My blog has always included posts about work. I’m trying an experiment with a monthly letter that curates these work related blog musings. I hope it will give you some insights into the work of an OPM and a few interesting links that I’ve discovered in the past month.
Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear some feedback on this inaugural letter! Please subscribe if you’d like the next installment in your inbox.
Thoughts for a new Owner’s PM
I just found out that a friend just got a gig as an Owner’s Project Manager (OPM). I’m certain his experience will have some significant differences from my work with the State, but it seemed fitting that this inaugural letter should include some unsolicited advice:
- You’re not the architect anymore. At my first pre-bid walk, I started chatting with a bidder about a condition while referencing the drawings. My colleague pulled me aside and told me to get out of the way and let the Architect do her job.
- Find the problems. We pay our consultants to solve problems. Our job is to find them. We should uncover overlooked issues and anticipate concerns beyond the horizon. But, if we’re architect-ing, then something has gone wrong.
- Budget, schedule, quality. This tripod haunts the entire AEC industry. As the OPM, our job to make sure we don’t blow the first two items, while optimizing the third.
- People, not technical. We spend the first half of our careers honing technical skills, only to get promoted into a gig all about handling people, especially when a team is underperforming. Not fun but we’re paid to handle these situations.
- Stay humble. It was jarring to suddenly jump in status from a staff architect to an OPM, who would be selecting consultants for future projects. It’s impossible to prevent this dynamic from seeping into our unconscious, so I constantly remind myself that all this is due to the position, not from my person.
I love the job and have no regrets making the change. Being an OPM has turned out to be a great career shift, better than I could have imagined.
Would you have anything to add to this list? If you’re an architect, what do you expect from your OPM?
Hit reply and let’s talk about it.
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My OPM Notes from June
When the pandemic first hit, I read sample project communication protocols from various companies, and finally took a stab for myself. This post is very much a work in progress, but it is a first step.
An architect is paid in money and experience. Once we’ve completed something a couple times, it’s important to figure out what extra experience we’re getting out of an otherwise repetitive task.
Dean Dennis Potthoff at Nevada State College is an amazing person, and it was great to see him getting settled into the building while inspecting the furniture.
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One from the Archives
While designing this letter, I tested the concept by compiling a series of “OPM.0” letters, curating the blog posts I had written in each of the previous months of this year. If you enjoyed this letter and would like to read some more, then there’s already six OPM Letters in the archives.
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Some Links
The Feds get all the publicity, but our state and local governments have the most direct affect upon our day to day lives.
Jhumpa Lahiri has been writing in Italian. And I thought that jumping from Architect to OPM was a notable career shift.
Performance artist Terrance Koh brings back memories of my performance art class and the heady days of the 00’s.
Cal Newport uses the timeline of the electric dynamo to speculate that we have not yet harnessed the potential of technology for knowledge work.
Seth Godin on the cost of prevention outweighs the cost of a mistake.
… and a photo.
Thanks so much for subscribing to the OPM letter, I truly appreciate the opportunity to connect. I hope you found it interesting and I look forward to hearing from you.
All the best,
Justus Pang, RA