Technology Disruption: Now What??

JAROD SCHULTZ: How's everybody doing for the first hour of AU? Was anybody with me yesterday at some of the classes yesterday? I was doing Forge yesterday, and opened my mind on all kinds of new things that we'll be working with, to say the least, in the future. I'm Jarod Schultz. Be along for the ride for the technology disruption this morning. I bring to the table with about 25 years of consulting services, and I thought-- you know what, I'm going to do something a little different this year.

I've been speaking, I've been going to AU for almost 20, been a speaker with AU for probably the last eight. Been a top speaker most of those years. Actually bumped Marcello last year and actually got the top speaker of last year. So I got a lot to go for this year. So hopefully you guys walk out of here with a lot of thoughts and ideas, strategies, and ways to look at how the technology is disrupting not only yourself, but your firm, and all the people that surround you guys. All right, so there's a lot of things to be looking at, to say the least, as we go through this.

And along with that experience, I must say I've probably been working with most people at this point in almost every industry, even on the mechanical side. So it's only just AEC, but also on the mechanical side. So going to have lots of questions today. Hopefully lots of answers to go along with it. So we all know technology is moving fast these days, to say the least. I've been around the block-- I haven't seen such progress happen so much anymore these days, to say the least. And so some of the things you have to ask yourself is, how is your firm dealing with these just these disruptions today?

How are you handling some of these things? What lessons I've learned? Are you taking notes on what those lessons have learned? Sometimes-- I'm a big huge OneNote fan, to say the least. Has anybody used OneNote in here? Awesome. God, that's awesome. And I hope you build books, and I hope you share your books with people. It's a big big thing that I try to be a proponent of. And one of other things that we'll be looking at is the bell curve of adoption-- and if you haven't seen this, this is something I think also people need to look as for yourself, and be honest with yourself of where you're at on this thing.

Also, then you need to think about where your firm is on this, because you have to deal with some realities here about where you are and where your firm is, and then you got to start thinking about, where is your staff on this? And you also have to think about just how proactive you're dealing with some of this stuff too. And I think the other thing too that we'll discuss towards the end is return on investment. This is one of the biggest things-- I don't think I see a lot of people doing, which all of us in this room being leaders like you are need to be talking return on investment.

If you're not doing a return on investment, you're wondering why you're not always getting what you want. And so you got to talk to upper management and talk their language. So we'll talk a little bit about that too as we go through this. And we'll build some strategies along the way to give you guys some success with all of this stuff. Now-- so this idea, this people, process, and technology-- is not something I came up with. Has anybody seen this before? I'm just curious. Very few of you. Well, good. I'll enlighten you on some stuff here then.

People, process, and technology-- and it's something I truly believe in, and I want to make sure that you guys understand something too-- people's at the top. And if you're not talking this language, then you need to start thinking about how you're presenting yourself sometimes, and hopefully-- because I'm sure everybody in here has their processes down, and the technology, but we need to start thinking about how that people fit in there. But it's one of the things that I believe in is the continuous improvement cycle. I didn't come up with this.

This is something that was long time ago that I got introduced to. And it's something that I do for myself as an individual, and also with the people around me and my firm, and also the firms I get to be lucky to work with also. But we'll look at the underlying pieces with this. So it's kind of the top layer of this stuff. But as we start digging into my presentation, we'll start breaking down each one of these things. And I want you to remember one thing-- hopefully, some of the things I throw out here might change yourself, as how you're doing some things.

And I also want to remember-- or remind everybody that you're changing people's lives. So I don't think sometimes people think about this when they're bringing in such technology disruption, is just what the heck is all going on with some of your staff and departments, and other studios that surround you at times. So we'll look at some of this stuff as we go through it. Now, the three legs of improvement. OK. So people, process, and technology-- I talked about the order of this, and we'll start breaking down the pieces here.

And I think one other thing I want to mention to is Kaizen Events. Has anybody here ever heard this? OK, good. Some of you have done this. OK. So if you haven't, we'll look at some of this stuff. How about emotional intelligence? Has anybody been reading some of that? Cool. Something you need to start looking at too. These are a couple of pieces that really, to be honest, have really kind of changed how I've looked at working with people, or even dealing with people at certain times, just because of how the technology is disrupting so many people.

