Project managers can make or break a BAS project and ultimately the financials of a BAS company.
But how do you effectively manage BAS projects?
In this episode we discuss:
- The three types of BAS project management
- How to learn BAS project management skills
- How to get a role as a BAS project manager
Click here to download or listen to this episode now.
Resources mentioned in this episode
Transcript
Phil Zito 0:00
This is the smart buildings Academy podcast with Phil Zito episode 302. Hey folks, Phil Zito here and welcome to episode 302 of the smart buildings Academy podcast. In this episode, we are going to be discussing the BA s project manager role. We're going to discuss what this role entails the different types of project managers that you will encounter in your BAS career. And we'll talk about how do you prepare for this kind of role? And also, how do you apply for this kind of role? Alright, with that being said, everything will be found at podcasts, smart buildings academy.com, forward slash 302. Once again, that is podcasts us smart buildings academy.com Ford slash 302. Alright, folks, so let's talk about project managers. When it comes to building automation companies, project managers can make or break the finances of the company, depending on what kind of project manager they are. In my experience, there are three kinds of project managers. There are technical project managers, so these project managers, they oversee the execution of the project, but they also execute the project. Oftentimes, you'll find this in small and large companies in the smaller companies, this is due to them growing rapidly or just simply not having staffed properly. And they need to have someone who can still do high skilled work, but also project manage and kind of the logic goes, Well, hey, they're really good at programming and designing and all this stuff. So we might as well make them a project manager as well. And this can do quite good. But it can also end up quite badly if the appropriate financial and operational training is not provided. So you've got that. The second type of project manager is someone who is really an ops manager. So they oversee the operations of the projects. They're not responsible typically for billing, they do have some oversight of financials, but it's more so focused on when are we going to be executing certain tasks, and how are we going to execute certain tasks. So they have more of an operational bent with the finance background is kind of an add on. This is the most common type of project manager and it's not a bad role, especially for projects, you know, a couple million dollars and smaller, you can get away with this kind of roll and be just fine. Then we move to the kind of capital project Enterprise Project financial project manager. Now this person is typically on larger scale strategic projects. And they work as part of a matrix organization. So you'll have an operations manager who oversees the actual people who are executing the project, you will have programmers and designers and everything out there actually doing the work. And then the financial project manager, the strategic project manager, this person is going to be looking at Billings and the strategic management of Billings, of revenue of scheduling, etc. Now, this is a much less common role in the building automation world, you do tend to see it on large system integration projects. But beyond that, and beyond large public private partnership, which are p3 projects, you tend to not see this type of bas project manager. So if I'm sitting there, and I'm in your shoes, and I decide, hey, I want to move into project management, what skills should I focus on? Well, it really comes down to do you want to be that operational project manager? Or do you want to be a working project manager? There's pros and cons to both.
Phil Zito 4:09
So let's look at the working project manager first. And then let's look at the operations project manager. And I want to be clear, when I say working project manager, I'm not inferring that the other project managers don't do work. I'm just saying that you're actually executing the work versus just overseeing the work. So the working project manager or the executing project manager, you're going to have to have technical skills. Typically what will happen is someone in the programmer or designer role will get tapped to move into this kind of quasi working project manager role. Basically what will happen is the company will be short staffed, you'll start having to attend project meetings, you'll have to start working on timelines. Maybe you get a couple technicians that are matrixed or put directly under you Next thing you know, you're a working project manager, you're still out there executing tasks, but you're also overseeing other people who are executing tasks like installed design, etc. will tell you this can be the most rewarding, and also the most difficult project management role. It can be the most difficult in that if you do not have good organizational skills, and you do not really understand contractual processes, and how to look at project timelines and allocate resources and you're not allocated the appropriate resources, then you can find yourself working 60 to 80 hour days or Yeah, days, right. Okay. Yes, weeks, no, that would be crazy. And 60 to 80 hour day would be insane. And not possible. So 60 to 80 hour weeks. And I know some of you are like, I already work 60 to 80 hour weeks, yes. And during this past summer, a lot of companies were working their people insanely hard, because they had a ton of backlog to execute. But outside of that most roles typically will work 40 to 50 hours, because there's not overtime built in to the projects for those to go and execute. Now, that being said, this project manager role that requires a lot of operational management and contractual management skills, while also executing, it can be very, very fun at the same time. And it can be very fulfilling, because you have complete control over your own little business, basically. So for those of you who are intrapreneurial minded, you know, you you like the idea of building stuff, and you have this entrepreneurial spirit, but you don't want to go start your own company, this kind of project management role is really cool. Because you get to do the techie stuff, you get to do the OP stuff, you get to learn business. And here's what I suggest you do. There's a book called the 10 day MBA. Let me see if I can look it up real quick. on Amazon. And it's a, it's a painful read. I'll be honest, it's not necessarily the best read as far as just reading books goes. But as far as learning about business, it's one of the better ones, in my opinion, because you'll learn about finance, you'll learn about operations, marketing, etc. And you're like, Okay, why do I need to learn about maybe marketing and things like that, I will tell you that when it comes to project management, it definitely you could go and buy the PMI, PMP project management study guide, and you'd be super solid. But what that's not going to teach you is some of the softer stuff, some of the more strategic skills, as well as marketing skills, communication skills, etc, I feel this book does a good job of covering those at a high business minded level. Additionally, I would suggest the PMP study guide. Now, some of you, especially if you're on my sales team listening to this are like, Why is he not talking about our bas project management course. I'll get to that in just a second. But there is a PMP study guide, I believe it is by Oh, who what does that company it's by I can't recall off the top of my head who created it. But
Phil Zito 8:33
