Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Blueprint Bluepers Construction Cartoons: New cartoon, the home team advantage

As many of you know, the Nigro Firm publishes a construction humor site called Blueprint Bluepers. We have posted two new original cartoons recently - The Home Team Advantage and The Dead End Exit.

These two cartoons were created by artist Chaise Payan and were inspired from errors actually found on construction drawings. We love the creative process and often publish preliminary sketches that our artist roughs out before he creates the final version, check out the sketch for The Home Team Advantage.

Please visit Blueprint Blueper's construction cartoon page and share our cartoons with your friends.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

What does the Nigro Firm do?

For some companies this question is easy to answer, "we sell luxury cars," "we manufacture and distribute plastic products" or "we are event planners." But our elevator speech is not so simple. Technically, we "are third-party reviewers who perform construction drawing coordination reviews," whew... that is a mouthful and not exactly self-explanatory!

To simplify, we proofread construction drawings and specs, focusing on looking for coordination errors, omissions, and discrepancies. This is a tough service to market because, A) Most people don't know what to call our service, or B) They don't even know such a service exists.

In the construction industry, you may hear our type of review service called a variety of terms such as:

  • Interdisciplinary Coordination Reviews
  • Constructability Reviews
  • Construction Document Reviews
  • Construction Plan Reviews
  • Buildability Reviews
  • Design Coordination Reviews
  • Redicheck Reviews
  • Third-Party Construction Document Reviews
You can easily see how people may get confused about what we do and how marketing our service can be difficult. So we market in a variety of ways, covering a broad spectrum from construction humor to this blog to direct mailers to partnership invitations to a Google campaign, on top of our corporate site. These are the marketing avenues that we use to educate our potential clients and parters about our product and corporate philosophies.

What kind of projects does the Nigro Firm review?
Generally, we review high-profile commercial and government projects, some projects so high profile that we can't even tell you about them. A typical project might be something like a new high school, a hospital expansion project or a new museum. To read more about our projects see, Building Types Reviewed and our Abbreviated Project List.

Who is the Nigro Firm?
The Nigro Firm is headed by Natalie Nigro, who has over 17 years of review experience and was trained by her father William T. Nigro, the originator of the RediCheck system, who currently owns The RediCheck Firm, LLC. The Nigro Firm's reviewers consist of highly trained subcontractors with years of construction related experience. Everyone involved with the Nigro Firm, with the exception of Natalie and Shirley Nigro, are self-employed subs who partner with the Nigro Firm, this includes everyone from the cartoonist to the reviewers to the content writer. This arrangement has worked very well for us and we often write about it in this blog. For example, see Employee Relations: Working with the entire human, emotions and all.

Want to learn more? Please see:
Nigro Firm Services
Examples of Possible Custom Reviews
Frequently Asked Questions
About the Nigro Firm

Thanks for reading. Please check out our sites and share our construction cartoons with your friends.



Author: Pamela S. Stevens

Monday, March 17, 2008

Healthy Workplace: Cooperative Food Buying and Preparation

What are the reasons people give for not eating healthy? Usually you will hear things like "I don't have the time to cook," "I don't have the time to shop," or " I can't eat fresh vegetables before they go bad." Sound familiar?

We here at the Nigro Firm understand very well the impact that working long hours, eating fast food and stress can have on our health. Sometimes when we are busy with project after project and we can't seem to think of anything besides construction drawings, we feel the ill effects in our bodies. So we have tried to find ways to eat healthier while at the same time decreasing the burden of purchasing and preparing food.

There are several ways that we have learned to decrease the time involved in shopping and preparation, so we can spend more time working or simply enjoying our life. We have tried many things, but here are a few that have worked for us, that may work for your company as well: cooperative organic food buying, shared bulk shopping and cooperative preparation.

Cooperative Organic Food Buying: In the area we live in Utah there is a community supported organic farm called Borski Farms, they offer fresh, organic produce on a pre-purchase basis for 15 weeks of the growing season. However, in the past when we were busy at the office it was difficult finding the time to pick up our produce. So we have begun to purchase our shares as a group and share the burden of driving. So instead of having to pick up once a week, we take turns and each party only has to pick up once a month. So we can enjoy organic, local produce with a quarter of the driving!

Shared Bulk Shopping: We all know that visits to Costco or Sam's Club are rarely quick visits and even more rarely convenient. The parking lots are huge, the stores are enormous and the size of product is often unusable! Can one family really eat their big bag of green beans or broccoli before they go bad? So sometimes we combine our efforts and group buy. For example, we will split the bag of green beans and we have discovered that we can enjoy more variety this way and can generally eat the food before it goes bad or we get tired of it. Other times we will just call one another and say, "Hey, I am making a trip to Costco, need anything?" This saves the gas and energy of everyone involved and it just makes sense.

Cooperative Preparation: As mentioned in previous posts, we have a fully functional kitchen at the Nigro Firm office. So from time to time, a group of us will get together and do a huge batch of cooking. For example, we might cook several rice cookers of rice, some beans or a variety of sauces for freezing. So later we can put together quick healthy meals with half of the work already done ahead of time. Or this last summer we acquired lots of apples and spent a few days canning and drying them for tasty winter treats.

Cooking at work may sound a bit unusual, but not if you knew the owners of the Nigro Firm. Natalie and Shirley Nigro are avid healthy eating enthusiasts and have co-authored the Companion Guide to Healthy Cooking: A Practical Introduction to Natural Ingredients, which you still may find on Amazon. Through the years they have learned a lot about whole food cooking, vegan and vegetarian cooking, and food preservation. They love to share their knowledge and skills. So for us, using healthy eating to lower corporate stress just seems natural.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens

Check out this video for preparing tasty asparagus:


Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Steve Jobs' 12 Rules of Success: How is the Nigro Firm doing?


Steve Jobs was listed as one of the world's greatest business thinkers in 2007 and offered 12 famous rules of success to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. We decided to put the Nigro Firm to the test and compare our thinking to Steve Jobs, for curiosity and insight. You may also want to look through the rules and see how you compare as well.

1) Do what you love to do. Find your true passion. Do what you love to do to make a difference! The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

Ok, we do alright on this one. We love our work and we enjoy the people we work with. Sometimes we get a little frustrated with the quality of the drawings, but that does help us sympathize more with those that have to build from those drawings.

2) Be different. Think different. “Better to be a pirate than to join the navy.”

For sure, we try to be ourselves, run our company our way and we provide a unique product.

3) Do your best. Do your best at every job. No sleep! Success generates more success. So be hungry for it. Hire good people with passion for excellence.

We are extremely quality oriented and work with people that are this way as well. We enjoy questioning ourselves and problem solving. We also like to continually learn and pursue new ideas.

4) Make SWOT analysis. As soon as you join/start a company, make a list of strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your company on a piece of paper. Don’t hesitate in throwing bad apples out of the company.

We have been doing this type of work for over 17 years, however, we do continue to evolve and have no problem changing practices or ideas that are not working for us.

5) Be entrepreneurial. Look for the next big thing. Find a set of ideas that need to be quickly and decisively acted upon and jump through that window. Sometimes the first step is the hardest one. Just take it! Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

We have been working on this. We have begun the practice of just moving forward and doing, instead of over thinking to the point of non-action. Sometimes the first step is the hardest, but before you know it you will look down at your feet and see yourself running.

6) Start small, think big. Don’t worry about too many things at once. Take a handful of simple things to begin with, and then progress to more complex ones. Think about not just tomorrow, but the future. “I want to put a ding in the universe,” when Steve Jobs revealed his dream.

Sometimes we can get caught up in the moment or beginning or intermediate goals, but we try to think about what we really want when defining these goals. We are however open to the idea that we may see an opportunity that does not match our original idea, which may be beneficial, and we are ready to act on that opportunity should it arise.

7) Strive to become a market leader. Own and control the primary technology in everything you do. If there’s a better technology available, use it no matter if anyone else is not using it. Be the first, and make it an industry standard.

Our product is always evolving and we think cannot be matched by anyone.

8) Focus on the outcome. People judge you by your performance, so focus on the outcome. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected. Advertise. If they don’t know it, they won’t buy your product.

We (sometimes painstakingly) provide an excellent product. And since we provide a service that requires exceptional quality, we take extra steps to ensure this.

9) Ask for feedback. Ask for feedback from people with diverse backgrounds. Each one will tell you one useful thing. If you’re at the top of the chain, sometimes people won’t give you honest feedback because they’re afraid. In this case, disguise yourself, or get feedback from other sources. Focus on those who will use your product – listen to your customers first.

We are always open to client feedback and will in the future make it easier for our clients to communicate their post review concerns or praises.

10) Innovate. Innovation distinguishes a leader from a follower. Delegate, let other top executives do 50% of your routine work to be able to spend 50% your time on the new stuff. Say no to 1,000 things to make sure you don’t get on the wrong track or try to do too much. Concentrate on really important creations and radical innovation. Hire people who want to make the best things in the world. You need a very product-oriented culture, even in a technology company. Lots of companies have tons of great engineers and smart people. But ultimately, there needs to be some gravitational force that pulls it all together.

We are too small to have "other top executives." However, we have been working at concentrating our talent in the most beneficial way. We are also working on spending our time in the best way. We are learning to say no to the "1,000 things" and concentrate on a handful of the highest priority ones.

11) Learn from failures. Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.

This is easy for us, nobody on our team has a problem with admitting mistakes and moving forward.

12) Learn continually. There’s always “one more thing” to learn! Cross-pollinate ideas with others both within and outside your company. Learn from customers, competitors and partners. If you partner with someone whom you don’t like, learn to like them – praise them and benefit from them. Learn to criticize your enemies openly, but honestly.

We are always learning from our team members and from our customers, competitors and partners. We are not so ego centered to think that we know everything or that we are done learning. In terms of partners and client relations we always try to see the positive aspects of the relationship and have never had a problem openly communicating with our clients. We feel that the questions, even the hard ones, should be asked.

Well, that is how we did. How does your company hold up to the Steve Jobs rules for success?

Author: Pamela S. Stevens

Monday, March 3, 2008

Office Politics: How to tell someone above you that they made a mistake

It happens, people make mistakes. But what do you do when someone above you makes a mistake and you are uncomfortable telling them about it?

First of all, despite the way you may feel, most people appreciate honesty and certainly would not want to have someone else (perhaps above them) to discover the error. For example, look at the picture of the billboard below. Now don't you think that someone should have spoke up regarding the potential communication problems that likely would occur by addressing those that cannot read or write well with text, not to mention the challenges they may have composing a letter? Wouldn't it have been better if someone said something before they spent who knows how much on a billboard campaign?

If you are nervous about approaching a higher up about a mistake they made, you may want to think about some reasons why you should speak up:

  • The error could reflect badly on you, you saw it right?
  • As mentioned above, most people value honesty and being truthful may help you build a trusting relationship.
  • The error could effect the profitably or client relations of the company.
  • They may even depend on you to be a second set of eyes and expect you to speak up.
  • Often they will even thank you for pointing out the problem.
  • And remember that we are all human and humans make mistakes.
However, in most cases the most effective way to relate a problem is not to run into the room and say, "Hey, you screwed up." So what is the best way? If the problem is small and you fully understand it, then just tell them. Say something like "I noticed a discrepancy here," and explain to them your view of the situation.

But what if it is major mistake? If the mistake is complicated or potentially embarrassing you may want to go through the following steps:
  1. Make sure you know what you are talking about. Do a little research but do not gossip about the problem.
  2. Approach the person in a calm manner and not in front of other co-workers, especially if it is embarrassing. However, keep your notes, dates and emails in case you need them later.
  3. Have references such as the error printed out, it is easier to explain if you can show them. Or they may have done it so long ago that they have forgotten the project specifics.
  4. Explain to them your concern in a matter of fact manner, not in an accusatory, insecure or unsure manner.
  5. If appropriate ask them how they want you to fix the error. Or if it is something they must fix, let it go, you told them and you got the worry off of your chest.
After a few well communicated and helpful discussions with your superior you should begin to a build and enjoy a trusting relationship. Talking to them will get easier and they will learn to value your opinion and input.

Author: Pamela S. Stevens

Saturday, March 1, 2008

Compassion in the Workplace: Going the extra mile...or 26


Often the people you work with become part of your community or your circle of friends and you share in their successes and challenges. You hear about their family and the things going on in their life. A while back one of our reviewers' wife was training for a marathon, however, when the time came to run the race, she was obligated to be out of town on business.

It seemed anticlimactic for her to devote hundreds of hours to training without being able to run the race. So we decided, along with her supportive family, to set up a race course and check points so she could run the race on her own.

Her husband mapped the course out and cheer stations were set up. And even though she had to face the challenges of running a personal race she wrote in her diary that "I didn’t stop because I knew a bunch of you were planning on coming up and cheering me on. The thought of that kept me going. At the next water stop my first cheerleaders were there – Natalie & Shirley (the women Jonathan works with). They’d watch me run toward them and would keep glancing at each other as I got closer.When I was finally about 5 feet away they would give each other some signal and then start cheering. It cracked me up in spite of everything."

She was hoping to finish the marathon is less than five hours and ended up crossing the "finish line" at four hours and 58 minutes. Good job Janet.

Featured Construction Project: Marlborough School

Marlborough School: One Smart Cookie

We do not know how the Marlborough School has achieved over 118 years of academic excellence, but we do know one way they ensure their buildings go up as fast as possible – they make good use of a construction coordination review.

Marlborough School Plans Ahead for Excellence

Does orange chicken or New England style clam chowder sound like typical school lunch fare? Likely not, but the Marlborough School is not your typical school either. Marlborough School in Los Angeles is known for superior education and vigorously pursues excellence, distinction and value. In fact, their graduates go on to attend universities like Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Cornell.

To demonstrate its dedication to distinction, this prestigious girl’s school has committed a $65 million investment into their Leadership in Learning Campaign, which includes campus expansion to support new technologies. The Nigro Firm participated in the review process of some of their expansion projects. This review should help their new buildings go up fast, so the girls, whose parents pay up to $26,750 for tuition, can utilize the new facilities as soon as possible.


The Marlborough School’s expansion projects benefit more than normal from accurate construction drawings due to its unique situation. For one, work must be conducted around the school schedule. Secondly, the school is located in the Hancock Park neighborhood that has build and noise restrictions. Lastly, it is a nonprofit with many interested parties including alumni, parents, board members and donors who all care about seeing that their energy and investments are used prudently. These three factors plus the usual desire for fewer RFI’s and change orders made the Marlborough School’s expansion project coordination review a potentially cost and time saving investment.

The Nigro Firm performed construction document coordination reviews for the school’s new Library/Technology and Visual Arts Center and Parking and Storage Space (86,375 sq ft) and renovation work including the Mudd Computer Center, Plaza areas and Mitchell Hall (18,446 sq ft). This review was particularly interesting since it had a number of unique features that required a custom coordination review. One was due to the fact that the school is located near the famous La Brea Tar Pits and required systems to handle methane emissions that are released underneath the buildings.

According to the Marlborough School’s website they are very excited about their new buildings and renovations. They will have plenty of computer space for their 390 computers and student laptops that help the girls test in the top 2% in the nation. Good job Marlborough.

To see what kind of other projects the Nigro Firm has performed construction document reviews for see our Project List.

Dangers of Using a Checklist for Coordination Review


Warning: Construction checklists may be hazardous to your project health.

Got a checklist? Well, checking it twice is not going to help you. Though a construction document checklist may help guide you through the review process of a construction project, it is too general to account for every possible error. All projects require a unique review process and savvy reviewers that can think beyond the checklist.

