Waking the Giant: Implementing New Technology in a Century-Old Design Firm

DAVID BUTTS: Welcome to AU everybody. Congratulations and welcome back for another great virtual event here. We're so excited that you're all here. My name is David Butts and I'm leading this session for us today, all the way from sunny Holden Beach, North Carolina. So we're really thrilled to be here today.

Everybody on the panel wave and say hello. Welcome to the event. We're just super excited to be here today. So I'm going to be sharing my screen with a PowerPoint, and getting things started off with us. So hold on just a second, let's get that rolling, and here we go.

So today's session is Waking the Giant- Implementing New Technolgy in a Century Old Design Firm. And again, my name is David Butts. I'm one of the Engineering Technology Managers for Gannett Fleming. Just been in the business for a little over 105 years. So I wanted to give you a little bit of history about ourselves so you know what this session is all about.

And so we were founded by Farley Gannett we have over six-- 2,500 employees worldwide. Farley's his father, Henry Gannett was a founder of the National Geographic, and considered the father of the cartographic map. So Gannett Peak in [INAUDIBLE] tallest peak in the US-- or in the North America-- is actually named for Henry. We're going to keep up with a little bit later. There will not be a test on it so you're lucky about that today.

We actually begin using computing technology and 1955-- for a long time-- been over 58-plus years of actually trying to leverage this technology. Several of us on this group participate in Autodesk Leadership Council-- all the different kinds of things that we're engaged with Autodesk on. And as a company, we're ranked number 33 on ENR in overall design firms. So we have a lot of rankings in here, been in the business for a long time, pretty heavily involved in the industry. Just a little bit of history about who Gannett Fleming is.

We do [INAUDIBLE] projects from transportation, to water and wastewater, to collegiate facilities, hospitals-- you name it-- we just got a huge library of projects that we work on [INAUDIBLE] these things. As time progresses, [INAUDIBLE] so today's session is really about how those changes have occurred. I want to get off by kicking off and introducing some of [INAUDIBLE] and let you know who some of these folks are. And I'm going to give you a little bit of history. We're going to start off with my engineering technology team over here, and the first person I'm going to introduce, a lot of you already know.

She's been in the industry for a long time, here. Actually, the first time I got to meet her-- and she's going to give me a hard time for this-- first time I got to meet her, she was kicking me off the stage at AU 2019 to get ready to do her presentation. She has an Autodesk University top speaker, and a part of the Expert Elete Program, this is Stacy Morykin.

STACEY MORYKIN: Hi, everyone. Stacy Morgan. I just joined Gannett Fleming last year as an Engineering Technology Manager, concentrating on the horizontal design for the entire organization. As Dave mentioned, I have over 20 years experience in this industry. I'm an Autodesk expert for the civil infrastructure side of the house.

Really happy to be part of this discussion.

DAVID BUTTS: Awesome. Thanks so much, Stacey. And so on the other side of our team here, the guy that has to keep me in line-- he's probably got the hardest job of anybody at Gannett Fleming right now-- he's the yen to my yang here, and the two of us actually run vertical design. But I want to introduce you to Mr. Tony Conthado. So Tony, if you can introduce yourself.

TONY CONTHADO: Yeah. Hi, everyone. Really happy to be here. And like Dave said, I'm his counterpart. I joined Gannett in 2007, under Facilities Mechanical as a Mechanical Designer, and stayed there for about 11 years.

I've been able to work with Dave now for about 11 years. And since almost three years ago, I've switched over to IT-- to the engineering technology side of the house-- and love it.

I get to interact with all different groups at Gannett Fleming, and it's been a great experience so far.

DAVID BUTTS: Awesome, man. One of our panelists, Bill Curran, is his former boss. And I think he's still mad at me for taking him away from mechanical, but that's cool. So let's talk about the other guys that are going to be here. And these are the Fab Five that we have out here.

All of these gentlemen are heavily involved in the design practice-- they're industry leaders with us. So we're going to go right down the path here, and just introduce them one at a time. We're going to start with Mr. Tony Elberti.

