WCDA Blog

Starting with the End Users in Mind

Starting with the End Users in Mind

When building a team for a design-build project, it’s common for agency owners (specifically engineering managers) to prioritize the obvious resources: project managers and owners advisors. What often gets overlooked is the opportunity to include the perspective and expertise of the end users during the design and construction process.

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An Owner’s Top 3 Action Items for Organizational Preparedness

An Owner’s Top 3 Action Items for Organizational Preparedness

Do you have a one-time mega-project that you don’t have the capacity or capabilities to deliver? Is your capital improvement program growing quickly and you need to equip your staff with the right skills and relevant knowledge to keep up with the rising demand? Do you need to decrease your average project delivery time due to rate-payer or political pressure? All of the above?

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Developing the Right Team for Success on Your Next Design-Build Project

Developing the Right Team for Success on Your Next Design-Build Project

Pursuing, winning, and successfully executing design-build projects requires having the right team in place for the project. The “right” team has the experience and diversity to foster creativity and increase the quality of solutions for the owner while identifying and addressing the unique challenges associated with the project.

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Why You Should Consider Progressive Design-Build for Your Next Water/Wastewater Project

Why You Should Consider Progressive Design-Build for Your Next Water/Wastewater Project

Do you have an upcoming project where cost and schedule certainty are critical? Are project costs increasing on your design-bid-build projects? Do you have the funding to build projects, but not enough in-house project management staff? Do you want to take your projects to the next level with total collaboration? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, progressive design-build might be the ideal collaborative-delivery method for your next water/wastewater project.

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Clarify to Specify

Clarify to Specify

Words are important — an obvious truism and pertinent to a collaborative project delivery effort. The action item is to ‘mobilize the language’ for maximum effect in our contract documents for water/wastewater projects. First, a quick anecdote: A lawyer friend (not mutually exclusive) shared a simple and keen observation when I first worked with him on a contract review. He asked, “Know the difference between an engineer and a lawyer?” After searching my library of lawyer jokes, I had to admit ignorance of the difference. He said, “Lawyers know they’re not engineers.”

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When Changing Enabling Legislation – Keep It Flexible

When Changing Enabling Legislation – Keep It Flexible

Water Design-Build Council (WDBC) research confirms a significant increase in growth in the use of collaborative-delivery methods for water and wastewater projects in the US. For certain public owners, including some cities, counties, districts, agencies, special purpose entities, and states, where historically only design-bid-build (DBB) has been utilized for implementing capital works projects, enabling legislation modifications may be required so these public agencies can utilize collaborative delivery methods such as fixed-price design-build (FPDB), progressive design-build (PDB), and construction management at-risk (CMAR).

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