By Eileen Sien
Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” This insight perfectly reflects a recent initiative by one of our clients, who embraced Collaborative Partnering and actively engaged his peers, enhancing their ability to apply partnering strategies in their projects.
Let’s step back a minute to provide a little perspective…Brandon Gerardy, a project manager with Garney Construction is a member of the Tybe/Garney Federal JV working on the NAVFAC P235 Potable Waterline Replacement project in Southern Maryland. The project involves replacing approximately 196,000 LF of water mains and services throughout the Naval Support Facility at Indian Head, Maryland. Over the past two years, with Collaborative Partnering facilitated by Eileen Sien of Velo Group, the team has successfully met its goals and is now on track to finish two months ahead of schedule!
The team credits much of their success to the open and honest discussions fostered through the partnering process. Inspired by this experience and eager to share this approach with his colleagues at Garney, Brandon chose the company’s quarterly leadership training to engage the team and deepen their understanding of Construction Partnering.
Keep in mind, he faced the challenge of presenting to approximately 100 project managers as the last speaker of the day, just before their social hour in Nashville! Nevertheless, he wisely embraced the golden rule: “keep it simple and engage the audience.”
With this context, I’d like to share three key highlights from Brandon’s presentation on defining Partnering with the group:
- Engage All Stakeholders Early: Effective partnering involves all project stakeholders and leadership levels before issues arise, fostering a ‘project first’ mentality.
- Prioritize the 3Cs: Successful partnering hinges on Commitment, Communication, and Collaboration. This means actively participating, maintaining open dialogue, and respecting shared project goals.
- Implement Key Steps: To apply Construction Partnering, introduce the concept to the owner, develop recurring check-ins, involve leadership from all parties, address stakeholder concerns, and establish an escalation matrix.
To further enhance their understanding of construction partnering, Brandon introduced the Velo Group Collaboration Analyzer™ and organized an activity for the team to try it out. This tool, used in Construction Partnering workshops, assesses the project team’s collaboration by ranking the following team attributes on a scale of 1 to 10:
- Communication
- Goal Setting
- Decision Velocity
- Accountability
- Challenging Conversations
- Risk Management
- Mentoring & Knowledge Sharing
- Innovation
- Continuous Improvement
- Relationships, Culture, Fun
Goal setting was another key topic addressed during the training. To reinforce this important aspect of Construction Partnering, each attendee was tasked with setting one goal to implement in their projects before the session concluded.
Despite being the last presentation of the day, Brandon excelled at keeping the team interested and actively participating, earning high praise from the group for how engaging and practical the session was for every project manager.
At Velo Group, we want to give a shout-out to Brandon—congratulations on effectively sharing the art of Collaborative Partnering with your peers and making a meaningful impact in the industry.
Now it’s your turn: how can you engage others so they can learn too?