More often than not, my office is so swamped with work that we forget our duties as mentors to those that are low on the totem pole (aka the Interns).
To counter this, our goal is to develop some office standards for Project Managers to give Interns more exposure to the projects other than drafting and picking up redlines.
What suggestions do you have?
Examples would be: site visits, project meetings, project managers taking the time to explain why they redlined something, and so on.
Like you say, thrifty - you need a mix of transparecy, access and explaining.
Also - I'm not sure how many interns you have, but you'd probably benefit by creating a heirachy amongst them. The more senior ones can be rewarded with responsibility while also being able to take over the overseeing to some degree, hence saving you more time.
This can help to create a much more rewarding sort of 'micro-career' within the intern period that will 1) help you identify the better individuals and 2) help them to push themselves further. This is all advice from me as an intern, though - not as a project manager.
Then tell them to get a job in construction so they can see first hand all the mistakes architects make and decide for themselves what is correct instead of learning bad habits that have been passed down.
I'm also an intern, though I would be considered a "Senior Intern" as I'll be licensed soon, and I would have to agree 100% with Chch. I will caution though that at the beginning, if your office has the typical set-up now where interns have little or no responsibility other than drafting, that the first few months of such a system would be very time intensive for you. In this I mean you'll be having to spend much time "coaching" the more senior interns in the Business of architecture and allowing them to delegate the more technical drafting duties on down to the other interns.
This is sort of the unofficial way it works in my office now. It's not a promotion, more just an understanding that new interns are part of our responsibilities within the team. When they have questions, they don't necessarily run right to a Project Manager or one of the partners (god forbid), but instead to us for guidance and advice. It has worked well for our firm, so I highly suggest implementing it in your own firm.
I agree that the relationship between senior and junior staff in most offices is somewhat difficult to manage, but I don't know if "office standards" would help. Our office has a formal mentorship program, which in my opinion, is pretty much worthless. I haven't even spoken with my mentor in over a year, and he pretty much won't even say hello to me in the hall. I've found I have good chemistry with certain project managers, while it is much harder to work with others. My current supervisor gives a lot of responsibility to the interns, and I think he is good at judging what is too much. He also doesn't enforce a strict division of labor. We all do redlines, we all do markups, we all manage consultants, etc. The key to this, of course, is to have very open communication, and preferably be sitting in close proximity.
Chch - we do have a system set up as you have suggested, however it is difficult to distinguish where someone is in this hierarchy...or perhaps they aren't given the opportunity to move up in ranks, so to speak.
kakacabeza- I to am a little reluctant to create "standards".
i think that it is essential to expose interns (especially the more senior "job captain" types) to client meetings... at first, they should probably just be there to observe and take meeting minutes... but eventually they should feel comfortable interacting with the clients... this is also important in developing future leaders within the firm (also see the article about firm succession in january's architectural record)... not only will it lighten the load of the project manager a bit, but it also can increase the job satisfaction of the intern in question by making them feel that they are more than just a CAD monkey... it also lets them see the inner workings of the project that they are working on so that they see why you are doing the things that you are doing... they see first hand what the client wants/needs rather than getting 2nd hand information from the PM... this also helps to clearly delineate a hierarchy among the interns, leading junior interns to bring questions to senior interns rather than the PM...
the senior intern/job captain can also allow the PM to manage more projects at once... if the PM has 4 projects and 4 solid senior interns he can delegate needs for each project to just 1 person (the senior intern) rather than managing the entire team of interns/drafters on every project...
another thing you can do for interns who aren't yet ready for quite a 'job captain' level role is to make them responsible for a certain portion of the project, and have them meetings with the appropriate consultants, reviewing the specs and submittals for that area, as well as being in charge of details for that area and whatever portions of the drawings relate to it. For instance on a larger project in my office, I'm in charge of the roofs, waterproofing, and general drawing organization, someone else is in charge of doors, windows, & plaster, and someone else is in charge of sitework and parking. It's too big a project for the PM to keep all this stuff organized himself, so each intern has a chunk of responsibility that helps us get familiar with all phases of the project and coordination and detailing, while we're able to help limit the demands on the PM. This sort of arrangement also helps interns develop work for themselves instead of getting assigned tasks.