“Checklists” are often tied to construction document coordination review services - many will even tout the merits of their quality review “checklist.” Of course checklists can be a useful tool to aid in the process of finding coordination errors, discrepancies, and omissions. However, no checklist includes everything.

There is some danger in relying too heavily on a checklist. They give a false sense of security… a false sense of “completeness” to the review since a single checklist cannot cover all situations. The types of projects (hospitals vs. parking garages), variety of building sites (in the mountains, on swamp land, over methane fields, etc.) and the A/E team’s method of representing information vary too much for a predefined checklist to include everything that should be checked for every project.

A fix to this could be to try to imagine every possible situation and put it in a checklist… however, this would make the checklist extremely long, with most of it not applying to the particular project at hand. Trying to use a checklist that mostly doesn’t apply would be time consuming and frustrating, and it would be easy to skip over some of the items that do apply!

Another danger with checklists is the implied notion that if the checklist is followed, the review will be done the same way every time, regardless of the reviewer or project. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The execution of the tasks on the checklist can be done very differently depending on each individual doing the review. And a particular reviewer may perform that task in a large variety of ways based on the specific project in front of him. Each reviewer has their unique work style and abilities; and the drawings also have their own distinctive set of instructions and organizational style. Sound complicated? Well yes, it is.

An additional danger of relying too heavily on checklists is that it has a tendency to trap reviewers into not thinking “outside the box.” They may fall into the pattern of feeling that the review is complete once the checklist is done, instead of looking into the unique aspects of the project that should be cross checked. Unless you are building cookie cutter projects, every project is unique and needs its own distinctive review process.

The best way to avoid the dangers inherent in using checklists is for the coordination review team to only use checklists as a guide or “memory tickler.” Checklists can be of tremendous assistance, but they are not the “end-all-be-all” of an excellent review. Or you could avoid the hassle all together and contract the Nigro Firm’s brilliant review team to perform the review for you.

If you are interested in learning about the construction coordination review services that the Nigro Firm can offer, see Nigro Firm Services.

Want to know how we find our talented reviewers? See Team Development: Finding great reviewers.

Good Partners are Hard to Find

Mutual respect, open communication and accountability in the construction industry, why not?

Let’s get together. By partnering with the Nigro Firm you can have access to an experienced third-party construction document coordination review team who can catch many costly errors before you go to bid or break ground.

What would it be like to work with a clean set of construction documents? We’ve heard that it is a refreshing and pleasant experience. Give us a call, we can tell you how you can get the most accurate drawings possible.

Good Partners are Hard to Find

We are looking for new partners and we think you just might be a match. We are interested in creating reciprocally beneficial partnerships and would like to extend a hello to you and invite you to join with us. We would be delighted to be able to help you attain a superior set of construction drawings so you can create tighter bids, reduce change orders, have an arsenal for litigation, and make your clients happy. Not to mention, you might actually be able to build the building the designers had in mind without running yourself ragged from filling out RFI forms and chasing down the architect.

For the first time in 17 years the
Nigro Firm is offering a partnership invitation to contractors, design build teams and construction and preconstruction companies.





So how does a partnership with the Nigro Firm work?

Well, it begins with a conversation. We can provide many types of reviews, based on what you need as well as your budget, quality concerns and time restraints. We understand that every project is different, so why shouldn’t every review be different too? So, like all good relationships, we begin with a good conversation. And if you like what you hear and we like what we hear, we are sure to have a good working relationship ahead of us.

What is like to have the Nigro Firm on your team?

We understand the importance of trust and accountability when it comes to being a good partner. So we will always:
  • Complete our work on time Ask for clarification if we need it
  • Never take on more work than we can finish on time
  • Provide consistent and dependable work
  • Try to act in the best interest of everyone involved
  • Produce accurate reviews

Give us a call and let the conversation begin or email us at bdev@nigrofirm.com.

The Nigro Firm performs construction document coordination reviews, which are sometimes referred to as constructability reviews, interdisciplinary coordination reviews or cross check reviews. For more information see Our Services.

Wondering what kind of projects we review, see our Abbreviated Project List.