TONY ELBERTI: Everybody. Tony Elberti, in the Wastewater Techincial Working Group. It's been really, really exciting the last couple of years seeing all these design tools, and how they've been coming together, and just getting to work with all the folks that are on panel here. So really looking forward to this, thanks, again.

DAVID BUTTS: Next up is Mr Bill Curran. Go ahead, Bill.

BILL CURRAN: Yes, I'm Bill Curran. I've been with Gannett for eight years now, I'm the Technical Manager here in Marlton, and the Practice Lead. And yes-- to Dave's point-- I am still mad he stole Tony from me.

DAVID BUTTS: [LAUGHING] Awesome. Glad to know that. So next up, Mr. Elick Livay. Go ahead, Elick.

ELICK LIVAY: Good afternoon. Elick Livay. I have been in the industry for close to 25 years, 20 of them with Gannett Fleming, managing and executing projects in water and wastewater type projects. And excited to be on the panel.

DAVID BUTTS: And that group-- the water resource goup-- I'm a liaison for that group so Elick has to keep me in line as well, too. He's got a tough job, along with everybody else. Let's go to Mr. Dan Rtinke right now. Go ahead, Dan.

DAN RTINKE: Hi Everybody. My name is Dan Rtinke, based out of the Columbus office, in the Roadway and Bridge section. I'm currently surveying as a Roadway BIM Program Manager, tasked with leading our roadway and bridge practice to a 3D model-centric design. So I've been in the industry for about 20 years. I'm excited to be here.

It's my first time at AU. Thank you.

DAVID BUTTS: And you have to get a virtual one. You didn't even get to do the live one, man. I'm really sorry. We'll get you there next year.

DAN RTINKE: I know. Some day.

DAVID BUTTS: Last up-- the official old guy in the room-- Lars Laugustin. Go ahead, Lars.

LARS LAUGUSTIN: How's it going, everybody? Thanks. My name is Lars Laugustin, I've been with Gannett Fleming now about 26 years, which looks like it's making me the longest serving employee on this panel. Funny enough, I just received a letter in the mail from AARP, so you kind of know where I stand these days. I'm responsible for delivering construction documents for water and wastewater type clients.

And I am excited to be on this panel today and be involved.

DAVID BUTTS: And I just want you to know, I just set a record for butchering people's last names in the shortest span of time in a presentation in here. I also want to mention my really good friend-- and buddy for many years-- Ms. Kim Furman. She is our moderator today from Autodesk. She is the Revit Community Manager. Kim, you want to introduce yourself real quick?

KIMBERLY FURMAN: Oh, sure. So I'm Kimberly Furman. And like David said, I've known him for many years. He was my first mentor, when I spoke at AU 2015, I believe. And I've spent 27 years in the industry, and just started working for Autodesk last year.

So living the dream, for sure.

DAVID BUTTS: So we got a great panel today. And all these people, you're going to love all of them. They've been huge contributors to our success with the company. So let's go ahead and move along in here, and see how things are going to go. So I want to start off the conversation talking about our first topic, which is building a business culture that's receptive to changes in technologies and workflows.

And we've been through a lot of dramatic change in the last few years, in here. And I want to jump ahead to a study that I took a look at from Pew Research. It actually took place back in December, 2020. And when we start to look at these numbers, and see how much things have changed just in the last two years-- and from the effects of the pandemic, all kinds of things that are going on in the office environment right now-- and some of the stats were really kind of surprising. We 70% of the workers that state that their job can be done from home or teleworking, almost all or most of the time.

And I think those numbers are still pretty much holding true. 20% of us-- including me, I've been working from home for almost 15 years now-- but 20% of the workers actually did work from home prior to the pandemic. 54% of them say, hey, I want to keep doing this. This is actually working out pretty well for them to be working from home. So you think about all the money you're saving on gas, eating out-- you got the great things-- but we also miss some of the camaraderie of being in an office.