Also, you can give interns primary responsibility on small projects, if you have them, and let the PM act as their support (answering questions, reviewing work, etc.) I have recently been leading on most of our TI's for manufacturers in the office. There is no reason that an intern w/ a brain can't put together the over the counter permit drawings for moving a wall, adding a door, or the like, with a little input from a PM.
j
This is an interesting question from both perspectives - PM and intern. It's really easy for a PM to overlook an intern's development - especially if the intern is particularly good at one thing. For example, in our (small) office there is a guy who is a strong 3D modeler, and because of that he pretty much does only 3D modeling. I feel worried for him that he's not progressing in any way other than becoming more adept at Rhino.
One relatively simple solution could be:
All the PMs who work with interns create a master matrix of the atypical intern tasks on one axis (client mtgs, site visits, budget planning, redlining drawings, etc) and all the names of the interns on the other. Then, when giving an atypical task to a specific person, the PM would put an X in the corresponding box. It would become clear pretty quickly if there were interns who weren't getting any Xs. The PMs could revisit the matrix every week or two and then they'd have it in their minds that the next time a certain kind of task comes up, they should bring it to the intern's desk and help walk him/her through it...
ooh, that whole office as method approach just gives me the shivers...pms putting wee exes in the wee boxes would drive me nuts as an employer. architecture as list of categories just can't be the way to make creative buildings, or way to train architects to think on their own.
not a fan of hierarchy in general. i think i would not be happy keeping anyone on staff who didn't speak up about being relegated to 3d guy. would be inclined to let him/her go and replace with self starter as soon as possible, really.
i grew up in japanese office, pretty much with process explained by koolhaas in smlxl; non-hierarchical problem-solving, everyone designs, everyone goes to site, we all went over red-lines as a team (so even the interns would have a red pen and find things to fix), endless mettings where everything was resolved or we didn't stop meeting, etc etc. very good way for interns to learn.
structure was created by loose policy; start off helping on structural design and dwgs/calcs, then move on to the rest, but everyone always did prelim design in office competition if they wanted to...so if you had any ambition whatsoever you moved from intern to design lead fast, and everyone worked for the design rather than the process or the hierarchy. boss let us take on as much responsibility as we asked for and got upset when we didn't ask for more. training in that sense was by osmosis and by being thrown into deep end, but with support.
thrifty, if you want more involvment from the lower tiers then show them the budgetary issues, the project schedule, hours commited to each phase, the contracts with the owner and consultants. this, as well as evrything above, but more so this i think, gives the job captain/intern a sense of ownership - and that is just about as important as anything else. why? because everything above WILL happen to one degree or another over time - as we know pm's can't do everything - but the areas i cited, never seem to happen UNTIL one passes some imaginary threshold and then it's thrust onto you. me, i'd like to have this information upfront -- the earlier the better.
We just give 'em the site plan and the client's phone number, and walk by their desks everyday to say WAT UP, YO? GOT IT FIGGERD OUT YET?
Slackers need not apply.
hah, strawbeary, i know you is bein sarcastic like, but that toootally sounds like my first job in office, cept i had to get the site plan myself (then, this being japan where property lines are not exactly fixed, checked it with survey equipment, which we were as a result taught to use)...was a design for a temple, my first professional un-built project, but so much fun. learned a shiteload, not least about why it ended up being unbuilt (politics)...
Project Managers vs. Interns
More often than not, my office is so swamped with work that we forget our duties as mentors to those that are low on the totem pole (aka the Interns).
To counter this, our goal is to develop some office standards for Project Managers to give Interns more exposure to the projects other than drafting and picking up redlines.
