Here are a two truths about CCA I've discovered in 36 years of engaging in it, among other professional experience:
#1: Some firms (most, among the firms with which I've worked) don't invest enough resources (manpower) in CCA, preferring to invest time and manpower in activities like marketing, design, documentation, and firm leadership instead. Consequently, those professionals who do it most experience more work hours, more work travel, more stress, higher turnover, lower job satisfaction, lower quality of life, lower loyalty to the firm and its values, lower willingness to mentor, less contact with other staff members to mentor, and less available time to spend mentoring. This is how the lessons learned in CCA fail to influence the firm's other activities. It also decreases the quality of relationships with contractors and clients, increasing professional liability exposure and decreasing chances for winning future work with existing clients. (And when I say "invest resources in CCA", I'm including the process of investing in the phases preceding CCA in a way that is calculated to result in successful CCA.)
#2: Some professionals become pigeonholed as "good at CCA" by default simply because they can do math well enough to review a Pay Application, can use spellcheck well enough to prepare a not-heinous Site Observation Report, can show up to a meeting on time, are older white males, or don't have expensive haircuts. In other words: they don't meet the stereotype of a hot designer with the personality to impress a client instantly, so they get stuck doing a job no one else wants to do. And after doing CCA on one or two projects without a disaster, they get stuck in a rut they'll never get out of, unless they lie on a resume and fake a portfolio. Or leave the profession. And if they do, some other poor soul will become an unwilling CCA recruit. (The same thing occurs with production staff and project managers/project architects/job captains, too--even more often than CCA staff.)
I think a far better option--which I have yet to see deployed first-hand--is to engage designers, production crews, and project managers completely in CCA on the projects they touch, without a dedicated CCA professional to prop them up. If I had my way, there would be no silos in a firm. Firms of all sizes would run every project with a right-sized team like a two-man firm fully engaged in all phases of each project. The only specialists would be IT people and firm leaders. Each boutique team would do everything from marketing through close-out, follow-up, client management, and documenting lessons learned--even writing their own contracts and specs. And each team would have all the support it needs at each phase without any individual bearing the entire load.
------------------------------
Sean Catherall AIA
Murray UT
------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 10-29-2024 04:11 PM
From: Dale L. Munhall AIA
Subject: Staff Training for CA Skills
All of you who specialize in the construction phase of our professional services will recognize the staff-training problem I am facing: how to get junior staff to want to learn and actually become proficient in Construction CONTRACT Administration? None of us were ever taught in college how to administer, let alone write, front-end specifications or construction contracts and general conditons, or deal with contractors or clients, or how to perform the full range of potential CA phase services. How do we train staff to overcome their aversion to reading and complaining that "CA has so many words to keep track of"?
------------------------------
Dale Munhall, AIA
Director of Construction Phase Services
LEO A DALY
------------------------------