What we like to refer to as our special sauce, of how we get along, again, at Fleming. 80% of the people that were polled, though, said that from a technology standpoint, it's been pretty easy-- and somewhat easy to obtain and use. But again, it's been evolving and changing, so moving into and apply 360, it's been a little bit challenging. So I wanted to talk about what our points were-- getting into this first part of our discussion-- and what changed for us. After the pandemic we moved to cloud based projects and resources.

We're using Autodesk Docs, [INAUDIBLE] we are an Autodesk Enterprise Account, so we use Enterprise licensing. That gives us access to tools that we may not have used in the past. We have a greater dependency now on online training and support, so we've had to implement some tools to help with that. But we also had to build champions for our firm now, that could work in this environment. So I wanted to start off with a couple of questions.

And we're just going to look at these-- something that you can talk about. We're going to talk about all three of them. But we'll start with Stacey in here, whose personally embraced this type of a change. And then, how do you engage colleagues to help them make changes? And then what are the business goals, in regard to that change?

What is it that we need to accomplish, based on all these changes that we've had to make. So let's start off with Stacey, here.

STACEY MORYKIN: Yeah, I think that's a lot to bite off and chew. So I'm just going to take one, which is engaging colleagues to help them make change. And me-- being fairly new-- to get it. I don't have the longevity, as some of my fellow panelists, here. So being in the middle of a pandemic working remotely, that was one of the biggest challenges, is engaging fellow colleagues at Gannett Fleming so at least they know that I'm here, I can help them, et cetera.

And what I found the most successful way of engaging is, is through a help desk system. So we have a help desk system. And people have issues or problems, they put in a ticket, and I answer that ticket, and I'm helping them in building that trust and rapport. And eventually, what I'm hoping is that I can offer them a solution that may make just the slightest change, and they'll be more receptive to that change because I've developed that rapport.

So one of the quickest ways that I've learned to engage with our fellow colleagues is just through that type of help desk system.

DAVID BUTTS: I'm going to call on Tony next. Because he's part of our team in here. What are our business goals? What is it that we're trying to accomplish as a company in here? From your standpoint, what's critical for us in terms of those goals?

TONY ELBERTI: Tony Conthado or me?

DAVID BUTTS: Tony Conthado. I'm sorry, I got to differentiate between the two. Tony Conthado.

TONY CONTHADO: Right. Any tool, or process, or change that we're trying to put in place we want to make sure it's successful, and also be a efficient, good tool that any end user could be using. But we've had to really, I think, be agile with our change management, and how we're actually communicating that change. So the the overview of what's happening. So why is this change taking place, what are the business reasons this change is taking place?

Who is this change affecting-- who's impacted by this-- what benefits is this going to bring to there in their teams? And we go into, from there, our change details. What is the full timeline for this change, what is happening, why it's going to be beneficial for them, and how are we communicating that. I think we've all struggled with communication, and it's obviously changed, since switching remote. So what channels are we're using to communicate that change?

It could be various emails-- recurring emails-- weekly. It could be Teams, it could be SharePoint News, it could be in meetings that were hosting-- lunch session meetings-- or just talking to various groups. Updating them on which change is coming sooner than later-- what changes are coming down the pipeline. And past that, it's how are we supporting that change or process. That's huge. Do we have to create some sort of toolkit or user guide?

What online resources can we leverage? What videos or documents do we need to put together? What training opportunities and materials do we need to put together? And really-- talking about goals-- how do we measure that change. How are we collecting feedback about this change of process?

How can we evaluate its success, its adoption rate, support time, to really define what success looks like for that change-- that tool, that process-- we're trying to put in place. So it's been a real learning experience-- especially with switching to almost fully remote workforce-- almost two years ago, at this point. But there's a lot of things that we look at when we're trying to put a new process in place, related to change with what we're dealing with right now.

DAVID BUTTS: I want to pick on two of the panelists real quick, here. I want to go old to new. So I want to start off by talking to Lars a little bit, since he's been here the longest. How how do you personally embrace this change? How do you actually get through these-- what we're doing-- from a technology standpoint?

