COAA Connect Fall 2022

Whether this is your first COAA event or not, you might have questions about the organization and its purpose. Maybe you know the basics but would like a deeper dive or wonder how you can plug in and participate ... or would just like to know how COAA can help you do your job better. If any of those apply, this session is for you. Grab some caffeine and join us for an informal introduction to THE home for Owners who are serious about improving their project leadership game.

Allison B. Muth, Medxcel; Howie Ferguson, COAA

LEAN COFFEE
This session is not about Lean…and it’s not about Coffee! Come experience an organized, interactive meeting format where the participants set the agenda, have fun, and learn what is important to them. Attendees will learn why it is called Lean Coffee, then we will experience the process first-hand and also learn how to use this format for our own meetings. People who have used it say things like, “It completely changed our staff meetings—for the better. It’s amazing.”
Learning Objectives:

• Attendees will be able to measure how to reduce waste via consideration of expenditures
• Attendees will identify how empowering the team creates value for the end customer.
• Attendees will be able to distinguish challenging boundaries.
• Attendees will be able to measure how delivering maximum value as efficiently as possible affects the end customer.

RJ Reed, Whiting-Turner

Optional Tour | Denver Water Operations Complex

Get an insider’s look at the high-performance 35-acre Denver Water Operations Complex, which features multiple LEED-certified buildings, including the anchor LEED Platinum and net-zero administration building.  Radiant heating and cooling, connected to a unique geothermal system, were used throughout the site while the administration building features a plant-based wastewater recycling system.   Don’t miss this chance to see this unique high-performance campus. 

Adam Hutchinson and Kate Taft,  Denver Water

Enjoy downtown Denver and a bevy of lunch options within walking distance of the Embassy Suites. 

Join COAA leaders as they welcome you to Denver, provide an overview of the conference, and speak briefly on organizational news & issues. 

COAA CARES: Bike Build Challenge

Kick-start (kickstand?) your COAA Connect experience by helping assemble bicycles for Denver-area kids through Wish For Wheels.  Blindfolds, races, and dogs paired with cats may be involved, so don’t miss this ... even if you prefer to just watch or heckle.

Help brighten the day of Denver-area seniors by creating hand-written cards that will be delivered by Meals On Wheels.  Pop into the COAA Cares room throughout the conference as time allows and create one, 10, or as many as you’d like.

Sponsored by Adolfson & Peterson, Avicado, Okland Construction, and Swinerton

Stretch your legs! 

What is the Value of Architecture?
An AIA-led discussion of the "value of architecture" 

An intriguing question, but even more interesting when you learn who’s asking it ... the American Institute of Architects (AIA).  AIA’s Strategic Council has undertaken a study centered on “the value of architecture” and is seeking input from the sort of serial builder Owners that belong to COAA.

This won’t be a presentation, but a facilitated discussion that aims to maximize audience participation and gather constructive feedback ... with the ultimate goal of helping improve the quality of professional design services.  Attendees will help:

• identify common perceptions about architects and the architecture profession
• quantify the most valuable traits & characteristics of successful designers
• itemize gaps and opportunities in the process, service offerings, or delivery

Don’t miss your chance to provide constructive feedback on a topic of critical importance to both the industry and your projects.

Bill Hercules, WJH Health; Neal Angrisano, Treanorhl; Tony Rangel, LK Architecture

Are We All Playing by the Same Rules?

Ever feel each member of your project is interacting by different rules?  Is the annoyance of small things causing heightened drama within your team?  Do you long for more buy-in, better communication, and real collaboration within your project teams?

Learn how to elevate your project’s performance with a key tool used by Banner Health project managers to create collaborative and resilient project teams.  After an explanation of the “why” and “how,” attendees will work in small groups to create Rules of Engagement in a kickoff meeting for a fictional project.  A template of Banner Health’s Rules of Engagement will be available at the end of the session.

Presenters/Facilitators: Meg Hohnholt and Paul Rowley Banner Health; Stacey Root, CannonDesign 

Learning Objectives:

1. Understanding the Rules of the Engagement process is applicable to any size project.
2. Develop Rules of Engagement tailored to your organization and each project team.
3. Educate your project team on ‘The Why’ behind the Rules of Engagement
4. Implement the Rules of Engagement throughout the life of your project.

