Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Allison I'm Alison Watson and you're listening.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: To the Water Values Podcast.
[00:00:04] Speaker C: The Water Values Podcast is sponsored by the following market leading Companies and organizations by 120water New rules need New Tools by Suez Digital Solutions Optimizing Water by IDE Water Technologies, your partner in water treatment and Sustainable desalination for six decades by Advanced Drainage Systems Our Reason is water by 1898 & Co.
Possibilities Powered By Experience by Woodard and Curran High Quality Consulting Engineering Science and Operations Services Buy Interra Innovation and Stewardship for a Sustainable Tomorrow by Xylem Let's Solve Water by the American Waterworks association, dedicated to the world's most important resource and by Black and Veatch Building a World of Difference. This is session 277.
[00:01:09] Speaker B: Welcome to the Water Values Podcast. This is the podcast dedicated to water utilities, resources, treatment, reuse and all things water. Now here's your host, Dave McGimpsey, foreign.
[00:01:23] Speaker C: Welcome to another session of the Water Values Podcast. As my daughter Sarah said, my name is David McGinsey and thank you so much for joining me. And of course thank you for your support over the last 11 plus years. Now we've got a terrific show for you this month. Lefwin Clark of the Water Collaborative Delivery association is here to illuminate all things collaborative delivery. Don't know what collaborative delivery is? No worries. Leftwind makes it easy to understand, so stay tuned.
Also, Reece Tisdale joins us for a Bluefield on Tap segment that provides insights gleaned from Bluefield's recent report on water use in data centers.
But before we get to today's conversations, we always say thank you to our awesome sponsors at the top of every show. And we have fantastic sponsors. For the calendar year 2025 we have 120 water Suez Digital Solutions, IDE Water Technologies, Advanced Drainage Systems 1898 and Company Woodard and Curran in Terra Xylem, the American Waterworks association and Black and Veatch. And that, my friends, is a terrific collection of impactful companies that have affirmatively decided to support water industry thought leadership and education.
And I thank you all and I'd like for you, the listener, to please do me a favor. If you work for or with any of those sponsors, please thank your boss or your contact at the sponsor firm and let them know that you appreciate their leadership in the industry through the sponsorship. You'd be surprised how far that simple little note of thanks will go.
And as long as you're letting the sponsors know you appreciate their support of water industry education and thought leadership. Hey, why not leave a rating interview on Apple Podcasts or whatever other podcast directory you access the podcast on. It'd be greatly appreciated and helps others find out about the podcast. And also, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss a single episode.
Well, before we head on to the interview with Left One, let's get a Bluefield on Tap segment with Bluefield Research's Reese Tisdale. So take it away, guys.
Reese, welcome to another Bluefield on Tap. We are officially in summer now. How you doing?
[00:03:26] Speaker A: Well, as they all say these days, welcome to the Heat Dome.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: It is no longer the Thunderdome. It's the Heat Dome.
[00:03:34] Speaker C: I mean, well, we're not going to talk about the Thunderdome. We're not have to.
After Tyrese Haliburton went down with a torn Achilles, we're done.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Don't even bring it up. My kid and being in Boston, it's hard to believe that one of my children, one of my sons, was practically in tears when he went down and said, I can't believe it. That's it. It's like, what, are you kidding? We lost two series ago.
It's like, no, I wanted the Pacers, so. As did I. But I'm sorry to see that happen.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: Yeah, no worries. No worries. So as always, it just the, the water industry is one of those industries that just, you never sleep because there's always something going on. So what's risen to the. What's caught your attention this month?
[00:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah, water industry keeps on chugging. Really. As a follow up, partly, I'd like to say we were inspired by an episode, I think it was number 274 you had with Rod McNally. So I think that's two or three ago about data centers and Bluefield.
We just released a report on data centers. So inspired by you and Rod, we've got an 80 page report out on data centers and the impact on the water sector.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: 80 pages. So give me a thumbnail. What's going on with data centers and water?