LARS LAUGUSTIN: I'm always a big fan of change and staying up with the technology. I think if we don't stay up with the technology, we're really going to fall behind in any industry you are, and especially in our industry. Pretty much, you really can take the office to anywhere you go now-- into the field, into your house-- with the cloud. Everything is on the cloud. You can access everything. I can access it on my phone, I can access it on my tablet, I can access it anywhere, which is actually probably sometimes good and bad.

DAVID BUTTS: Right. Yeah, it could be. But if you go from somebody like you, who's been with the company for a long time, let's talk to Dan, real quick. Dan's only been here for three years. How does what we're doing-- again, at Fleming-- compare to how you dealt with change at another company.

And how are you actually helping us move forward through that process?

DAN RTINKE: So that's a big reason why I'm at Gannett. I've always been a huge fan of technology. Using that new technology to solve old problems. Previous to coming to Gannett, they just looked at me as a crazy person. That stuff's unimportant, we don't need to do that.

Well, it's been embraced at Gannett, so I have been nothing short of thrilled of being able to do it. And I will say that a lot of the people I've dealt with here, we have a culture of innovation. They're receptive to it. You show them the benefits, they start to realize, OK, this is pretty cool. Whatever that may be, you start to get buy-in-- you get the positive vibes-- so it works.

DAVID BUTTS: That's awesome. We're on a timer today so I want to check in with Kim real quick, and see if we have any questions going on over here, about this particular part of the segment. We got anything out there that's really appealing to you?

KIMBERLY FURMAN: Yeah. So we've had a few, actually. One Sean Bryant, just asked, Microsoft decided to release Windows 11 just before AU. On that note, how does Gannett Fleming manage an operating system shift throughout the organization both with software and hardware?

DAVID BUTTS: I think I'm going to take this one. I can tell you right, now we're probably not going to 11 for a little while. I don't know if anybody's seen the requirements for the processors and everything that they put out. So it really is going to preclude a lot of older systems that we might have out there. But we actually-- and Stacey and Tony, you guys can jump in on this too, since you're on the technology side-- we try to take a very measured approach to implementing new technology.

In other words, we do a ton of testing. And any of you who have to go through some of the Autodesk Desktop Connector upgrades-- and Stacey, and Tony, and I can tell you, we've had a ton of fun with those-- the name changes and everything else, we have to be measured and methodical in our approach. We can't just go and say, oh, it's a new piece of software, let's throw it on a computer. How would you guys view that? Is that something that we need to be worried about right now?

Or how would you handle something like Windows 11?

STACEY MORYKIN: I think there's something to be said for vetting, and testing, testing, testing, testing. And there's a lot of different business groups here, and we use a lot of different applications. And just like many of our competitors-- and colleagues out there and other EDC firms-- there's probably a pretty large portfolio of engineering applications that you use. So implementing something like a Windows operating system takes time-- and takes lots of vetting and lots of communication-- to ensure that change happens cohesively and you don't have any major challenges.

DAVID BUTTS: Those are all good points. And thank you Sean, for bringing that up. Like a Jedi, he had to rear his head today. So I appreciate him being here, man. That's awesome. Our good friend. Been around for a long time. So let's move on to the next stage in here.

So we talk about change from a culture standpoint, but really, the biggest problem most companies have is training, how do I keep my staff current. And how do we update our deliverables and methods, especially now that we've gone remote. And so what is it that's changed for us-- and really, for the industry as a whole in here-- we don't do classroom training anymore. That's one of the big things we used to do all the time. I'd travel to different offices and spend a couple of days with somebody, and train them there.

But we're doing a lot more mentoring now, we've invested in a lot of online training programs. But we're still trying to figure out how to make that all work for us, where is the right investment-- what do we need to be putting our money towards. And how do we integrate things like our workflows and assessments, and then, how do we promote this? How do we take something outside of the traditional training environment, like communicating through Teams. And the biggest thing is, how do we get employees engaged in their own training?

How do we get them invested? So I want to start off with Dan about this. Because again, coming from another company, what do you see in this?

DAN RTINKE: I think everybody on this call has already mentioned, you've got to show the benefit of why you're being trained up on the new technology or the new tool-- whatever that may be-- and lay out a plan. You got to have some sort of a roadmap. How you're going to get there, who needs to get there, who needs what training. Because everybody has different roles within different groups within a company, so tailor it to what they need.