What suggestions do you have?
Examples would be: site visits, project meetings, project managers taking the time to explain why they redlined something, and so on.
Thanks
Like you say, thrifty - you need a mix of transparecy, access and explaining.
Also - I'm not sure how many interns you have, but you'd probably benefit by creating a heirachy amongst them. The more senior ones can be rewarded with responsibility while also being able to take over the overseeing to some degree, hence saving you more time.
This can help to create a much more rewarding sort of 'micro-career' within the intern period that will 1) help you identify the better individuals and 2) help them to push themselves further. This is all advice from me as an intern, though - not as a project manager.
I'm very interested in advice from both points of view.
Thanks Chch.
Fire them.
Then tell them to get a job in construction so they can see first hand all the mistakes architects make and decide for themselves what is correct instead of learning bad habits that have been passed down.
I'm also an intern, though I would be considered a "Senior Intern" as I'll be licensed soon, and I would have to agree 100% with Chch. I will caution though that at the beginning, if your office has the typical set-up now where interns have little or no responsibility other than drafting, that the first few months of such a system would be very time intensive for you. In this I mean you'll be having to spend much time "coaching" the more senior interns in the Business of architecture and allowing them to delegate the more technical drafting duties on down to the other interns.
This is sort of the unofficial way it works in my office now. It's not a promotion, more just an understanding that new interns are part of our responsibilities within the team. When they have questions, they don't necessarily run right to a Project Manager or one of the partners (god forbid), but instead to us for guidance and advice. It has worked well for our firm, so I highly suggest implementing it in your own firm.
I agree that the relationship between senior and junior staff in most offices is somewhat difficult to manage, but I don't know if "office standards" would help. Our office has a formal mentorship program, which in my opinion, is pretty much worthless. I haven't even spoken with my mentor in over a year, and he pretty much won't even say hello to me in the hall. I've found I have good chemistry with certain project managers, while it is much harder to work with others. My current supervisor gives a lot of responsibility to the interns, and I think he is good at judging what is too much. He also doesn't enforce a strict division of labor. We all do redlines, we all do markups, we all manage consultants, etc. The key to this, of course, is to have very open communication, and preferably be sitting in close proximity.
Chch - we do have a system set up as you have suggested, however it is difficult to distinguish where someone is in this hierarchy...or perhaps they aren't given the opportunity to move up in ranks, so to speak.
kakacabeza- I to am a little reluctant to create "standards".
i think that it is essential to expose interns (especially the more senior "job captain" types) to client meetings... at first, they should probably just be there to observe and take meeting minutes... but eventually they should feel comfortable interacting with the clients... this is also important in developing future leaders within the firm (also see the article about firm succession in january's architectural record)... not only will it lighten the load of the project manager a bit, but it also can increase the job satisfaction of the intern in question by making them feel that they are more than just a CAD monkey... it also lets them see the inner workings of the project that they are working on so that they see why you are doing the things that you are doing... they see first hand what the client wants/needs rather than getting 2nd hand information from the PM... this also helps to clearly delineate a hierarchy among the interns, leading junior interns to bring questions to senior interns rather than the PM...
the senior intern/job captain can also allow the PM to manage more projects at once... if the PM has 4 projects and 4 solid senior interns he can delegate needs for each project to just 1 person (the senior intern) rather than managing the entire team of interns/drafters on every project...
That's great architphil...keep the suggestions coming.
another thing you can do for interns who aren't yet ready for quite a 'job captain' level role is to make them responsible for a certain portion of the project, and have them meetings with the appropriate consultants, reviewing the specs and submittals for that area, as well as being in charge of details for that area and whatever portions of the drawings relate to it. For instance on a larger project in my office, I'm in charge of the roofs, waterproofing, and general drawing organization, someone else is in charge of doors, windows, & plaster, and someone else is in charge of sitework and parking. It's too big a project for the PM to keep all this stuff organized himself, so each intern has a chunk of responsibility that helps us get familiar with all phases of the project and coordination and detailing, while we're able to help limit the demands on the PM. This sort of arrangement also helps interns develop work for themselves instead of getting assigned tasks.