And then Six Sigma-- anybody dealing with Six Sigma? All right. So we'll have some conversations on dealing with waste, finding waste, which is a big thing, which will help you with your return on investment. So as we start going through some of this stuff, you've got to start thinking about how some of your processes are interrupting some of this stuff. For the good, I would hope. And you guys start thinking about how that's bringing back investment, all right? I threw this up here. I want to talk about technology. Just make sure everybody's got their head wrapped around this right.

It's pretty crazy, to say the least-- how slow stuff was, and then just how incredibly fast it is towards the end, to say the least. The other thing-- I got to bring up the BIM Wheel. Learn it, love it, know it. What was interesting is-- I was in a presentation with Jim Ott, who's the chief architect for Quantum, which is next evolution. And it was great to see him bring this actually back. He says, we're not getting rid of this-- we're connecting this, we're improving upon this. So here is just even more disruption here in the next two to three years, to say the least.

So I thought that was great-- so I thought, hey, that's in my presentation it's not done. Has anybody ever seen this thing yet? This is an eye opener. Look where-- that's the construction business. Let's just say AEC in general. Does anybody fish and hunt? So you're ahead of the construction business as for adopting to technology. This is something I was in the Forge conference, getting my brain swelling on all kinds of ideas going forward for next year. But yeah, even then, they even brought this up-- that you know, it's 1%. So this is-- and by the way, this is from-- and it's in your notes. It's from McKinsey Global Institute.

It's called Reinventing Construction-- it's about a 150 page read. I posted on LinkedIn along with some other stuff I looked at manufacturing highrises. That was a good read too, so I published that stuff out. But some good stuff there that you might want to look at. But that was just one of many charts and things that they had in there that was-- you know, I hate to see reality. In talking about reality, Reality Capture-- anybody dealing with this type of technology? Right? Used to be kind of fluffy, but now point clouds. We have our own drone pilot.

Virtual and augment reality, right? That's a big thing. Exhibit a hall open. Who knows what we'll see in there about all this, right? This-- who's not doing this? Who's not thinking about this, right? So we just got done working with Perkins and Will doing some dynamo and fractal and some other things for them, doing exactly this along with some energy analysis, you know-- just the whole 2030 thing. Incredibly powerful and really cool to say the least. Definitely a game changer. And then internet of things.

This has always been kind of fuzzy, but this is on the back end of BIM, right? The whole FM thing, and hooking in sensors, and hopefully trying to making our buildings a lot smarter than they are, right? Because they are the biggest pollution piece of the planet-- sometimes people forget that. It's not cars-- it's buildings are the biggest pollution makers. So, making our buildings a lot smarter. There are some things that they're doing with Forge, connecting things together with databases and so on, which is really cool. So thinking about this list, right?

Now this is last year's survey about how people are going to be adopting a technology. Maybe you guys are on this list. Maybe you have some other things in here. So the point that I'm making is is that, is there enough technology to go around? To say the least, right? It's kind of like which one are you going to chomp on a little bit. Now looking at this particular list, I want to look at a couple of things about this. This is where you need to maybe think about where you're at on this list, and you have to be a little honest.

What's really kind of sad is third and fourth place-- and then if you add those numbers up on them all, 60% of the group are just kind of like, I don't know. Implement and wing it. Does anybody have that strategy? Implement-- see, someone's being honest in the room. Right? So I want you guys to be more in first and second place, where you're building actually strategy, you're developing an end goal. You know what that goal looks like. And then how are we going to get through that? How we're going to start building those processes to get there? And so I want to make sure that we walk away today being a little honest with ourselves.

And then the other thing you have to be honest too is where's your firm on this stuff? Are they accepting you on spending some time in building a strategy and an end goal? And that's where I think maybe if you start doing some return on investment, they might have a little bit more patience with you on some of that stuff if you're coming to the table with that. So you've got to understand the value that the technology is bringing, and you have to understand what the desired goal is before leaping into a process map. And talking about that too-- does anybody use Mind Maps?

If not, you should really start digging into it. It really helps people-- honestly, it really helps a lot of people to understand, especially if you're talking to your owners, principals, and upper management. If they can see a diagram and understand how that workflow to process, how that strategy is going to get outlined-- it's gold, a lot of times. And most of them are free. Like Mind Map is-- XMind is one of my favorites that I use. All right? So you might want to think a little bit about mapping some of these processes as you're going through it.

Has anybody ever seen this thing? All right, some of you. I mean, it's not new. Look at the top right slide-- it's 1971. But it's an oldie and goodie, all right? I'm sure you've heard some of my tunes this morning. A little '80s vibe there. So I saw some of you going like this. So on this bell curve, this is something that you have to be honest with yourself about-- again, where are you at on this thing? A lot of you might just go-- I'm an innovator. Well, I don't know. We'll see. We'll break that down and see.

We have to, again, be honest a little bit. There are some things that-- it'll help you a little bit, and I think you also have to start thinking about where your firm is, and then also too some of the people that are around you that help you get things done. Where are they standing on some of this stuff? OK? And again it's just being honest about where things are. And maybe, at the end of the day, at least for me I'll say, if I sit down with somebody and start going through my assessment stuff that I do, it helps me understand where certain groups are, where they're wanting to do certain things, and also how does that look with the owner and the principals-- do they match up or not?

And if they don't, then I have some other things I need to think about, and I might have to break things down and go to a little bit further with them to understand where we're going and why we're going down this road, OK? The biggest thing you have to understand if you just simply say, I'm an innovator, darn it. Well you have to understand there's an expense that goes along with that, right? You know, being surrounded by a bunch of programming geeks yesterday, and think-- looking at what some of those clients or some of those people are doing with some of that stuff.

Especially like this last one, working with Perkins and Will, they have a whole R&D department. They got 10 people there, and that's all they do, is think up stuff. And some of these other large firms, that's what they're doing. Now I don't know if everybody else is in that boat-- I don't think so. And so that's the thing. Are they innovating? Yeah-- they got budgets to handle that stuff. And so we got to think about some of that as we go through it. So an innovator. So what is an innovator? So you like to try new ideas. Well, shoot, everybody in here likes to try new ideas, right?

But the thing you have to think about is that, when you're working with that, are you obsessive with new ideas? I mean, are you thinking 24/7 on how things could be changed? Do you have financial resources to back you? Because you're going to have to have some time to play. Can you apply complex technical knowledge with that? So you have to start thinking about, am I really in that group? Maybe some of you are in this group, maybe not. Early adopters-- I think there's lots of us as early adopters integrated into what we call the local social system.

So a lot of us like to tweet and LinkedIn, and try to share, have opinions about what's going on with stuff. I always like to call change agents in a lot of ways. So I think maybe a lot of us in here are thinking about this and doing this stuff. And then you got these early adopters. So when you're working with something like this early mi-jority I should say. So they're just looking at the average social system. They're still agreeing with the technology-- it might take them a little bit longer to make that decision to buy in on some of this stuff.

So you deliberate just a little bit before you just jump on in and start doing something. And that's where I think sometimes people jump in a little too soon, and get themselves into trouble because they don't really understand what's going on with the technology, and just how much of a disruption is really going on. And then you have this thing called a late mi-jority. Now I don't think anybody in here-- you came to AU. Come on. Are you really a late mi-jority, or a laggard that's coming up? So typically they're traditionalist, last to really adopt to innovation, have no really opinion on leadership on some of that stuff.

Obsessed with the past in some ways. Suspicious at times about innovations or innovators, or change agents. So you got to start thinking-- you know, along with this late mi-jority and laggards, I don't think anybody in this room is really playing this game. And really, but you've got to think about some of your staff. Is anybody dealing with staff like this? Right? So how are you going to handle some of that? Just push them off and say, hey, it's my way or the highway? Is that everybody's attitude? It doesn't help, man.

It does not help doing that. And that's something I've seen over the last 25 years, as too many CAD managers, BIM managers, whatever digital practitioners, whatever the titles are these days, doing too much of that stuff. You're a leader at your firm, so act as a leader and help people understand a little bit more about what's going on with this technology. So breaking down and thinking a little bit more about some of these, all right? So people, process, technology. So this first slide we'll just talk about people here just for a little bit.

So think about your staff, all right? Do you honestly have the right people managing this new process? Does anybody think about this? All right. If not, you got to, all right? Who's around you? You're leading this initiative, right? But you have to have some help-- where are they? All right? Have they bought in on some of this stuff? All right? And then the other thing is going down this with this process, or this people-- is technology. If the new technology is automating, or changes the process, what effect is that having?