Almost gone are the days of in-person classes, where you have to sit for three days where you might only need bits and pieces of it. Now, you can do it online-- easy access to get the bites of what you need. They could be short 30 second things or they can be in depth sessions. I think two of the biggest parts of it is timing the training with when they're actually going to need to do the work. I'm sure plenty of us have gone through training and not used it for nine months, and then you're back where you started, not remembering anything other than a vague recollection that, oh, yeah, that existed.

And then, once you've gone through that, I think peer-to-peer-- one-to-one training on the job-- working through a project, sharing information, sharing ideas, is really where it sticks.

DAVID BUTTS: Also I'm going to pick on Elick and Tony Elbrti, and Bill real quick, here. But I'll start with Elick again because his timing is great. We actually had a conversation about this Friday. We were sitting in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot on the way back from Wilmington, and we're having a conversation about the gap that we have between our learners. We have really high-end skilled people that are really good, and then we have the other guys.

The other group that just hasn't made that investment. So Elick, as an industry leader-- and as somebody who's a leader within that business line-- the same question. How do we get that middle filled up?

ELICK LIVAY: David, so this is a challenge that we have right now in our industry. But I would take it a step back a second. So I think in order to get the employees engage in the trainings, you need to identify the right employees. Some employees are very excited about technology-- about change-- they want to learn, and that's going to be easy. On the other hand, we have some employees are not so excited about it.

So from our perspective-- from Ganning Fleming-- it's important to identify the right employees, and to put them in the right position so they can succeed. And then we're going to succeed, as a business. Now again, there are some in the industry we see that with their lack of mid-level right now. So what we're trying to do actually, is have our younger engineer try to excel them as fast as we can, and the support from the senior levels. But again, this is a gap that-- it's a challenge that we're trying to address.

DAVID BUTTS: [INAUDIBLE] has the same problem. In the mechanical group we have that really super high level group, but they have fewer of the lower-end technology. And so how do you fill in those gaps to fill that staffing up, and make sure that they know what to do with the tools that we need them to be using.

BILL CURRAN: I think you need to start with the people that are excited about it. I hate to say change. I would almost say improvements. So with the training that was set up, we started with more the power users. And we set that base, and they had the crutch-- the people to lean on-- to see that that change is supported and traveled through.

And then with the deliverable improved processes-- workflows, et cetera-- it was almost a little bit by osmosis, and it breaks through that cultural gap. And even people that may be more set in their ways and more senior, can see the improvements of what's being developed, and see the efficiencies gained.

DAVID BUTTS: That's true. It doesn't matter what practice or business group, we have the same problem across the board. But now I'm going to call on Tony Elberti a little bit. Because Tony is one of these innovation guys who really pushes the envelope to have us do more than what a traditional design firm does. And some of the projects-- like the Dell Cora-- that he's been working on, where we're doing more studies we're doing more investigation of how we can do a better job designing these buildings, how do we make sure that somebody is able to acquire that skill set at the right level?

Because this is stuff that a lot of companies just don't do right now. So Tony, how do we deal with it?

TONY ELBERTI: Yeah, Dave. Seeing is everything. Like Lars was saying earlier, just able to bring a tablet in, and just show a client what you're talking about. It's one thing to be shuffling through dozens of drawings in 2D-- and just thinking through a design-- but it's so much easier to understand it if it's in 3D, and you can just show them. So we've been very successful recently with utilizing point clouds, just being able to walk to walk an area-- especially now with COVID, where meeting opportunities are somewhat limited.

Having that infrastructure that we can walk through, we can make measurements of, we can talk through with operators, what are some things that they may need to do? And it's been really, really helpful for being able to define scope much more clearly. And also when we're looking at it internally, being able to-- as Elick was saying-- ramp up the training capabilities internally. Having those one-on-one mentoring opportunities but then recording them. Taking the time to think through hey, this might be something that somebody else could as an opportunity down the road for showing how a certain piece of modeling software works, or how a particular design with a certain unit process should go.