[00:04:50] Speaker A: So it's definitely the hottest topic in the industrial water space. At least the verticals. Everybody is interested in it, all of our clients, almost all of them, whether you're a utility, whether you're a vendor.
What we did is we sized the market and, you know, I think according to my colleague Amber Walsh, just looking at construction put in place over the past, I want to say it's like five years, maybe a little bit longer. There's been a hundred billion dollars of investments going towards Data centers of that related to water. It's about 4.1 billion of capex and OPEX spend. It's actually ultimately going to be is forecasted or expected through 2030. So it's actually a big chunk of change that's going to go to water management and it's elevated a lot of questions in the sector on all fronts.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So you made the decision capex and opex.
Is the spend going to be kind of obtaining water rights? Is the spend going to be building the infrastructure to get the water to the data centers for cooling purposes?
What is the money going to be spent on?
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah, so I mean I think simply put there are going to be a lot of treatment system on site treatment systems for things like reuse being deployed. So that's one shot could change the market. I think you raised a really good point. Can be by, well it's trifurcated a word. It can really be looked at in three different ways. One, what does it mean for the water utility? Do they have the water supplies, the infrastructure to supply these facilities to the on site usage by the data center? Data center owners and operators themselves not included in this discussion which is really sort of on the power side of the equation because they're using water as well. But on site it's going to be everything from like I said, containerized on site treatment. OPEX side is going to be remote monitoring, chemical dosage prevent things like scaling and such that I think you and Rod talked about in greater detail.
[00:06:56] Speaker C: Where do you think, what do you think it means for the water sector from, you know, a supply perspective?
How's it all fit together?
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Well I think you know, the biggest issue, all the water usage is really going for cooling. All right. That's really what it's all about. And I think there are two aspects. One, on site there is a shift towards liquid cooling which is more direct cooling uses less water. But I think the other bigger question that actually since we put out the report I've had a number of conversations from all on all fronts and that is just the overall power demand is the market. I don't want to say overhyped if that's the right word but if you look at it US power demand over the last I think 10 or 20 years, about 1 1/2% growth. So it's pretty stable, pretty mature.
What we're seeing now is forecasts showing that power demand is going to potentially triple. So it could go rise, you know, four and a half, five percent which is pretty significant spike in demand for A power sector that is pretty mature. So the question is, is there enough capacity or not or is the market for AI and such overhype? That's sort of where we, there's sort of two sides to the market where the data center operator is saying hey, we're going to need all this because the markets are going to continue to grow. The power sector and others saying actually no, we're okay, we can maybe manage this. So if you're in the water sector, you're a water vendor, solutions or service provider. I think I would be cognizant of that. Like who's developing the projects? Are they developing one, two or three projects and only one is going to come to fruition.
That's one of the bigger challenges or questions that we're seeing.
[00:08:41] Speaker C: Yeah, so data centers are just one of the big water users that are, that are, you know, because semiconductor manufacturing is also a big water user and, and there's a lot of that going on. So how does that.
Did you guys look at how data centers, because they're not in a vacuum, are they competing with the semiconductor manufacturers for the water supply? How does that all fit together in the kind of the macro view?
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean I think we use Phoenix, Arizona as a good example. You're seeing both being built there. Right. So it's a semiconductor hub, if you will. But also they're installing data centers. They may be competing for municipal supplies. They may be ultimately for, I don't want to say water rights because they're not buying up water rights per se, but I think within a community, yeah, I mean water is very local and that's probably the bigger issue at the end of the day the data centers, they don't use, they don't use as much as let's say the power sector. Right. So I think, I just want to keep it in context. I think even our numbers, what do we estimate if it's 300 gallons per day usage per household in the US you're looking at about 4, 4 the water usage for 4 million homes for data centers over the course of a year. So it's a lot, but it's not out of line with or exceeding other, other, other critical sectors like power.