So you also got to start thinking about how some of your people-- you got to think about this. They're getting interrupted to the way that they've always done it. All right? You guys have never heard that phrase before, right? Well, we've always done it this way. Right? So you got to think a little bit about how that's affecting people as they're going through it. And then will-- or what do you need for training programs? You want to enable or implement this new process correctly, right? And not have it fail. So where are you going to help these people, in what ways, to get through some of this stuff as we're going through it?

And then on this next slide, looking at this, we're thinking about the process. So depending on the size of your firm, is this going to affect other studios or departments? If you're a smaller one, are you going to be dealing with outside consultants? What type of disruption is happening there? So as we're working through this process, how is that affecting all of this? And you've got to think this out a little bit. And again, this is where I like to mind map things and just see where things land as you're going through this. The other thing with this process-- are you dealing with just simply one application that's bringing this disruption, or is it going to be requiring multiple applications?

So a good example for me is like, my whole schematic design workflow is completely different than it was 12 months ago. And so thinking about Formit and Revit, Fractal, Dynamo, Insight, Solar Analysis. Anybody with me on any of this stuff? I mean, that's my entire workflow to go through schematic design. Is it SketchUp and Sefaira? Sure, if you want to use those tools. Grasshopper, right? You can do those things. But again, if I'm coming in and talking about a disruption like this, we've got to think about how does that look?

All right? Everybody's got to think about how that's going to go through the process. And again, if I have a mind map on that, it seems to help immensely to understand how things are going to come together. So you've got to think about your process, and how that's going to go. And as you're doing this process-- and let's think about return on investment for a second. As you're going through this process, and if you're mapping this stuff, and you're seeing how this is disrupting and in a good way-- in some ways, right? Not bad ways.

Is it eliminating steps, or is it shortening the process somehow, and are you taking notes about how that is? Because there's your return on investment, right? If it's taking only 12 steps, and before it was taking 26 steps to get through some sort of task, you guys gotta write that stuff down and think about what that return on investment looks like. If you're not talking that, how is anybody else in your firm understanding this? You're understanding you're saving money, but how is anybody else reading that?

So you got to think about, when you're working through this process, that you're trying to take some notes about how things are changing in a good way on some of this. Right? And then finally, this technology. Now this might sound like a silly question-- so is technology supporting the process? Now that sounds like a dumb question-- well, of course it is. This is why we're going down this road, right? What I'm getting at, though-- and I've done this. Where I've looked at a new technology and I'm having to compromise to make it work.

Has anybody ever done this before? It's so cool. We're going to do it this way. And then you start really getting into it, and you start breaking it down, and you're like-- it doesn't really do that like the other thing. So anyway with me on that one? All right? All right. [INAUDIBLE] and me? Me? I'm like, well, I can handle that. Whatever. I'll do something different. All right? But I have to mind map if I'm doing something on that. If I'm having to change this a little bit-- why are we doing this? And is the compromise too much?

That's where you got to be honest with yourself, all right? And there's-- I won't give it away. There's some other stuff coming up too that you got to think about. So it sounds like a dumb question. You know-- is technology supporting the process? Well, duh, Jarod. But you've got to think about compromise as you're going through it. I mean, is it all there or not? Does it still have some holes? Are we OK with that? Can we see that in six months or 12 months, whatever the technology is, will it catch up and we're OK? I don't know.

That's where you have to sit down and think about that. And then again, hopefully the technology is eliminating some manual entry, and it's automating the process, right? That's why I'm all excited about generative design and this machine learning, and all this stuff, because I just see it taking things that would take hours, days, to put together, happening in minutes. So lots a return on investment, and hopefully you know I'm writing that stuff down and saying-- hey man, this is how much it's saving us, if we go down this.

Yes, there's an upfront cost, but it's saving us so much more on the back end. So we got to think out some of this stuff as we're going through it. All right. So. I've been talking now for about half the time for my presentation now, and I want I want you to ponder on something-- and don't think too hard on this. So what is one given item in everybody's life? I mean, I'm sure if I sit down and really looked at, everybody has probably maybe some multiple common things in life. So I think everybody shares one thing.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JAROD SCHULTZ: Underwear. I would hope. But no. So change. Right? We're all bringing change to the table. Right? You're a change agent, right? So don't forget that as you're walking through this, and don't lose that. You are changing, and you're changing-- again, people's lives, and yourself along with it as you're adopting this technology and being a leader and moving forward with some of this stuff. Just be aware of it and don't shy away from it. It's OK for change. So let's look at some principles of putting together some strategies as we're looking at this.

