Contributed by Cherise Lakeside With the ever increasing speed and change in projects and products every day, this blog could have been about anything. I chose to write about something that I am not hearing much about but that I am seeing with increased frequency. Something that really concerns me:
Where are the trained Specifiers? Am I the only one noticing a major shortage? Please understand that when I say “trained” specifier, I am referring to the folks that have had contract document, project delivery and specifications education. I am talking about the folks who are well versed in the latest and greatest in the products worlds and know exactly how to incorporate that information into the Contract Documents for the best possible project outcome. I am not talking about all the folks out there who write specs but do not have this very special and specific training. I am aware of a number of firms, in different locations around the country, who are having a very difficult time finding a specifier with this kind of training. Why is that? I will tell you what I think (which anyone who knows me would expect). Please note that there is no scientific research or analytics behind this blog. It is merely my observations in my local area and other parts of the country as a result of my involvement and connections in CSI. I think we dropped the ball and I think two recessions have taken a huge toll on Generation X. Trained specifiers are a rare breed as it is. I see tons of (untrained) people in our industry writing or editing specs and creating risk and potential conflicts in the process because they do not know what they are doing. The hard cold truth is that it is common in our industry to discriminate against the specs. It is common to treat them as less important than the drawings. It is common to see only cursory attention given to this CONTRACT document. This document that carries equal weight with the drawings in the eyes of the law. As a result, many firms will let anyone in the office dump information into the specs. That is a critical mistake and I have seen the fallout of this decision first hand. More than once. On the flip side of that coin, the firms that are smart enough to hire trained spec writers can’t find them. Finding a trained spec writer to hire these days is like looking for Bigfoot. Why are we so short in this valuable, absolutely necessary resource in Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC)? Here is my take:
So where does that leave us? That leaves us without qualified, trained spec writers to fill the shoes of the exiting Baby Boomer spec writers (which, honestly, is the majority of them). What is the consequence? Firms are letting anybody with a pen in their hand write specs and the conflicts on projects are increasing.
5 Comments
Contributed by Elias Saltz Continuing education for architects is a necessary component of the profession. It is the main vehicle by which we are able to keep up to date with developments in material science, construction methods, business procedures, document creation, et cetera. All licensed architects are required to attend a certain number of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to maintain their licenses and the AIA requires continuing education of its members to maintain membership.
All programs put on by my CSI chapter of Chicago offer CEUs and the chapter pays AIA every year to maintain its status as an education provider, and we offer far more units than architects are required to obtain. Typically, though, most architects will obtain a majority of their CEU hours by attending “lunch and learn” sessions arranged by an education coordinator at their firm, and at my company I fill that role. My firm is not a registered CEU provider, so our lunch and learn programs are provided by product reps whose programs have been registered and approved by AIA through its Continuing Education System (CES) to provide learning units. AIA-approved courses are also accepted by other organizations as well, such as GBCI and CSI, which require continuing education to maintain their advanced certifications. Over time, I’ve become more conscious of trying to be skeptical of claims being made as part of CES lunch and learn courses, and also evaluating whether I feel like I’ve gotten any value (other than lunch) for my time and attention. Most CES programs have some nuggets of useful information, and I don’t feel any qualms about accepting the credit for attending. On rare occasions a CES program is complete baloney; I refuse the credit (and maybe even leave the room - taking my lunch with me as compensation for my wasted time) and one time I even began wondering how the AIA decides what qualifies for an approved CES course in the first place. I started by reviewing the AIA CES Provider Manual Policies and Resources booklet and the Provider Manual Resources Toolkit. The bulk of the information in these documents is procedural and administrative: how to write high quality learning objectives, how to get your course approved and listed by AIA, how to register attendees, what introductory slides are required, and when you can and cannot discuss proprietary information. There is very little guidance about what the course content may or may not cover. Out of 34 pages in the “Policies and Resources” document, only one page - page 15 - talks about Health, Safety, Welfare (HSW) content (though to be fair, the “Resources Toolkit” talks more about HSW). Another few sentences provide the following minimal guidelines for content:
The existence of useless courses is a potential black eye for the AIA as the administrator of the CES system, and something they should really care about, in my opinion. However, there’s no evidence that the AIA intends to do anything about this in the near term. To compensate for this deficit, my firm has begun requiring that all CEU presenters agree to a set of rules that go above and beyond those required by the AIA as a condition for our agreeing to let them present. If rules like these were widely adopted, this could go toward fixing continuing education.
Architects should be able to rely on the continuing education they receive to actually improve their knowledge and abilities. Until we improve how we validate what we’re being taught, the CES and CEU programs it offers should be considered to be of questionable value. Contributed by Randy Nishimura Is the architectural profession in need of revitalization or reinvention? In a provocative blog post (Please. Stop the Reinvention Talk), fellow blogger and specifications writer Liz O’Sullivan issued a rejoinder to management consultant James P. Cramer, and his article for DesignIntelligence entitled Competing for the Future. Having considered both perspectives, it’s my turn to comment.
Jim Cramer takes issue with architects who suffer from a lack of nerve and have given in to a cynical and dark pessimism about the future of professional practice. He questions why some architects dwell as much as they do upon inwardly focused priorities rather than exploring new models and entrepreneurial visions for the design professions and tomorrow’s A/E/C industry. It’s his belief that “the game has changed” and that innovation and change management need to be an integral part of the curricula in schools of architecture. He is an advocate for reinventing the profession. Liz bristles at the notion that reinvention is necessary. Instead, she believes we must do a better job of meeting the needs that owners have now, that we used to meet, and no longer do. She points out that owners haven’t changed but architects have. We’ve unwittingly surrendered much of the design and construction landscape to others and in the process diminished our influence and relevance. Liz asserts owners will stop looking elsewhere for the services we used to provide if we simply reclaim our territory and prove our value once more. She believes in revitalization rather than reinvention. This needn’t be an “either/or” dilemma. We should embrace all possibilities. We must address the complexities and yes, the contradictions, of current professional practice. We can revitalize and reinvent ourselves at the same time. As I stated in my response to Liz’s earlier Take Back the Reins post and as Liz herself acknowledges, a crucial challenge confronting architecture is the exponential growth in its complexity and scope. This development prompts specialization and the balkanization of our profession because it is increasingly difficult for architects to acquire detailed expertise in all areas of focus. The problem is essentially a budgeting exercise: how do we allocate limited resources (time and money) in the development of future architects? I argued we would be losers if we played a zero-sum game in which sacrificing design acumen is necessary to acquire essential technical know-how. Exercising my privilege as the author of that statement, I’ll now amend it by substituting “critical thinking” for “design acumen.” We cannot afford to shortchange the teaching of critical thinking, analysis, and integrative problem solving in our schools of architecture. These are the core competencies that form the indispensible foundation of a skill set unique to architects. A classic schooling in architecture ingrains the ability to think broadly and critically. We need to view the world from the widest perspective possible, and apply critical thinking to every aspect of professional practice. To do otherwise is to abandon our duty as stewards of the built environment. This duty is profound: Architecture is not an autonomous pursuit. Regardless of how much responsibility we have ceded to other entities, we have impactful roles to play when it comes to a wide spectrum of challenges faced by our society. We still exert influence today upon the creation of effective and grounded design solutions. We can expand this influence and revitalize our profession by once again assuming a broad leadership role on every design and construction project. Click Read More ------> |
AboutLet's Fix Construction is an avenue to offer creative solutions, separate myths from facts and erase misconceptions about the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry. Check out Cherise's latest podcast
Get blog post notifications hereArchives
March 2022
Categories
All
|