[00:10:08] Speaker C: It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. So Reese, as always, great speaking with you, great information and really appreciate you bringing this issue to the listeners attention. So thanks so much Rhys and we'll talk to you again soon.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: 100% happy to share some numbers. Talk soon.
[00:10:26] Speaker C: As always, great information from Bluefield Research And Reece Tisdale. Now it's time for the main event, our interview with Leftwin Clark. So let's get that water flowing.
Well, Leftwin, welcome to the Water Values podcast. Great to have you on today. How are you?
[00:10:41] Speaker B: Terrific. A pleasure to be here on a fine spring day. Finally getting warm.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah, finally. Although it did we had ice on our windows this morning in Indiana. So yeah, it's spring, but it's still early.
Well, left, when tell us a little about yourself. What's your background and how did you get come to the water sector?
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Well, circuitously, like many of the folks I've listened to on your podcast, not a Straight Path to Water, but I started out as a planner. I went to Columbia University and got my undergrad and grad degree in planning there. And I was working away at doing zoning analysis and fitting buildings into envelopes. And on a whim I moved to Denver as a presidential management intern, which is what the program was called at the time. And I fell into the federal government doing GIS and more public policy and infrastructure type things. And as life would take you on a journey, I ended up at a company called CH2M Hill at the time. And I was hired there to do federal proposals, which are big complicated things.
And I walked in and the first procurement on deck was actually a design build proposal which was pretty new at the time. It was a transportation proposal and it was complicated. And so they put me on it because I was the new guy who obviously knew those. And I and I never touched a federal proposal again there. And that started my design build journey, first in transportation and then ultimately in water.
At the time there weren't enough design builds where you had to declare a major and so I did all kinds of them and eventually it got its feet and I settled in the water space.
I had a real epiphany along the way that I thought I would share. I was doing one of the early design build proposals for the City of Detroit Waterwork, Parks, Waterworks park. And I'm sure many of your listeners will know that facility since rebuilt because of that procurement.
And we were doing the interview in the old Detroit water well before Glioar Great Lakes Water Authority.
And wouldn't you know it, but one of the commissioners or board members, whatever they were, fell asleep during the middle of the interview and really didn't care. Like there was no embarrassment about it. The other ones weren't so interested. And I just had this, this revelation at the time that we can do better. Like I sort of got my chip on My shoulder around, heck, we're drinking this stuff. It's important to us.
Everybody can just do better. And so ever since then, I've become more than just helping put together the interview, but passionate about we can do better.
[00:13:37] Speaker C: Well, good. Well, the water sector needs that.
So where have you ended up now? What are you doing these days?
[00:13:44] Speaker B: Well, I did my 20 obligatory years at Ch Tuum Hill. I ran some business development and owner advisory for what we call alternative Project delivery or into IPD at another engineering firm for a bit. And a couple years ago I went out on my own and my consulting business.
I've been involved with the Water Collaborative Delivery association since its inception. Next year will be our 20th anniversary because my firm was a founding member and I followed along my boss and mentor at the time and I was a contributor, which is a polite way to say lackey in the early years. And then eventually I became a board member and then the president eventually. And then I chaired the education committee for many years. And when I did go out on my own, the way that organization is structured, I couldn't participate anymore. Cause I didn't work for a company or at least a company that could afford the dues.
And so I became a part time staff member and I've really grown that into a base part of my consulting business to support their education programs and probably do upwards of 30 educational events of varying sizes and in person and online in the course of a given year around collaborative delivery.
[00:15:13] Speaker C: Okay, so collaborative delivery sounds very interesting, but let, let's, let's take a wide lens because you obviously have this experience with, with not only the transportation projects you work on in the design build, but what are, what can you just kind of run through, Give us a thumbnail of the different kinds of project delivery methods. And you know what, that's what I'm looking for is just kind of here, here, here are the different kinds and then we'll talk a little more about collaborative delivery.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the best way big picture is it's not design, bid, build or something that's inherently adversarial with different folks in different buckets that were it's set up to, you know, not be cooperative because of the rules of the game. And so that has evolved into many flavors and permutations. We can talk about how WCDA and Design Build Institute of America, DBIA defines them, but at the end of the day it's much more of a mindset than one set of contractual rules versus another. And it is about everybody rowing in the same direction. For a better project outcome and not letting the procurement rules and the contract rules get in the way of what you need to do to have a successful project. It's not that you don't follow them and that you're not. No one's going to jail here. But we want to break down the barriers of working together to get to the right kind of project. And I can go into the definitions of all the various flavors as we define them, but really that's the mindset. And it is about a mindset and a cultural change before picking a contract or a procurement method or all the other things that we teach consistently.
[00:17:05] Speaker C: And so that is collaborative delivery, what you just described, Right?
[00:17:10] Speaker B: Correct.
And we're very intentional.
Design Build Institute of America is the leading organization around design build, but it is focused on design build. We do include a little bit broader footprint under our definition of collaborative delivery to include construction management and risk, or CMAR or its flavors, CMGC or GCCM that are out there, which is not a design build method, but much more collaborative in the end of the day than traditional design bid build. So just a broader umbrella. We used to call it alternative project delivery. But along the way, I think we felt that alternative implied that somehow these delivery methods were an exception or something out of the norm because they're quote, unquote, alternative. And so we started using collaborative more broadly a few years ago to not leave any doubt that these should all be tools in an owner's toolbox.
And on equal basis with design bid build, you're probably going to do a lot of design bid build projects. But these other tools in the tool chest are out there. And it does include CMAR from where we sit to.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: Got it. So if I can take a big, big picture look at this, there's collaborative delivery, design build, design bid build. Those are the big three categories.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Well, we, we include design build under, under the umbrella of collaborative delivery. So we would, we would start with cmar, a very effective, organically grown process, primarily from the southwest of the U.S. it's where the, where the construction entity is engaged by the owner during the design process and participates in the design process and then ultimately develops a cost and agrees on a price and goes and builds it. But it is, it's not design build. It's two, two separate contracts. And then, you know, when we, when we switch over to the design build methods, there are several flavors have evolved. The original, I hesitate to say it, but I do say traditional design build, the fixed price model where everybody, you know, went after essentially what was a design competition and threw in their risk and price in one big submittal and the owner picked the best value to them and everyone off to the races to build the projects. And that's where most of the legislation and current statutes and historically where the industry really got a lot of traction in the, in the mid to late 90s and beyond.
And then along the way, sort of in parallel with cmar, Progressive Design Build came along where it was a little bit more drawn out procurement process in the sense that you would pick a design build entity and then embark on the design and then agree on the price, spread things out over a couple phases and have a little bit more owner engagement in the front end of it. And that's the predominant design build methodology in water wastewater right now. I'd say CMAR and Progressive Design Build have roughly equal market share depending on what geography you go to. But if you look at it in a big picture, they both are widely accepted and very popular in fixed prices less but still out there. And Design Build operates and all the flavors and even P3s are all part of the extension of the collaborative delivery umbrella that we, that we consider.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: Got it. So let me ask this. So you mentioned statutory changes earlier and that was one of the questions running through my mind because as listeners well know, most public utilities are under public work statutes that require public bidding and the bid be awarded to the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.
[00:21:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:13] Speaker C: So what is, what's the, what's the state of play in, in from a, from a legislative angle, do most states require statutory changes in order to get collaborative delivery authorized?
[00:21:28] Speaker B: Well, well, they did. And they did. And DBA was at the forefront of driving that change for all types of infrastructure environments and has been largely successful. I think, I think there's three or four. I don't remember the exact number of states that don't allow any form of design build. Most, even New York and some of the holdouts in the Northeast are starting to accept design build methodology, even if the circumstances are limited or the agencies that can do it are limited. And so largely the dam has been broken on whether it's allowed or not. But it is a patchwork of regulation.
