The no-transition management style might be okay in a small business where projects are small and the foreman or project manager estimates the job and carries it through to completion. “All hands on deck” closings will have all office and maybe some field staff involved. After closing, all can celebrate success or defeat as the case may be. With success, the purchasing and accounting might be done by the same persons involved in the estimate. Everyone in the office knows about each job and is well versed with its details.

Pros

• Everyone is involved as a team. If the team succeeds, everyone shares the joy. If failure prevails, all share the sense of "what can we do better."

Cons

• Low skill levels with estimating and its tools

Cycle

This process has project managers in the office estimating their next project. There may be a chief estimator to support the PM. Any junior estimating staff will come from the field or be hired on to assist with job takeoff and pricing. These may be tradespeople or engineering types who will follow the PM out to the procured project. Upper management must provide guidelines for labor, risk, and market assessment.

Pros

• Everyone is involved as a team. If the team succeeds, everyone shares the joy. If failure prevails, all share the sense of "what can we do better."
• Variety of tasks from estimating to managing the project
• Field staff get a chance to find out what it takes to land a project
• Field staff knows the project before it starts

Cons

• Unfamiliarity with estimating process and tools
• Training is costly

Integrated

An integrated estimating and project management strategy combines the best of both fields of specialty. Before the project crosses the threshold or firewall of the estimating department, a PM is assigned. Estimating staff work to prepare the estimate while the PM is kept apprised of the accumulated information about competition, subs, and generals. The PM makes all the final decisions he will need to live with to make the project profitable. (This can be called "relationship purchasing".) It is a team effort with shared responsibility for accuracy of estimate, risk, and market assessment.

Pros

• Everyone is involved as a team. If the team succeeds, everyone shares the joy. If failure prevails, all share the sense of "what can we do better."
• Estimating can assist with the project manager by pricing changes since they are most familiar with the original construction documents
• Expertise of estimating and its tools can be used to help the PM with purchasing and scheduling

Cons

• Added load on estimating for changes

Separated

A separated strategy has estimating do their thing in isolation. No contact with PM is permitted and vice versa. When estimating is successful, the project is handed over to a PM who is given all the details and data generated in estimating. Once each party is satisfied that all information has been exchanged, the two parties part company never to discuss the project again.

Pros

• Specialization makes efficiency and therefore greater production for estimating
• Stable methods and procedures

Cons

• Isolation from the bigger picture of contracting. Did a job make money or tank, and why?

Looking at the above, you will probably identify with one or more methods. Maybe your company has no method. It’s worth a look to analyse the efficiency of your office bid/manage process. The more you develop a process with procedures, the more predictable the transition will become.

With honesty being the key ingredient required to make these methods work, managers and estimators must trust each other, and avoid finger pointing during construction. Yes, that means admitting you missed something before the job gets started. An error can be accounted, and planned for. The team should have checked each other to find the error, but that is not always possible. The team made the error, not the individual.

All the above methods work. What holds them together is the trust each person has for their team members.

Illustration by Angelo Katsaros