So we've been taking those video captures and just cataloging them, to help develop that database for advancing knowledge a little bit quicker.

DAVID BUTTS: Now, I will tell you, we actually had to stop and change how we were addressing training in the first place, anyway. Again, when you lose that one-on-one in-person level training, and you start going to online training, and technology, and tools, we actually had to back up-- as a company-- and say, well, how do we figure out where people are? We do staff assessments all the time, and we look at where people skills levels-- and Stacey, I'm getting ready to call on you here in just a second. So be ready. But one of the things we did, is on the facility side we actually set up a project, where we went and interviewed about 80 employees, and said where do you feel like you are with your skill levels, and where is it that you feel like you need help?

And so we got into our training program, and we set up learning paths and assessments for the staff, and we're getting ready to start the same thing on assembly. And here's the thing, there's no one cookie cutter approach. Stacey, would you do differently than what the approach was that we took for facilities? I mean, at transit rail, they're obviously going to have different needs, so how do you deal with that?

STACEY MORYKIN: I think it's helpful to have that assessment, even if it's just a questionnaire. If it's not a test or an assessment where they have to click around or pick a multiple choice answer, at least do some sort of questionnaire. What is your comfort level in x, y and z, and start there. And then base that training program around the comfort level of the teams and the staff. If everybody is pretty comfortable in the software, or a particular feature or particular aspect of it, then you don't have to start from ground zero.

So I think it's that level of engagement, is a good place to start.

DAVID BUTTS: The mentoring is also critical to this. Let's check in with Kim and see if we have any questions real quick. Because we're almost ready to move to the next section. What have we got there, Kim?

KIMBERLY FURMAN: So our top voted question at the moment is from Donnie. And he says, how does Gannett Fleming manage-- I think you may have touched on this a bit-- how does Gannett Fleming manage the distribution of training and knowledge to its team? Do you use an LMS? If so, what platform do you use?

DAVID BUTTS: [CHUCKLING]

STACEY MORYKIN: It's a secret, Donnie.

DAVID BUTTS: It's a secret, Donnie. I can't tell you, Donnie.

KIMBERLY FURMAN: Yeah, yeah. [LAUGHING]

DAVID BUTTS: No we, we-- well, I guess we'd say, we use a [INAUDIBLE] point as one of our platforms. But it's not the only platform. We have LMS, we've been pointing people to the new Autodesk Design Academy in some cases. Depending on where somebody is-- like an intern-- we might want them to go into that resource and actually look at some of that stuff. Tony Conthado, have you been doing anything different, that you might point somebody to for training?

I mean, we know what we have in-house, but that's not the only thing.

TONY CONTHADO: Yeah. We do have a LMS system, as well as Pinnacle e-learning, as well. We're trying to build out a SharePoint knowledge base as well. And that ties back into a newer, more efficient service desk solution, that we're going to be implementing in the very near future. So trying to give people one source of truth, to access any information they're going to need.

And that could just be real quick helpful tips and tricks, from something they're trying to do, or an actual learning course or something else. So we do have some various tools in place right now. And it's been mentioned before, but really, that one-on-one mentoring, almost. So not only do we try and make all these resources as available as possible, but really, lean on your coworkers and colleagues for assistance when needed, as well. We have a vertical design working group, a horizontal design working group-- and these are all set up in teams and SharePoint-- to really get that communication started.

To get these users actually talking to each other, rather than being in silos-- or in the past, offices-- just really trying to make that connection a little bit more transparent. Again, I think that's super helpful, as well.

DAVID BUTTS: And I want to point out one more thing before we move on. When you talk about mentorship, we're not talking just about technology skills. If you don't have the corresponding design skills to go with it, and understand this in the context, that's one of the key pieces that often gets missed. And so as you're working through your training program, don't skip that step. Because if the only thing you're doing is features and benefits training, if you don't make it relative to what you do, then that gets lost very quickly.