It does differ between transportation and water, and it does differ between CMAR and Design Build and Design Build operate. And so you have to know the lay of the land where you're working to know where things stand.
Probably the biggest impediment or issue at the moment is all of these statutes which were quite enabling, were written when the Design Bill concept was primarily the fixed price model that I just described. Progressive came around in a couple states and it was broadly accepted.
But most of these statutes don't use the word progressive within the statute. And so you have to interpret the statute to see if the progressive methodology is sort of a fit within the rules of the game. Right. And in some states it certainly is. Where I live in Colorado, no problem with doing progressive. In California, the design build statute was clearly written for a fixed price model. And the WCDA and several partners actually introduced and got passed a couple years ago sb991, which explicitly allows progressive there. And so it's the one state I can think of where progressive is actually written in statute. And so we do encounter places like Texas and a few other states where we're still working on a lot of legislative initiative to sort of smooth things out and get things accepted. And I would also note that, you know, this is primarily public utilities, water, wastewater utilities, but we do have regulated or, you know, for profit utilities. And I listened to one of your earlier episodes around the English water system and the history of utility privatization and the evolution of water wastewater in particular. I would encourage your listeners, they haven't heard that one.
I spent a little time in the uk. I learned a lot. So we have all kinds of different sources, but the public works statutes are still out there. There's typically a P3 statute out there and typically some form of a design build or maybe a CMAR statute out there in any given state and you have to dodge and weave among them. So.
[00:24:29] Speaker C: Got it.
So tell me a little about the deployment of collaborative delivery by water utilities.
What's the split between traditional and collaborative?
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Yeah, well, your folks at Bluefield have done some terrific research and another kudos to them.
It's an interesting industry. You can be in this industry and still learn something new. It's like collecting wine, like I always find a new vineyard. So the Bluefield folks have a really good take in one of their recent reports, I think from March a year ago on the market delineation. But I think what we're seeing is a large majority adoption in larger projects. I don't see many, anecdotally many traditional engineering projects for multi hundred or even $100 million design jobs. Right. It's going to be typically some form of progressive design build or cmar.
So I think it's a different number. If you look at the volume of dollars, I think it's very much the majority in collaborative delivery. If you look at the number of projects and you Build the smaller ones and the commodity curb and gutter and stuff that happens without needing necessarily to break out of the design bid build box.
It's probably, I'd say 50, 50, but it's hard to get an exact count. We've certainly tried and think Bluefield probably did a better job than we did so.
[00:26:04] Speaker C: Well. Good. So now it seems to me that from what you were saying, that for the real mega projects, the traditional approach is better, or for the large projects, collaborative delivery is better.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: Well, we don't really take a view on what we like. We are still focused on the best project outcomes. What. What we've observed is it's really hard to tackle a tough, complex project without having all of the responsible parties at the table, meaning contractors and designers. And that in many cases, the project's potential risks and performance outcomes or objectives are such that the owner really wants to put some performance requirements in there and then get some guaranteed outcomes. And so those have tended to be the larger projects, just observationally, but they don't have to be. The California statute, SB991 lets you do a progressive design build down to $5 million, which I would. I would call, in our world, a relatively small project. The largest progressive design build that's out there is the north plan in Houston is pretty close to 2 billion. So I think if you're between 5 million and 2 billion, it's probably in the window. So that's a pretty broad window.
I see it driven more by risk allocation and knowledge and willingness of the owner to.
And statute driving some of it. State statute, yeah.
[00:27:40] Speaker C: What about. Does it matter if you're a large utility or a small utility? What's.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Well, that's a. Boy, that's a good question. I tell you what, I can give you an answer that says either one.
