From Controlling the Answer to Defining the Problem: Why Off-Ramping Isn’t Failure (Bonus Content Episode)

This Bonus Content Episode extends our conversation from “Beyond the Buzz: Implementing Progressive Design-Build in the Federal Market,” featuring David Triplett and Laura Stagner.

In the full episode, we discussed what federal agencies should know before pursuing progressive design-build, including DBIA’s new Qualifications-Based Selection Deeper Dive for PDB and an accompanying AI-powered tutorial designed to help agencies apply the guidance in real procurement and project delivery scenarios.

Here, we take a closer look at one specific issue: off-ramping.

Off-ramping can sound like a failure, especially when it shows up around high-profile projects. But in progressive design-build, an off-ramp can be a legitimate project-protection tool. 

As Dave explains, successful PDB requires moving from controlling the answer to defining the problem.

Resources

Listen to the full episode: “Beyond the Buzz: Implementing Progressive Design-Build in the Federal Market”

Access all our free design-build resources and learn more about Design-Build Done Right® at dbia.org.

DBIA members are shaping the future, one successful collaboration at a time. 

Transcript

Erin Looney  0:06  
Aaron, welcome back to the Design Build Delivers podcast, brought to you by Archons and Autodesk Platinum Partner. I am your host, Aaron Looney, and this bonus content episode is an extension of our May Longer episode, Beyond the Buzz: Implementing Progressive Design Build in the federal market, where I talked with Dave Triplett and Laura Stagner about what federal agencies need to understand before pursuing PDB projects, especially as interest in PDB grows across the federal market. We also talked about DBIA's new deeper dive on qualifications-based selection for PDB and its accompanying AI power tutorial designed to help agencies apply that guidance in real procurement and project delivery scenarios. The QBS deeper dive is available now for free in the DBIA bookstore@store.dbia.org But there was one idea from the conversation that I wanted to highlight just a bit differently. This idea of off-ramping, it sounds like something you want to avoid, especially when it shows up around high-profile projects, which it has been lately. It can make you wonder whether the project failed, whether the team failed, or whether the delivery method itself failed, but that's not always the right way to look at it. As Dave explains here in PDB, an off-ramp can be a legitimate project protection tool, and because we're in the World Cup timeline, I did what any reasonable American would do. I made a comparison, I called it soccer, apologized to the global game, and then tried to explain federal project delivery through midfield fitness. So, yeah, I'm not sorry, except for the bit where I called it soccer, we've seen a little bit about off ramping from some PDB projects lately in the news. Would you say it's a fair assumption to say that project delivery methods are neutral? It's the specific project that might lead to some of this adversarial relationship in these, these issues, and I don't think off ramp sounds like an adversarial thing necessarily. It's just a this is the best move for this project now,

Speaker 1  2:11  
right? And in many cases, that is the right decision for the project to be able to kind of change the trajectory or the direction of which that project may have been heading. The owner has to get the mindset right within the organization first. Obviously, exploring progressive design build as a delivery model sounds attractive. A lot of the private sector has already gone in that direction, but if the owner is not prepared for it and the organization doesn't have the right mindset, it's not staffed appropriately, you know, with people who can obviously support it, then you're going to struggle whatever delivery method that is ultimately implemented, but to go from a design bid build kind of organizational context and structure to progressive design build is a major leap, and without the appropriate training and with an organization that doesn't necessarily have the right mindset to be able to take that on, it is a leap of faith. Obviously, that's I think why we see some of these off-ramp decisions that are made, and because it just is not going to, it's not going to work out.

Erin Looney  3:08  
I'm fundamentally an absolute jock. When you were saying that, I was thinking about recently, I've thought about going back to play recreational soccer after coming from a long history of competitive soccer, and it sounds like the construction architecture and engineering equivalent of you are not ready to go back out on the pitch and kick a ball around until you've pulled back and said get yourself in the right shape, get yourself in the right frame of mind, because anybody who's ever played the sport knows you do a lot of running and a lot of falling down, and you have to be conditioned to do both of those things, and so that's all I could think while you were saying that, is like, yeah, you wouldn't lace up the boots and run out there and think I'm going to be the best at this without preparing yourself, and so without preparing the organization, without preparing the agency, you wouldn't want to take on a Premier League level project until you were ready to do

Speaker 1  4:05  
me. I think you nailed it. I mean, oftentimes the owner is not really preparing themselves, and you know, we're going from a design bid build model, and in a lot of cases, you know, many agencies know that model well. In that technique, you know, obviously the owner's job is to define the project completely before anyone gets involved, and progressive design build owner's job is really to clearly articulate what the project must accomplish, the mission need, performance requirements, those non-negotiables, and then trust a qualified team to develop the solution collaboratively. So, just like getting back out there on the pitch, you have to trust your preparation, and it's a fundamental shift from really controlling the answer to defining the problem, and owners that can't make that shift, they'll unconsciously over prescribe the design and eliminate that very flexibility that PDB certainly helps with, and progressive design. It also compresses really the distance between those design decisions and their cost consequences. When a design choice is made in the room, you know its budget impact is visible immediately, and really what that means is the owner must be present. You got to be informed and empowered to make decisions in real time, not waiting for submittal review cycles to surface weeks later, it can't be that mantra. I have 30 days to review this. I'm going to take the 30 days to review it. Agencies that delegate this PDB participation to team members without that decision-making authority really is going to create bottlenecks and undermine that entire collaborative model, and back to kind of design bid build the owner receives, typically is going to receive a bid and accept a rejected and progressive design build owner participates in building the cost, and that requires understanding of what and how to evaluate the design builders open book estimates critically and constructively, you know, traditional delivery transfers risk to the contractor through competitive pricing and locked scope, whereas progressive design build asks the owner to accept that risk, and it's managed collaboratively rather than transferred unilaterally, and really that requires a different tolerance for ambiguity in the early stages of the project owner that demands certainty before it can responsibly exist will either force the design builder into defensive pricing that defeats really the method's purpose, or we may see this off ramp be exercised prematurely on a project that could have otherwise succeeded, and just lastly, the design builder is not the only party that needs to commit to PDBs collaborative model. The owners, contracting officers, their program managers, their legal counsel, and leadership all need to understand really what progressive design build is, why it works differently, and what behaviors it requires from them. And successful PDB owners really are going to invest in that internal alignment before the solicitation, because the collaborative structure really cannot survive an owner team that is not working at cross purposes with itself,

Erin Looney  7:15  
so in other words, it is a bit of a leap from being able to deadlift 200 pounds to being able to last 90 minutes at midfield,

Speaker 1  7:22  
I would say so.

Erin Looney  7:24  
So, whether I go back to the pitch is still up in the air, but I hope the role of off-ramping in PDB isn't progressive design. Build depends on owners being ready for collaboration, real-time decision making, shared problem solving, all of DBIA's best practices, and that's why an off ramp isn't necessarily a sign of failure. It can simply mean the project or organization wasn't quite ready to move forward under the model. If you want to learn more about how federal agencies are approaching PDB, from Dave, from Laura, and from loads of others shaping the future of federal design build, join us at DBIA Federal Design Build Symposium, august 11 and 12th, in Reston, Virginia. The event this year focuses on moving from the growing authority in the federal sector, which you can hear more about in the longer episode, to action on real projects. Owners can register free, and early bird registration is still open until june 30. Go register now, and then make sure to listen to Beyond the Buzz, implementing progressive design build in the federal market wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again to Dave and Laura. Thanks to you, and thanks to Archons and Autodesk Platinum partner, for sponsoring the Design Build Delivers podcast. Learn more at archons.us/dbia

Unknown Speaker  8:37  
the same.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai