Monthly Archives: January 2014

We’re buried under a mountain of work here at Atlas Geotechnical World Headquarters, but you all know I advocate for action (or as our good friend Andreas says “MSH, man, make s*%# happen.”) One aspect of busy times in the office is that always there remain nooks and crannies in your schedule for brief tasks. So, I’ve been meaning to put this out to you all for some time, and now seems to be my best opportunity.

This post involves a bit of Bay Area folklore, a distilled version of the management philosophy of the seminal high-tech firm and it;s two founders who left an indelible mark on every discipline of engineering : Bill Hewlitt and Dave Packard. In 1935 both graduated with EE degrees from Stanford (the “junior university” across the tracks from Cal, from whence all good engineering emanates…). Despite these meager origins (joking – all in jest) four years later they formed a partnership that they named, by coin-toss, Hewlett-Packard. Their original premises were the 1-car garage at 367 Addison Avenue, Palo Alto. Their success at that location created the epicenter of what we now call the Silicon Valley.

Wikipedia tells the story better than I ever could: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage

The part of the story that I want to emphasize are the “Rules of the Garage.” I have no knowledge about how the Rules were developed or by whom. All I know is that these are the Rules, and that we all would do well to adhere to them.

I suggest that you all follow the Rules. They’re widely publicized because they work, and not just for high-tech startups (which is what HP would have been called if such a thing existed in 1939). Of the 11, these are the three that I keep close to my heart:

1. Believe you can change the world

4. Share – Tools, ideas. Trust your colleagues.

7. Radical ideas are not bad ideas.

Each of the Rules is important to your practice. Customer satisfaction, innovation, collaboration.; these are the hallmarks of successful consultancy. Clip that photo and refer back to it while you’re revising your strategic plan or deciding to branch out into new fields. Positive and innovative thinking is crucial to success, and the Rules that Hewlett and Packard formulated for us are a beacon on our roads to success.

More information about the actual structure and HP’s commitment to preserving the birthplace of Silicon Valley is here: http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/about-hp/history/hp-garage/hp-garage.html

Cal State Northridge Parking Structure

This past week marked the 20^th anniversary of the M6.7 Northridge earthquake. In addition to 57 fatalities, over 40,000 buildings sustained damage amounting to an estimated $25 billion in losses, making it the most costly earthquake in the United States.

Good friend and extraordinary structural engineer Gene Trahern shared with us an update on changes in earthquake engineering during the intervening years. Although I had not yet met Gene in 1994, I worked in a support role on the Northridge response effort, a big project for Gene and a pivotal time in my career. Since then Gene has further developed his expertise in evaluating seismic vulnerability of existing structures and founded Cascade Crest Consulting Engineers. More information about Gene’s practice is here: http://www.cccengr.com/

IBC replaces UBC, BOCA, and SBC

Three semi-regional codes were combined into one uniform document, the International Building Code, causing engineers nationwide finally to use the same design procedures. As part of that change, design ground motions changed from the 475-yr earthquake to two-thirds of the 2500-yr earthquake. The change elevated design forces in areas with large but infrequent earthquakes like some parts of the Midwest, Salt Lake City, and the Carolinas. Design forces increased in Seattle and slightly decreased in Sacramento and Portland.

ASTM Seismic Loss Estimation Standards

Two new standards, E2026 and E2557, now define a uniform method for assessing potential earthquake damage to existing buildings. The standards define several terms that used to have various meanings, eliminating conflicts in insurance and valuation procedures. They also establish four discrete levels of analysis, improving quality and reliability of seismic loss estimation studies.

Improved Seismic Evaluation and Upgrade Methods

At the time of the Northridge Earthquake, seismic evaluations of existing buildings used basic ground motions similar to the outdated UBC seismic zone system. ASCE-31 (2003) improved evaluation methods by changing to the current USGS seismic hazard maps. ASCE-41 followed 3 years later and carried the evaluation method improvements forward into seismic upgrade of existing buildings.

