At what point in an AEC firm’s growth is it a good idea to create a Project Management Office?

While opinions vary, the underpinnings of the PMO that Jason Dunn, SVP/Chief Risk Officer and lead of the PMO for BRPH Companies, Inc. (BRPH), an architectural, engineering, and construction firm headquartered in Melbourne, Fla., has put together make sense for AEC firms of any size. Standards, training, criteria, financials, marketing, communication, and sales are all areas that Dunn has given process and consistency to in the role he was given in 2022—"to help us standardize the practice because we treat Project Management as its own discipline,” he said.

“The best undertaking I did was to put in place templates of standard processes and forms that PMs use, like proposals, action items, meeting minutes, and the components to create a Project Management plan. Now PMs can easily pull those templates and modify as needed. It helps streamline a lot of those administrative and mundane tasks that are a part of Project Management. “The other key thing I did was help streamline how we performed project financials to make it consistent across projects, [especially] the way we earn revenue,” Dunn continued. “What goals are set in place for profit, and how do we recognize revenue. All those metrics are standardized now.” BRPH has around 350 employees, and about 10% of them work as project managers under the guidance of the PMO. Despite that size, Dunn believes the processes he has put in place are scalable to smaller firms and will help lead to expansion. “We've grown into some new business units over the last 12 years, and we'll continue to do that as we see opportunities to expand.” Dunn’s professional training is in civil engineering. He believes that background translates well to project management because its interactions touch all other disciplines. As a result, he gained lots of experience early on dealing with clients and managing projects. “When that happens, you get quickly pushed from the technical area into a more managerial area.”

That led to this position as part of the company’s leadership, including becoming a board member in 2018. Dunn said that his main role is to make sure consistency happens across all projects, though some flexibility does need to be built in. Project managers are seller/doers at BRPH, so the role encompasses both the technical and business development areas of project management.

HERE ARE THE KEY COMPONENTS FOR BRPH’S SUCCESSFUL PMO:

If possible, let PMs just be PMs. “A lot of firms don't do that,” Dunn said, alluding to other responsibilities they may have. “But we decided to do that many years ago, mainly because our projects are fairly complex. And we have all disciplines in-house: architecture, structural, civil, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, process, and interiors. So each project really needs that one person to manage the entire technical aspect, but also must be client-facing, manage the budget and schedule, and everything else associated with the project.”

Promote from within. Dunn said that BRPH desires its project managers to come from architectural or engineering practices—licensure is preferred—to be able to answer technical questions from clients. He also likes to promote from within. “If we see a strong technical person with these attributes, we'll promote him or her to assistant PM and team them up with a senior project manager to learn from and shadow.” Of course, technical discipline leaders usually don't want to give up one of their best-performing team members, so it may take some negotiation. “But they understand the bigger picture.”

Offer training. Dunn conducts an annual PM training class in-house each year, utilizing the firm’s specific processes. “Each new PM has to complete that training, almost like an internal certification, before they get released to fully manage projects,” he said. It covers proposals, contracts, planning, and executing the jobs, monitoring financials, risk management, all the way through the closeout of a project.

Monitor workloads. Dunn ensures that each business unit—comprising five divisions (manufacturing and industrial, entertainment, education, aerospace and defense, and hospitality)—has an adequate number of project managers to handle the unit’s workload. “We monitor that every week, so we can tell when someone's getting overloaded just by the amount of planned work,” Dunn said. Each PM belongs to one of those units. “And we won't take a manufacturing project manager and stick them over in hospitality just because they need the work. We also properly allocate each PM’s expertise in the business unit. They stay where their expertise is.” Have a plan for putting out fires. “There are going to be projects that run off the rails,” Dunn said. “Maybe a project manager is having a problem, or it could be a client or contractor issue. One of the challenging things I must get involved with is helping to develop a recovery plan or even taking on a project to get it corrected.”

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