So we'll look at three of these things here. I got nine total here. So helping you with some strategy on some of this stuff. But I guess rule number one is, always remember strategy before technology. All right? This is really cool technology, great. How is that a benefit? These are the benefits. This, I can see this is where the end goal is. OK, so let's put this strategy together to get there. OK? And there's got to be frequent dialogue on how individuals operate as you're going through this stuff. And also then your values of the company and the values of yourself.

All right? Kind of goes back to-- are you really compromising too much on this? And you got to think about too-- and there's another slide coming up here a little bit about the people thing. But a purpose to believe in. So if you're bringing this stuff in, what's the purpose, and do other people believe that same purpose as you? OK? And if you're not saying or telling that story-- I'm all about stories. And so if you're not sitting there talking about the story, and the purpose of this, and getting buy in from other people, you need to slow down and say, what am I missing?

What are they seeing that I'm not seeing as for this? And I really hope you're not micromanaging. I've seen way too much micromanagement. I've seen way too many people come up, grab someone's mouse. There-- [INAUDIBLE] there. It's done. And it's like, how is that person ever learning, really, what's going on with this process? So hopefully that's not part of the equation either, OK? And remember too, as we're going through this stuff, one of the big things that we're trying to do too is consistency across the firm.

So you're coming in with this process, and what you're hoping, and what you're trying to go for with one of your goals, is consistency. So we're bringing in this technology, and I call them repeatable plays-- how are you building that repeatable play through here? All right? I don't care which project architect grabs this-- this is the process that we're doing. It's not their way, because we've already mapped it out. We've said, hey, here's a better way. And if there are some issues there, then we need to sit down with that person and sit there and talk to him a little bit more about what's going on, or why-- they might have some different ideas.

What a concept-- someone might have a better idea than you. Run with it. OK? So these next three, all right, looking at this next piece-- All right, so you come up with this. You've got the technology. Came up with the strategy. Put together some mind maps and process. You let it out to the wild. And the biggest thing I would request from you is to stop and listen. How's the staff handling it? And take notes-- and everybody in here is going to be using OneNote, I guess. All right? So all right. I was a converter from Evernote before this guy right here in front of me jumped me on OneNote about three, four years ago.

So, never looked back. All right. So off we went, and so I think if you just stop and listen-- listen to your staff, see where the breakdown is happening-- because I don't care how good your workflow process. There's going to be bumps in the road. But if you sit down and you listen to what's going on, hopefully what you can do is you can start minimizing that disruption and start assisting-- how we can make things better to get the changes off the ground. So if there are issues or roadblocks, break down those steps. Maybe you just didn't give enough steps through that workflow.

You thought maybe people would just catch on to certain things. Maybe you have to go back, practice, experiment with those new steps. And then again get some feedback and reflect and reapply what you've learned on some of that stuff. OK, so looking at some of those strategies-- hopefully we can start thinking about how to minimize some of this disruption that's happening. And then the other thing I want to make sure that gets brought up is you put together a strategy-- you know what the end goal is. You've started putting together your workflows and your processes through that.

And I would hope that you have certain minimum outcomes on some of those steps as you're going through it, because I want you to start measuring some of that of-- is it working, is it not working? It's kind of working. Why is it not working? And start thinking about maybe some different changes as we go through this. But always remember what the end result is, right? So it's kind of like a river. Might be twisting and turning. It might have some rapids along in that, right? But you'll get there. But you might have to change a couple of things and straighten it out just a little bit.

And the other thing I want to make sure that to always remind yourself is, you're not married to this technology. You're married to the benefit. Who cares what the technology is? It's the benefit. All right? Because that's the biggest thing that's coming to the table for us. There's your return on your investment. That is your value. And again, if you're compromising too much on that benefit, then you might want to release that technology and rethink things. All right? Sometimes technology, we look at it and we grab it too soon.

And maybe it needs to percolate a little bit before we jump back in. OK, so don't compromise too much on this stuff. That's another troublemaker. It just hurts you as a leader, and gives you a mark-- you know, you just got to sometimes sit back. So talking about-- and I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this. I don't want to get all philosophy on you. But I'm going to talk about this in another slide. It is two big huge changes for me, literally. And also I think for some people-- the staff that are around me, and also some of my clients.

And I certainly hope this helps everybody-- it sure did for me. But Mr. Ohno-- that's the guy up here-- came up with this idea back in the '70s. He's with Toyota. Now I'm a car guy. And I don't know some of you were around me back in the 70s, Datsuns, Toyotas. I mean, my joke was I was always a hot rodder, so I always would grab a car and I always want to go faster. Some of my buddies didn't care. It was four wheels-- who cares? So they'd go spend $300 on a Datsun V10, 210, 10, right? And just rip it.

We would go camping. I'm going to go four wheeling in my 260Z. Let's do it. And if I can't make the hill, that just means I need to go faster. All right, so it was that type of attitude about some of the imports, right? Now today, Toyota is not a piece of junk anymore, right? So he's the one that came up with this continuous improvement cycle going through this. So the original book came out in 1978, and then it got translated to English in 1988. And shortly after that is when I learned about it. And it was just because I was a car guy.

But it was something that really enlightened me about improving upon myself, and then the big thing about this too was-- there's another piece to this. Is you got the kaizen piece, and then you got the kairyo. So they kind of inner work with each other. So you're helping yourself trying to improve on things. And what happens is then you have this mentality of changing and looking at processes and technology and people I think in some different ways as you're going through some of this stuff.

There's another piece, another term in here, called gemba. And this kind of goes back to, in some ways, the Six Sigma. It's the lean context, you know. Looking for waste, and how you can build upon that as you're going through that. And really, as you're doing some of this-- and basically this gemba simply refers to the location where value is created. So other words, you're sharing your knowledge, you're enhancing your process, right? Hence you're creating your value. And that's what you're bringing to the table.

And people will take notice, I think, if you sit down and think about some of this stuff. And emotional intelligence is another piece that I think that fits in with this stuff too to help just round all of us out a little bit. It's all about being part of that leadership, OK? And I don't know if-- this came out just like two weeks ago. It was perfect timing, actually. And I don't know what everybody's opinion is on Frank Gehry. I don't really-- it's not about having opinions about him. But what he said was interesting. This-- he was at a ULI fall meeting in LA.

And I don't know if anybody saw this, but he said as an architect, he wants to find technology that eliminates waste. And I thought, man, that's exactly what the idea is, is looking at how things can eliminate this. And so-- you know, he's been somewhat of a leader with how he's dealing with building information modeling, and so on. But in parametrics. So it was good. So this kind of leads us into this next piece. So this next piece is Six Sigma. There's eight pieces to this, but really I think-- I look at the AEC business.

Unless you're getting into fabrication-- if you're on the construction side, maybe you'll start dabbling with some of this other stuff, because that's becoming more and more reality as we speak. But we'll just focus in on four of these things. So we're thinking about what is waste? So waste is any step or action or process that's not required to complete a process successfully. So that's non-value adding. So when waste is removed, only steps that are required to deliver a satisfactory service to the customer remains in the process. So that's value adding.

So what we're going to be looking at is starting to discover a little bit about the four pieces, or the four tiles, and I want to concentrate on this stuff. So dealing with talent, waiting, defects, and overprocessing. And again, if you're getting more into the construction and fabrication of stuff, maybe some of those other tiles will come into play. And if you're not really to up to speed on some of this stuff, it's something that you might want to sit down and look at. And we'll talk about homework here towards the end.

So let's talk about talent. And let's slow down for a second-- read that first paragraph. Right? Underutilizing people's talents and skills and knowledge. Right? That doesn't happen. Right? Maybe you feel this way at times. And how does your staff feel about this, the people that are around you at certain times? So looking at these next bullet items on some of this-- so really, when it comes down, and this is one of the things why I kind of harped on people initially. Because honestly, at the end of the day, it's one of the biggest assets of the firm.

Is what staff, what people do they have on board? And I think the other thing you have to think about is-- if staff isn't engaged, or doesn't have buy in on your new workflow process or technology, whatever it is-- then whatever you do will be simply a loss. And I think some of us-- I've been on that boat where I've lost that cause, where-- because I haven't thought about that. And thinking about some of the people that around me and how I can better use them. So always remember, each person brings something to the table. It's really up to you discover what that is.

Now some of us, that might sound hard-- because our personalities might not fit into that trait. But it's pretty simple, to be honest. And don't be scared about doing some of this. It's just sitting down and have a conversation with them about your plan. And maybe to make them comfortable, you sit down with them, you go out to have coffee, you take them as an individual and just sit down with them and say, hey, here's my plan. What are your thoughts on this? How could it be better? How can you help me with this?