Also, you can give interns primary responsibility on small projects, if you have them, and let the PM act as their support (answering questions, reviewing work, etc.) I have recently been leading on most of our TI's for manufacturers in the office. There is no reason that an intern w/ a brain can't put together the over the counter permit drawings for moving a wall, adding a door, or the like, with a little input from a PM.
j
This is an interesting question from both perspectives - PM and intern. It's really easy for a PM to overlook an intern's development - especially if the intern is particularly good at one thing. For example, in our (small) office there is a guy who is a strong 3D modeler, and because of that he pretty much does only 3D modeling. I feel worried for him that he's not progressing in any way other than becoming more adept at Rhino.
One relatively simple solution could be:
All the PMs who work with interns create a master matrix of the atypical intern tasks on one axis (client mtgs, site visits, budget planning, redlining drawings, etc) and all the names of the interns on the other. Then, when giving an atypical task to a specific person, the PM would put an X in the corresponding box. It would become clear pretty quickly if there were interns who weren't getting any Xs. The PMs could revisit the matrix every week or two and then they'd have it in their minds that the next time a certain kind of task comes up, they should bring it to the intern's desk and help walk him/her through it...
ooh, that whole office as method approach just gives me the shivers...pms putting wee exes in the wee boxes would drive me nuts as an employer. architecture as list of categories just can't be the way to make creative buildings, or way to train architects to think on their own.
not a fan of hierarchy in general. i think i would not be happy keeping anyone on staff who didn't speak up about being relegated to 3d guy. would be inclined to let him/her go and replace with self starter as soon as possible, really.
i grew up in japanese office, pretty much with process explained by koolhaas in smlxl; non-hierarchical problem-solving, everyone designs, everyone goes to site, we all went over red-lines as a team (so even the interns would have a red pen and find things to fix), endless mettings where everything was resolved or we didn't stop meeting, etc etc. very good way for interns to learn.
structure was created by loose policy; start off helping on structural design and dwgs/calcs, then move on to the rest, but everyone always did prelim design in office competition if they wanted to...so if you had any ambition whatsoever you moved from intern to design lead fast, and everyone worked for the design rather than the process or the hierarchy. boss let us take on as much responsibility as we asked for and got upset when we didn't ask for more. training in that sense was by osmosis and by being thrown into deep end, but with support.
thrifty, if you want more involvment from the lower tiers then show them the budgetary issues, the project schedule, hours commited to each phase, the contracts with the owner and consultants. this, as well as evrything above, but more so this i think, gives the job captain/intern a sense of ownership - and that is just about as important as anything else. why? because everything above WILL happen to one degree or another over time - as we know pm's can't do everything - but the areas i cited, never seem to happen UNTIL one passes some imaginary threshold and then it's thrust onto you. me, i'd like to have this information upfront -- the earlier the better.
all of these suggestions are really great . thanks guys.
We just give 'em the site plan and the client's phone number, and walk by their desks everyday to say WAT UP, YO? GOT IT FIGGERD OUT YET?
Slackers need not apply.
hah, strawbeary, i know you is bein sarcastic like, but that toootally sounds like my first job in office, cept i had to get the site plan myself (then, this being japan where property lines are not exactly fixed, checked it with survey equipment, which we were as a result taught to use)...was a design for a temple, my first professional un-built project, but so much fun. learned a shiteload, not least about why it ended up being unbuilt (politics)...
any other ideas?
If you really want to go radical, read "The Seven Day Weekend" by Ricardo Semler. Democratize your office, loose control and see what happens.
j
http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Day-Weekend-Changing-Work-Works/dp/1591840260
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