with CA is sometimes there's not a budget. Sometimes it's burnt at the beginning, know, early days of design and you don't have it or maybe you're You actually had a budget for CA, but it's been burnt up by so many extra RFIs, and that was just the type of contractor that got onto the project or whatever the case is, maybe you anticipate it or whatever the thing is. The whole point of CA is you're not trying to lose money in that respect. But when you're in that position as a firm, it's tough not to want to spend that extra time. to ensure that the jobs are being done on site. My encouragement to this kind of segment here in today's kind of episode is to not give up, is to keep going and pushing hard to fulfill basically the design what you did at the beginning and bringing it forward to the end, right? And not slowing down the race, not skipping a beat and just carrying on. All the work the teams, you and the team have done to this point, Like I said, you need to see it through. And that's kind of the message. think it's pretty loud and clear. And where this becomes a challenge on site is if you start getting pushed back from the GC, they want to do some valiant engineering. They can't get the products or something like that. So you got to be starting to push towards an alternate. That's where you need to stand your ground and say, no, I'm not going to take it. I'm not entertaining this alternate because I don't want that. I spent all the time specifying this particular. product, this is going to change the look. And, you know, unfortunately, sometimes from the lens of a contractor, they don't see it that same way because they haven't invested it as much as you have. You've taken that time with the drawings. You've put it in all the details. You've done your homework research. You know exactly what you want. I'm horrible when it comes to buying a TV. I have to research the death out of it because I want to make sure I'm getting the best product. Sort of same thing. If I'm buying a camera, I want to do my homework and I want to research it. The problem with that is although I was spending so much time, the positive is when I pick up that TV or I pick up that camera, I'm happy. I really am. It does the job. It's exactly what I researched that it was going to do. then it feels a good thing. So that's, like I said, you're putting the effort, you know the products. Again, don't let off that, right? And if you're... the individual that's doing the field report. So you probably not had any investment into it or something. But the reality is you as that field report person, it is your duty, your liability, your obligation to get out there and document that field report and bring up the deficiencies to light, to really bring it to the contractor and try and bring it to them earlier, sooner or later, so they have time to correct it and correct it the right way. And I think by you being that example on site and showing your passion, your pride of workmanship on this, it's going to start, you're going to stand tall in that sense and people are gonna see it and the contractor is gonna see it and appreciate it, the owner is gonna see it and appreciate it and hopefully down the whole chain, it gets to the subs and they see that as well, that there is that pride of ownership amongst the team to do it well. Right. And I don't know if it's a culture thing. We're starting to see that through slip through, you know, path of least resistance, whatever the case is. But I really hope that's at least one shift that we can do in the industry is just have pride in ownership, pride in what your work is doing, your workmanship and bring it to the table. Because at end of the day, when that project's done, you know, you want to be proud of it. You really want to be like, remember that detail that we spent, you know, a good three hours, a couple of days, weeks, even trying to figure out how we're going to make this garage door. go into the ceiling and disappear. How are going to do that? Or maybe that front entrance mill workpiece. How can we do that? We had it backlit or lighting or whatever the case is. All these details, they take time. And when it gets to site, you definitely want to put that investment. And that's when RFI start coming through, questions come in. Don't shun away the contractor. Give your best to them at that point. And again, maybe you don't have the budget. Maybe you're getting pressure from above. The point is keep pushing back, give the best detail, because we want to see this project through at the end of the day as how it should be. And like I said, back to the value engineering thing, if it's getting a pushback, fight for it. This is what was part of contract and stick to it. If they can't get lead times and you're forced to look at other options, well, have a look at what you want. Maybe it's going to be a higher price thing, but that's the compromise is available. but you're going to have to the cost, right? And again, it's never a challenging thing, but again, that goes back to shop drawing reviews, all these different things that we do. Get those in early, don't do them later, push the contract for a schedule or better yet, why don't you make the shop drawing schedule, right? All those little details being proactive and really pushing back to site is helpful. And again, it's not an us versus them attitude, know, architect versus contractor, work as a team. Right? And I cannot emphasize that enough to, you know, become part of that on that project. Okay? And at the end of the project... is keep going, know, take the job to the end. This is a marathon. I haven't personally ran any marathons, but I've ran half marathons. They're hard, they're tough. And I find that the last like 5K is the hardest. You just want to like slow down, give up and like, we're so close there. Run hard, run right to the end. Do your job, do it well, do it right. And believe me, it is worth it. It is so worth it. And like I said, it's your thumb prints that you're leaving behind. So this is your legacy as you're working through your career, whether you're a young architect, old architect, doesn't matter. These are your thumb prints. Leave them well, do it well. It's all about that legacy and just push right to the end. So that kind of wraps up this week's episode. I think it was pretty short and sweet, but to the points, you know, check out the new website www. what the RFI.com have a look. Let me know if you got any thoughts on it. If you want to be a guest, you know, shoot me a note. I'd love to kind of bring you on the show. We can talk about, you know, all CA related things, the challenges that you're facing in industry and vice versa. Maybe we can jam over some ideas of just how to make it better. And, you know, both of us can learn something from each other. So, but that wraps it up. Last but not least, architects keep designing and contractors keep making those blueprints reality. We'll see you on the next one.