What are your typical daily tasks? Do you do computations and drafting? Proposals and Invoices?
Yes. All those things. Even the department manager does his share of drafting. I'm trying to convince him that he, and the other PLSs, should do less of that. Making some progress.
planning and preparing the fieldwork, planning calibrations & maintenance, ...
proposals and invoices
reviewing draftinig and reviewing computations, some computations but almost no drafting
Computations - by myself in my office, almost never; out in the "cube farm" looking over a tech's shoulder and walking them through it, almost daily.
Drafting - Maybe one or two note revisions on an ALTA, otherwise I don't touch any drafting. I don't have the time to keep up with the CAD software (we use both C3D and Microstation depending on the client). We have a dedicated CAD manager to train the survey staff.
Proposals - 20% of my workload usually. We go after a lot of IDIQ on call type contracts, so the technical proposals on these can run 30 to 40+ pages once you start to throw in staff resumes and sample projects.
Billing - once a month meeting with my assigned accountant. Much more time spent on reviewing & approving time sheets and monthly earnings, time analysis, backlog, and target revenue reports. plus staying on top of costs for ongoing projects.
Other - scheduling field & office staff (short & long term), project meetings with in house engineering teams, a lot of plan review & red line markups, client meetings, resume reviews, keeping up on equipment purchases, maintenance schedules, etc., marketing. I used to try and personally keep about 75% billable, but I've found that the more time I spend with client contact and mentoring my staff, even if my utilization rate drops to around 50%, the better the financial performance of the entire team (eight guys + me).
My position is probably a little unusual at a big engineering firm though, because my "in-house" projects that were developed with surveying as a part of the overall engineering project are only about 15% of my annual earnings, the vast majority of my work is for outside clients I've developed, so I spend a lot more time in marking and client contact than many of the project managers I know at other firms.
James Fleming, post: 335607, member: 136 wrote: project meetings with in house engineering teams, a lot of plan review & red line markups, client meetings, resume reviews, keeping up on equipment purchases, maintenance schedules, etc., marketing
Different strokes, of course, but having to face the above every day would make me want to shoot myself.
Jim Frame, post: 335612, member: 10 wrote: Different strokes, of course, but having to face the above every day would make me want to shoot myself.
What makes you think I don't want to as well? You can add a 50 mile, each way, commute onto that.
I might still be working in the field solo if my back and knees weren't shot. The way I see it, if I put up with this crap for really good compensation & benefits, then my wife doesn't have to work full time and can spend her time volunteering in the community and we karmically balance out in the end 😀
At my last company I did my fair share of drafting, computations and checking work phone calls from clients needing work scheduled.
Now i spend most of my days putting together proposals, scheduling, reviewing drafts and checking calculations and every now and then I am in the field for a day or 2.
Arrive early to make sure all the crews have what they need and are headed in the right direction.
Check voice mails and emails for any changes necessary and plan the day.
Check my "To Do" task list to make sure all is being done on schedule.
Research, compute, draft, review, and edit any drawings to go out or to in-house engineers.
Return phone calls/emails.
Check with project managers and/or company principals for any upcoming survey needs.
Prepare estimates and proposals for any future projects.
Head out to the field to walk projects and meet with field crews about any snags or equipment/supply needs.
Call clients to be sure they are happy with the service and to keep our name in front for future work.
Greet returning field crews to be sure all data is downloaded and backed up and resolve any problems they found.
When everyone else is gone begin planning tomorrow/next week/next month.
Obviously not every item is performed every day, any and all can occur. You also have to add in travel time to distant projects, meetings with clients and in house people, and if your LUCKY get to spend a whole day or two with a crew on a good boundary survey.
Andy
What is important is what is management's expectation for your position? What is the utilization, billing and client development goals for your position. It will depend a great deal on the type of projects that you are managing, What size? Are they local? How many projects are you expected to manage at one time? What is the skill level of your administrative, CAD and field support. What types of clients do you have? Do they need a lot of hand holding or do they know what they are doing?
The bottom line is that you must deliver the project on time, in budget and according to contract specification. If you are like me, you would rather just be doing the actual survey. Maybe I can after I "retire". In other words in my case, it's about money and not job satisfaction.