And hopefully, if you start that conversation and get those questions going, hopefully they're starting to feel a lot more engaged and more on board with you. And take your process and run with it a little more. So the other thing is waiting-- again, slowing down and reading this paragraph for a second. Communication breakdown-- nobody ever runs into that. Right? So looking at some of these bullet items. So you know-- and I'm going to use an example as a project team. So if a project team is having an issue, then you need to sit down with that team and ask them what's going on, what the issue is.

Hopefully somebody will speak up about what's going on with the breakdown. Now depending on what is happening there, sometimes they'll just clam up. And has anybody who's been in those meetings where he just shuts up and nobody says anything? Because everybody's a little uncomfortable to say what is the problem? So you have to-- if you run into that, you just got to watch the faces and see what's going on. I'm sure you can figure out somebody in that room where, if you just talk to them on the side, they'll spill the beans on what's going on.

Right. So you just got to think about that. And again this goes back to just sitting down and listening. Not trying to offer solutions-- just sitting down and listening to see what the heck is going on. So I think that's a big thing to help too, is just listen and don't offer solutions right away. And then the other thing I'd like to bring up at this point-- and some of you might laugh at me. Does anybody know who this guy is? Right, Columbo. I watch Columbo all the time. And I only do it because the reason is-- he's great at coming across as really, basically, a bumbling idiot.

But he is far from an idiot-- he does that for reasons, because he wants whoever he's talking to to feel like they have the upper hand, that they are smarter in some ways. And that's OK. So we're sitting down and asking questions, and maybe some of our questions are stupid, but we basically sit down and try to ask what those questions are. And as you're starting to ask those questions, hopefully you're starting to dig in, and really finding out what the heck the problem is. OK? And then this one, right? Mistakes. Every project you guys work on hasn't zero mistakes, right?

We wish. So looking at some of the bullet items on some of this stuff, right? So seeing this-- we have to think about where that waste is, how that's happening. You need to maybe get back to asking some of those questions, being that detective. And asking questions-- not offering solutions, just asking questions, taking notes, seeing what the heck is going on. And then the other thing I want to throw out here too-- I'm just curious, does anybody use checklists on anything? Man. Barely anybody. They have books on checklists and how powerful they are.

But I bring up checklists-- and everybody just kind of laughs, right? The top 10 checklist. So I want you to think about that. Checklists, at the end of the day, can be very, very powerful. I mean, if it wasn't a good idea-- everybody flew out here, right? What do the pilots do before anything goes on? They go through a checklist. So if it's so stupid, then why do they do that? Or how about just any industry? A lot of industries have checklists every day so deadly mistakes don't happen. All right? People don't die. Right?

I don't think-- well, I shouldn't go down this road. Most of our mistakes aren't going to be that big or critical. It's just going to be expensive to fix. But you might want to just simple-- I mean, some of your processes just have a checklist, a simple checklist. Did you do this? Did you do this? Did you do this? Right? All right. So think about some of that stuff as we're going through this. Hopefully as again, you're trying to find some of the waste that's happening through some of this. And over processing-- this slide-- does anybody work at a firm that has multiple principals, multiple owners? Right? So does this hit home at all?

Multiple versions of the same task, there's no waste in this. That's sarcasm, by the way. There's no waste in this. And it's rampant in the AEC industry. And again, this goes back to us just trying to develop something that's a common task that everybody can hopefully hold true.

And so just kind of going through this bullet list, I still find it interesting still to this day that so many firms have so many processes but don't have any type of map how to get a certain task done. It's kind of like, well, every project architect just kind of does it their way. Well, why is that? And is that really the best thing for the firm? And how much waste is sitting in that?

And so I know this is a struggle, and at times-- don't get me wrong, it's a struggle-- but again, if you come to a way that is a common or repeatable play through some of that, and you have your return on investment behind you on that, they've got to take note of that. Now they might want to play with your numbers a little bit. But you're bringing something a lot stronger to the table than your opinion. OK? So we'll talk about return of investment here coming up shortly.

So it's something that you've got to think about. It's still a little bit of the wild, wild West on how tasks are done from one principal to another on down the line, how one project architect does it a different way. It's amazing sitting down and looking at certain things.