And you look at the wide brand of projects we have-- water, transportation, rail-- you've got to make sure that the training is in context, regardless of where the platform is. So you just need to make sure that you include that. Let's go ahead move on to our next section real quick, here. Well, with training and with culture changes, what we're seeing now is that the actual jobs that we do are changing as well, too. We have new roles and responsibilities, we have new positions that we're creating with the company.

And we actually went through and created a chart of the different skill levels, and we took the software completely out of it. What is it that person needs to know that's part of their job every day? And we defined like five levels of employees in a technical career path, which is something that to me, the industry has done a great job of ignoring. We pay a lot of attention to the engineers, and the architects, and the professionals, and we do a crappy job of paying attention to the technicians, the specialists, the analysts-- the people that fill in those gaps-- of specialties that are becoming more prevalent in the industry, here.

So this is the part that a lot of people are having a hard time with. If you haven't realized this yet, the drafts person era is over. It's done, it's gone. If you're still working in a red line drafting environment, man, you've been left behind. And I feel sorry for you, man.

Because we have so many specialized roles that are technology based-- you've got business analytics, you've got computational design, what we have now have this project information modeling, not just building information modeling management. We have platform management-- Forge, BIM 360, SharePoint-- all these different tools that we use. So how do these tools fit now into somebody's career path and there role, and where does the workflow change? And so how does somebody identify where that task is going to occur, and then, how does it impact the clients? We're going to start off with Tony Elberti this time.

Going back to Dell Cora, we were really doing a dramatically different design on that project. And the way that we're approaching a lot of our clients is completely different than the way we used to. So let's talk a little bit about it, in context of that project. How are the roles changing for these types of jobs?

TONY ELBERTI: Right. So we're seeing a mash-up now between folks that were traditionally doing CAD type of roles, and folks that are doing engineering type of roles. And there's of a blending that's going on now because a lot of times-- with a wastewater treatment plants for example-- there's vertical components, and then there's the horizontal components. And then how they fit together, is really, really paramount for for our designs. So we're seeing things more-- one thing in particular, on the construction side-- doing point clouds as part of a construction services and then comparing those clouds to the design Revit model, to be able to do as-built designs.

That's something that we've never before, and we're starting to do that successfully. But the roles are a little bit different these days because there's some scaling up, and some people need to take ownership of different roles, so there's a little discomfort there. But at the end of the day, as people have been taking ownership and seeing what the technology is out there, and how it can make their designs more effective, it's really just been fantastic. So I'm excited to see where this goes from here.

DAVID BUTTS: And I'm going to pick on Lars again here, real quick, too. Because we've done a ton of projects up in New York. We had the Superstorm Sandy results, that really altered a lot of the ways that we were approaching design, especially in our water treatment plants and facilities and transmission. And looking at how we addressed those jobs over the last 10 years-- compared to what you were doing before-- think about how much the workflow changed. What did it alter for you, and what did it force you to change, as a project manager?

LARS LAUGUSTIN: I think one of the biggest benefits, really, in the design is really using Revit models and tools. Because what it's doing, it's really improving our collaboration that we have, and the communication we have with-- the disciplines that we're working with-- and even the stakeholders of the project-- and the clients. We have a lot more collaboration now with let's say, the design team, the architects, the electrical, HVAC. Now, we're working in these models together and we're all collaborating, and really, we're used to seeing everything in 2D. Everything is 3D now, and I always use the example, you could have a drawing set of 800 drawings.

And you can look through those drawings, and you really don't know what's going on after eight hours. Or you can look at a models, in five minutes, you know exactly what's going on, pretty much. I think that just the benefit of that alone. But I think it's really just being able to visualize. Even when you visualize with clients, when you visualize with some of the younger staff.

Are they going to be able to see it,t and touch the stuff. I think that's really important also.

DAVID BUTTS: And Dan, you're seeing the same thing. What we've been doing in the transit and rail department-- in highway and bridge, and all of this horizontal design aspect. You want to talk about a culture that's been rooted in specific goals and ways to do things. To me, that's one of the areas that's actually going to be going through some of the biggest changes, beyond my career path here. How do you see that impacting what we do for the client; how do you see that changing what we do for them?