Join us for a quick & fun recap of the day’s key takeaways from the perspective of attendees, facilitators, and presenters. If you were unable to attend a particular session or workshop, this is your chance to discover what you missed!

Meet, network, and socialize with your fellow attendees.  Hors d'oeuvres will be served, along with a variety of beverages at the bar, to ease those pre-dinner hunger pangs.

sponsored by:

Breakfast

Let’s get busy learning!  Grab your seat for a preview of today’s content by the Chair of COAA’s Conference Committee.

Keynote Jason Romero, Success & Resilience

Running Into the Dark: A Challenge to Change

Jason Romero is an expert on success and resilience; an author; the subject of a full-length documentary film; a former CEO and attorney; and recently founded a non-profit for at-risk youth.  Romero is best known for being the only blind person to run across the United States ... a run that still ranks as one of the top 10 fastest foot crossings in history at 51.5 miles per day.  He is a marathon champion, a Paralympian, an IronMan triathlete, and an extreme endurance runner who’s completed some of the toughest Ultramarathons in the world.

Hear Jason's inspirational story of overcoming adversity, and re-think your perception of success, failure, and resilience.  Jason will stick around to facilitate a breakout session immediately after his keynote to allow for more intimate discussion and Q&A.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn strategies for resilience
• Choose to change a circumstance/situation with which you are dissatisfied
• Learn strategies to overcome adversity
• Become motivated to proactively challenge yourself

Sponsored by: 

During the break please be sure to visit our exhibitors and sponsors.

Owner Culture and Decision-Making: The PDM Correlation

Most practitioners in our industry intuitively know that an Owner’s culture significantly impacts the success of its projects, but there’s little or no data to support that.  We lack research that correlates an Owner organization’s characteristics – particularly its decision-making process – with project success or failure.  That’s about to change thanks to a University of Washington study that seeks to confirm at least two things about Owners:

• They each have distinct organizational structures and cultures in terms of decision-making
• Those distinctions can predict the successful or unsuccessful use of specific project delivery methods

Hear all about this interesting research and, if interested, participate after the conference in this ongoing effort.

Renee Cheng, University of Washington

Running Into the Dark: The Discussion Continues

On the heels of Jason Romero’s keynote, here’s your chance in a smaller group setting to dive deeper with Jason into his talking points.  For example, what does resilience mean to you in the context of project leadership?  How can you better handle workplace adversity, even if it differs from what ultramarathoners face?

Jason Romero, Success & Resilience 

Break

Demystifying the Integrated Form of Agreement (IFOA)

This presentation will demystify the IFOA and explain how those unfamiliar terms & conditions actually reduce the Owner’s risk.  Attendees will also receive:

• An explanation of common terms and definitions using examples from real IFOAs
• A comparison of the different versions of the IFOA (ConsensusDocs, AIA, etc.)
• A breakdown of the risk/reward structure using a step-by-step example to illustrate how each organization is incentivized
• Feedback on the applicability of IPD IFOAs for small or minor projects
• Advice on how to get started with an IFOA and where to go for help if needed

Learning Objectives:

• Detail the different types of IPD projects and if your project is the right fit for an IFOA
• Compare and contrast contracting methods from Lump Sum all the way to IFOA
• Dispel the myth that the IFOA is riskier than other contracting methods
• Explain, in detail, the risk/reward model, how it is structured and how money is paid out
• Teach how an IFOA team is assembled and how procurement is modified in order to facilitate this contract method

John Zachara, Integrated Facilities Solutions, Inc

Disrupt the Traditional Selection Process

This session will take Owners through alternative methods of selection processes of design and construction teams. Leaders will learn to work with procurement departments to follow policy but gain the advantage of finding qualified teams that also meet the cultural fit of the project and ownership team.