it's a good study guide to learn the fundamentals of project management. Now, all that being said, if you do those two resources that I recommended, you're going to have to be able to take the concepts you learned and contort them into a BAS contracting environment. So a lot of these resources that I just mentioned, are going to teach as if you are the PnL manager, or you are the overall project manager like the general contractor. And that's all well and good. But as we know, Bas projects, we are a sub two a sub. So oftentimes we are more like a service provider than we are an actual contractor. Yes, we are a contractor. Yes, we are adhering to general conditions. Yes. But at the same time, we also have to be cognizant that we are dependent on a sub who's dependent on a GC so our level of influence, and our ability to implement a lot of the things you're going to learn in traditional project management training is not going to apply to us. So if you can keep that in mind when you study these resources, they're good resources. If not, I would highly encourage our bas project management course, which takes everything that you're going to learn in those resources, but presents it in a way that is pertinent to building automation is one of our more popular courses. Being that Bas, project management is such a difficult skill to learn. And we teach that quite well. Now, the other type of project manager, as I mentioned is the operations project manager, also known as an operations manager. As you move to a more mid sized company or larger, you will tend to find operations managers. Now, operations managers will typically coordinate with a project manager. So that's how it normally happens, right. But in some companies, you will find these two roles merged together. So the project manager will have technical talent assigned under them. Typically, a programmer and designer and a handful of technicians will be their pool, and then they will have a slew of projects. And what they will be responsible for will be the coordination scheduling, billing and management of these resources, including their material and subcontractors. So this is a more traditional project manager, but you're still heavily involved in operations. So how do you get this skill set? And
Phil Zito 11:13
what are the pros and cons? Well, how you get the skill set is simply learning the different roles, understanding what they do, and how long they take to do them, understanding the conditions that tied to these roles. So you know, there's things like, for example, you have to have power before you can go and do startup, right, you typically have to have the network before you can go and connect all your supervisory devices together, these things that you have to understand, and you learn them through time in the field. Now, once you have this, then you can go and properly schedule. And this is the skill called forecasting and scheduling of labor, where you basically look at your project costs, you forecast them out along with billings, that way you can create a profitable project that meets the timeline and meets the quality requirements of the customer. Now, the pros and cons, I personally find this operation management role a lot of fun, because I like financials, and I like strategy. I also find it pretty frustrating at the same time, because it can become routine. And it can be high pressure. And especially if you do not have the people directly under you if it's more of a matrix organization, where you're a project manager, and then there's an operations manager and these people report to you or report to them. And you have to basically beg, borrow and steal resources. And then you're held accountable for execution of projects, when you're not given the resources, it can be a pain. And so I will tell you, it's fun, but at the same time, it can be a pain. Now, that being said, how do you get into this role, as I mentioned, you master the previous I should, I don't want us to master because that has so much kind of attached to it, you get a solid understanding of the previous roles, the BAS technician, the designer, the programmer, so that you can effectively manage them. I have seen people step into this more operational management role from lateral trades like fire and security, access, control, lighting, etc, and do quite well. Because at the end of the day, every trade has technicians, designers and programmers in some way shape or form. When I say every trade, I'm talking about the like intelligent building trades. But they have those in some way, shape or form. And if you learn how to manage them, you can pretty much figure out how to manage them in any other trade. Then, as I mentioned, there is that third role, the purely financial project manager, these people tend to have worked on large capital projects, I see them recruited from several different places. One is from large capital IT projects, owner operators. So I've seen people for example, the Hudson Yards project, there was someone who I forget his name, he was involved in the project there and I now I believe he's running large projects for another company. If I remember correctly, I could be mixing this up. I've done a lot of projects. But uh, that's the thing, right? Is you have to have it's kind of a chicken and an egg problem. You have to have experience with large scale projects in order to become a large scale financial kind of strategic project manager. But at the same time, you have to get experience in order to have the experience to have the role, you kind of see the conundrum. So I see people they tend to do that operational role and then they get tapped for like major projects or large capital projects, and then they gradually find themselves into that more strategic project management role. This is a very difficult role to apply for and get selected to from the outside in. All these roles honestly are difficult. The operational project management role is probably the least difficult to get. If you have experience with another trade and project managing or overseeing those roles, I will tell you that a lot of companies will require a degree for this role. I don't necessarily think that's,
Phil Zito 15:27
that should be required. But I can understand requiring a degree if the person has very little experience, that degree can in some ways, augment the experience. But this is a role where experience really kind of is the key factor. And it's kind of funny, because you hear from folks that programmers and designers, those are the roles that require experience. And I argue that Yeah, to a point, they require some experience, but more so they're just repeatable processes. And just some baseline theoretical knowledge, and you should be pretty solid in those roles on most projects, yeah, there's gonna be unique things that happen. But most projects, you should be fine with a BAS, project manager, a service tech, and a salesperson. Those are roles that are more experiential, and getting into those roles can be a little more difficult. The easiest way to get into bas project management is to work up through the roles into that role, as well with service tech. And we'll be talking about that in the next episode. So hey, if you have any questions, I encourage you to reach out I love answering your questions. Thanks so much for sending them in. And for those of you who asked me to start this series around different roles, I appreciate that. That being said, as always, everything will be available at podcast smart buildings academy.com forward slash 302 That's podcasts at smart buildings academy.com forward slash 302. And yeah, next episode we'll be talking about service techs. Thanks, Don.
Unknown Speaker 17:05
Take care.