DAN RTINKE: And it varies, too, across the country. Different clients have different requirements. But for the moment, everybody requires plans. We're going to keep delivering those plans, but there are clients who want the model as a deliverable. And some folks are using the model as the contract deliverable and as the bidding element. They're bidding contracts and letting contracts using the 3D model.

So in the end, we're going to deliver what the client needs. On the back end we're going to use the best tools to get the job done. And as a company, if we have everybody working in the same direction and paddling the same direction, we can work share easier. So if we're all skilled on the latest and greatest stuff, and using it as efficiently as possible, we're going to crank out the best stuff.

DAVID BUTTS: And that's absolutely true. I like that paneling in the same direction. That's awesome. I want to call out Elick here, real quick. Because actually, one of the things as a company, is that relationship with the client that you have to build on.

And as the technology has changed, some of the deliverables and the roles that we play for the client are changing and evolving. Because a lot of them are not technologically savvy. We have some of the operators that we have that just because of where they are-- because the cost involved-- they can't make the investment in technology. So how do we work with them, to make things better for them?

What are some of the roles that we might play for them?

ELICK LIVAY: I think that first of all, Dan is right. We've been dealing with different clients all over the country, and they do have all different requirements, different skill sets. And again, working with them all, I don't know if you can put it all in one approach. So we do try to, I guess, bring the technologies to our clients because again, we see the benefit to it. You mentioned about the workflow change, I just want to go back to it.

I mean with your number one bullet, here. We send it to generate drawings and plans, but now we generate data, not just the drawings. So again, we're looking at the overall lifecycle of the project, so if we generate data from the design, and then we can take it into construction. And then, we give it to the client at the end, to operate and maintain the infrastructure that we put into place. So that's a great benefit, that we can show them that. And again, always the question that come back from the client, how much it's going to cost me? If we understand that, actually, it's more efficient and more economical to go that way, it's a win-win, the way I see it.

DAVID BUTTS: Absolutely. That's true. And we're having to build and nurture those relationships, so that they understand what we're doing for them up front to carry things forward. I want to kind of end up this session with both Stacey and Tony, and let's talk about it from the IT perspective, from what we do behind the scenes as part of the platform. As we see these roles change, how do we support that in the company? I mean, how do we make sure that people understand where these tools fit and how it alters what people do? So let's open it back up to both of you here, let you chime in and say what you think.

STACEY MORYKIN: Tony, I'll pitch it off to you first.

TONY CONCHADO: Yeah, so where do the tools fit, right? There are just a myriad of applications that we're currently using. And it's not only applications, it's the authoring platforms that were working in. And I think we've seen a massive shift with different applications and those file types and that data in a common data environment, really shifting to common data environments, where this data-- not necessarily talk to each other, but where we're linking in various data from various applications into our designs.

And it's been a challenge, because we're learning on the fly as well. There are so many releases every year and different tools that we're currently utilizing at Gannett Fleming. So I guess it goes back to communication, right? Making sure our end users know what tools are available to them, what training is available to them. And it's kind of a ever-growing, ongoing process. Right? It just really, I think, comes down to really just communicating and managing what we're currently using and what's available.

STACEY MORYKIN: Yeah, the work flow has definitely changed. I can recall a project over this past year that we've worked on, where we had to collaborate more. Right? That is, essentially, how the workflow has changed. No longer are Revit files siloed in just Revit, but now we can get that information passed over to Civil 3D and back and forth. So we can send terrain information from Civil 3D over to Revit, and that's how our workflow has changed. We've become more collaborative, whether that's the environment, whether that's the software products, integration is better today. Our workflow has changed, because it's more collaborative. We're no longer siloed.

And of course that impacts the client, because if we have the information siloed, that only hurts our client or our deliverables. We have to constantly pass information back and forth, and if one little thing changes, it affects the entire project and all aspects of that project. So if it's more collaborative and we're all on that same page-- if the client needs to make a change or we need to adjust something-- everybody's on the same page, everybody hears about that change at the same time, and enacts something so it's not as impactful to the client or the deliverable.