 Paul Wember, Wember

Project Leadership & EPAFE 

Enjoy a delicious lunch while personal and organizational excellence is recognized:
- The Emerging Professional Award for Excellence recognizes a COAA member, 35 or younger, who demonstrates outstanding service and leadership while exemplifying The COAA Way

- The Project Leadership Awards acknowledge Owners’ excellence in project delivery through exemplary communication, fairness, collaboration, and other traits of a "good Owner."

Brownie Time!

The Escalation Rollercoaster:  Navigate with Confidence!

10, 20, 30 % over budget, HELP!  This session will create a conversation around various planning, design, management, and procurement approaches that provide the Owner with better cost control and risk management.  Vermeulen brings a wealth of experience in construction economics and business.  They understand today’s market and can advise Owners and their project teams on future construction costs and procurement strategies.

Presenters/Facilitators Richard Vermeulen, Blair Tennant and Melissa Chabot, Vermeulen

Master Planning: Crafting the Process and Leveraging the Final Product

Campus Owners – higher ed, healthcare, or corporate with 3-4 facilities or 300-400 – are often too busy reactively “fighting fires” to spend time proactively thinking ahead.  Making matters worse, such organizations are comprised of separate departments that naturally devolve into fiefdoms with misaligned priorities.  Internal and external pressures, competing interests, inconsistent decision-making processes, and unclear messaging exacerbate the problem.

The master planning process itself – irrespective of the outcome – can help remedy these sorts of issues by forcing leaders and key stakeholders to take a break from “firefighting” to work collaboratively on horizon-and-beyond visioning.  An honest and inclusive effort with deliberate consensus-building will naturally flip rocks over and expose what lies beneath.  If the Owner organization is brave enough to not just flip those rocks back over, the master planning effort can already be declared a success.

Hear more about these and other secondary benefits of the planning process from the perspective of a (higher ed) Owner-turned-planner.

Presenters/Facilitators: Mike Emerson, The Lamar Johnson Collaborative

Learning Objectives:

• The actual act of planning is a beneficial exercise that often eclipses the end result of the process or the product
• The utilization of maps, simple floor plans, photos from the web, everyday objects, and simple technologies to de-professionalize the environment and encourage tangible input
• The need for and development of specific tools and approaches that can provide a positive forum and level the playing field in order to encourage uninhibited response and participation.
• The do’s and don’ts of promoting positive communication, sensitive scheduling, and inclusive workshop organization in the context of a master planning exercise.

Brownie Break!

Get in the Game: Technology Implementation Best Practices

The construction management domain has undergone several technological revolutions in the past few decades. Now with the pressures of improving capital project performance, increasing project volumes, and reducing project management hassles, owners are also facing the challenge of keeping up with the latest technology standards.

In the last decade alone, there has been the introduction of PMIS software, interactive dashboards, business information modeling, integrated asset management, design collaboration tools, newer enterprise accounting systems, artificial intelligence … and the list goes on. And owners are looking to adopt many of these technology changes without affecting their project deliveries and bottom lines negatively.

Panelists: Michael Roush,  University of California, San Diego;  John Bechtel, Penn State University; Brandon Shah, Floor & Decor

Rapid Fire 640: The COAA Way

Heard about “The COAA Way” but wonder what it is?  Here’s a chance to learn about it from several perspectives, as five presenters share their thoughts in rapid-fire mode.  Each presenter has only six minutes and 40 seconds (20 slides at 20 seconds/slide = 6:40), which eliminates any chance you’ll be bored and forces them to cut to the chase (or “The Way”).  Chances are that your organization already practices The COAA Way but doesn’t know it.  Come find out and then share your own examples!

Melanie Ford, University of Georgia; Joseph Alfieri, Syracuse University; Dale Harvey, IBI Group; RJ Reed, Whiting-Turner; Brian Campa, Cooper Carry

During the break please be sure to visit our exhibitors and sponsors.

Lessons Learned ... AND IMPLEMENTED!

Many talk about capturing and implementing “lessons learned,” but there’s often a breakdown between collection and implementation.  Hear from one Owner organization that may have cracked the code.

Every two months, Banner Health’s Development and Construction team gathers all their architects, engineers, and contractors together to discuss project processes, culture, and what’s working / not working ... then shares it with the entire group.  This interaction has proven to ‘cross-pollenate’ lessons learned to project teams that normally would be siloed.  The synergy of this group also provides feedback to Banner Health on their own processes, which they use to continuously improve those processes on current and future projects.

Beyond hearing about the Banner approach, attendees will develop a list of topics they can use to begin their own lessons learned discussion with their project teams.

Kyle Majchrowski, Banner Health; Brian Faulkner, Adolfson & Peterson Construction; David Dike, Kaiser Permanente 

Join us for a quick & fun recap of the day’s key takeaways from the perspective of attendees, facilitators, and presenters. If you were unable to attend a particular session or workshop, this is your chance to discover what you missed!

Bowling & Billiards 

We’re stretching our legs Tuesday night and breaking the norm for an evening of bowling, billiards, ping pong, darts, food & drink, and more.  This event is included with COAA Connect registration, so make the six-minute walk with us to the Denver Athletic Club for a chance to unwind and connect with fellow attendees.

Breakfast

Forget Keto, Atkins, and South Beach ... A Two-Pronged Carbon Diet

Owners are increasingly establishing carbon reduction goals with a much shorter timeframe than the life of any new building.  It’s critical, then, to approach the design of such buildings with a plan to reduce both the operational and embodied carbon footprint.  Learn about the differences between operational and embodied carbon and, importantly, how each can be measured and reduced. Key technologies discussed will be the embodied carbon construction calculator (EC3), low-carbon steel, concrete, and mass timber, and various ways to electrify traditional HVAC assets. If you’re serious about putting your new facilities on a low-carbon diet, this session is for you!

Learning Objectives

• Explore the causes and define the opportunities of the two largest trends in sustainable design, electrification, and embodied carbon reduction.
• Review technologies and challenges of implementing electrification for higher-performing buildings
• Understand the success and challenges of implementing a low embodied carbon design strategy through case studies

Presenter: Ryan Spies, Clayco

Onboarding New PMs:  Best Practices for Owners

The construction industry is undergoing a massive shift.  Project managers are in high demand thanks to a rebounding economy, an aging workforce, and a dwindling supply of new talent.  Attracting, onboarding, and retaining skilled PMs is crucial for project success ... and the onboarding piece can be especially troublesome or weak since everyone is “too busy” to help orient the new folks.  Absent or unclear policies and procedures can make it difficult for the new hire to get up to speed.

Have you considered leveraging technology?  A well-integrated project management system can help accelerate the new PM’s understanding of workflows and their assigned projects while learning how to use an important IT platform at the same time. 

Panelists: Susan Medeiros, EG America; Jim Carroll, University of California, Davis; Tom Koulouris, TWK Advisory; Brett Elam, OnIndus

Break

High-Performance Sustainability: The Denver Water Operations Complex

Learn about the high-performance features and concepts incorporated into the new Denver Water Operations Complex.  This 35-acre campus near downtown Denver features a net-zero energy building and multiple LEED-certified buildings to leverage a “One Water” strategy.  This system correlates the source of water to the appropriate use reducing the demand for potable water.  A plant-based wastewater recycling system treats water for toilet flushing and landscape irrigation, and rainwater is collected to irrigate the native and drought-tolerant landscaping while also using a distribution water conduit as a form of geothermal.

Many of the sustainability strategies are applicable even for Owners who aren’t building this sort of complex, so “drink in” the best practices employed by this Owner and their project team to achieve or even surpass their high-performance goals.

Ken Urbanek, IMEG; Adam Hutchinson and Kate Taft, Denver Water

Break

Always one of the highest-rated sessions at each COAA conference, this unstructured discussion allows for professional-to-professional sharing of challenges, best practices, and lessons learned.

Learning Objectives:

• Gain insight from others regarding project delivery lessons learned.
• Discuss specific current project management challenges and strategies for overcoming them.
• Learn and be able to apply best practices from peers on a variety of project leadership issues.
• With an emphasis on the people and relationships involved with project delivery, discuss means & methods for improving collaboration and team culture.

Wrap up your COAA Connect experience with a great lunch, fellowship, and a brief summary of and presentation for the COAA Cares outreach efforts.