Gene Trahern can be reached at (541) 549-1331 and cccengr@msn.com

Interesting thoughts about decision making from a large company that I admire.

Arup on Decision Making

Two observations:

1. It’s so reassuring to see some firms spending time on these types of issues. More like this, please. And,

2. The Arup blog has an “ethics” tag. What insight does that offer, when a company has an ethics tag on their outward-facing media? Sure, there are only 2 posts in that category, but that’s 2 more than most companies, let along companies of that size. We are shamelessly copying that.

We’re celebrating an unexpectedly early strategic success here at Atlas World Headquarters, winning our first project from a client that we had targeted in our 2014 strategic plan. It wasn’t much of a project, and by no means are we assured of continued success. But one thing is clear from our track record: once somebody with interesting problems starts working with Atlas, that nascent relationship almost always grows stronger, more durable, and more valuable to both parties.

Unexpected success causes interesting problems to an organization like Atlas, so dedicated to methodical plan-and-execute efforts. Strategic goals need to be adaptable to developing conditions, especially changes required by success. In this case, we simply modified our plan from “Win our first project with…” to “Win three new projects with…” We assigned more budget to this initiative as well, necessarily downrating other parts of the plan, but parts that had not yet borne fruit.

Atlas has another strategic initiative from 2013, an opportunity that fell out of the sky in the second half of the year (through a longstanding, durable relationship, of course). Succeeding at that initiative could very likely require us to grow the company. And yes, our strategic plan includes a contingency plan for such rapid growth that we can implement on short notice, so that we maintain focus on the project and the client.

I hope that you all achieve some strategic milestone early in 2014. It’s a good feeling, knowing that your plan is effective enough to force modifications in the plan. And if you don’t already have an explicit strategic plan for your practice, I encourage you to set aside a half-day to begin one. Make your first goal nothing more than to adopt a strategic plan in Q1 2014. Drop me a note when you achieve it, and I’ll send you a congratulatory message. Go. Start. Have a great week, everyone.

First of all: Happy new year, everyone. I love that last Calvin & Hobbes strip and find some way to share it at this time each year. The new year really does offer a fresh start in a magical world, and I hope that with the recovering economy we all have a chance to go exploring in 2014.

Secondly, here’s an exhortation about New Year’s Resolutions: While the intention is good, the success rate on resolutions is only 8%. Reasonable people like engineers will use more effective change management methods. Make plans, not resolutions, if you really want to improve your practice.

Although most people call them “drawings” instead of “plans,” there’s a reason that costly infrastructure is built using a detailed set of plans that describes all of the pieces that need to be brought to a site and assembled in a particular order. Without detailed plans, no amount of wishing will create new infrastructure that meets some pressing need.

Treat your business the same way. Identify your requirements, assess your budget, specify the pieces that need to be assembled, and make a schedule with milestones for delivering the new program. Only with a detailed plan can you reliably effect change in your practice that achieves your goals.

Atlas Geotechnical, in addition to our ever-evolving 5-year strategic plan, will execute two focused strategic plans in 2014. One involves earning repeat business from a very large, well respected infrastructure design firm. Their projects have complex foundation problems at a rate and severity higher than other firms, which makes them an ideal match for Atlas’ approach to foundation engineering.

The other strategic plan is more speculative. We will attempt to build a 3-firm alliance to pursue means-and-methods engineering projects. The team members are all willing, but we’re not yet sure about the market size and the real potential for profitability. The first step in that plan is to confirm that the plan really is a worthwhile use of scarce resources.

Be assured that by the middle of January both of these initiatives will have detailed plans that include resource requirements, milestones, and performance expectations. Only with this level of planning can we reliably convert “I wish I had more cool projects” into “Wow, look at our marvelous backlog of cool projects.” I hope that each of you, by the end of this new year, can say the same.