And you know, those who know me, I can speak out of both sides of a Bible without a debate point. But look, a large utility has the wherewithal to do the contracting and the risk allocation and all the things that go with shifting to a new delivery paradigm. They also are the moral equivalent of a battleship that's turning right? And so it's tough to turn the battleship. So take your pick on whether the driver is greater than the resistance for moving a large agency. I think once they get there, there's no doubt they usually stick there. Maybe they have a preference for CMAR design build at the end of the day based on how some of their projects have gone. But getting them there could be a big turn. A big turn in the ocean, smaller entities, which is where my personal client base is, they can turn on a dime. Right. The cultural shift in a 8,000 person service area is a lot different than 8 million. So that said, the resources, the ability to find a good contract, the ability to manage a contractor. I had an owner express to me his realization that he was sitting down in the negotiating table having done exactly one design build project where the very reputable design builder across the table from him had done about 100.
And so he felt that he might be at a disadvantage. And I don't disagree with him. So you really have balance on both ends of the spectrum.
And in our view it really comes down to organizational readiness, big or small, and less around the contracts and the procurement templates and all these things.
It's people management and cultural management, big agency or small.
[00:29:47] Speaker C: Got it.
So let's talk a little about projects themselves. So can you talk a little about collaborative delivery and how is it supporting, for example, one Water projects? Because those are, those are really hot.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah. One Water is, is a perfect example paradigm that parallels the adoption of collaborative delivery. And my, my take on it is it's about thinking differently and really blowing up paradigms that were perfectly good 100 or even 50 or even 20 years ago about water and wastewater and, and drinking water and even storm one off and the dynamic among the three major flows and then how you manage them.
That paradigm of how you manage the providers of design and construction and O and M and risk management is a parallel shift in thinking. And I think we are evolving in the water wastewater industry and in infrastructure as a whole to being willing to make those shifts instead of doing things the way we've always done them. I can't say that design build is particularly supportive or a better way to do one water projects than any other kind of technology.
But the mind shift in doing things a different way is the real cultural change that I see in adoption of technology, adoption of recognizing that wastewater is a valuable as an asset as potable water.
And the two are really the part of the same ecostream and that we get into.
If you touch the alliance contracting method that was popular in Australia, even the various entities that deliver this work have fuzzy boundaries. And so I think it's just representative of finally, maybe in the water world, which tends to be a little bit sheltered in my humble experience. And I'm not a, I'm not a planner, I'm not a designer, so I always sort of have this outsider look of geez, why aren't we adopting technology faster why are we adopting these contracting methods faster? Why aren't we, you know, why are we putting perfectly good water into a river and then taking it out and treating it to be drinking water?
All of these things to the person sort of looking, at least from my outset, from the outside looking in, start gelling like we're finally making some sense out of things. And I think I'm really actually very positive, despite all the craziness around infrastructure and spending, that this is all sort of coalescing into a unified whole, whether it's technology, contracting, delivery partner, you know, role, whatever. So got it.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: So let me ask you this. There's a lot of uncertainty so left when you may have heard that there are some tariffs that have been put in place.
That's.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Yes, I heard that.
[00:32:56] Speaker C: That's creating some uncertainty. And there's, you know, there's more uncertainty out there going on. How can collaborative delivery adapt to the changes that come along with all this uncertainty?
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I've got several ways to slice and dice this one. First is big picture. Someone just asked me on a training session, I just hung up on and one of the questions was, what's the latest political shenanigans going to do? And I think the risk is more around level of funding. The infrastructure bill under Biden was just the best pipeline of resources that anybody's seen since when I was 10 years old and the EPA started and clean Water Act. And so that has been in abundance and lots of growth and adoption of these delivery methods to handle that growth. So I see that the actual total amount of funding being the threat from what's going on, I don't see it in the implementation method. EPA historically has been very supportive in WIFIA especially, but also through SRF in whatever delivery methods the states want to do their game to do it, with an exception of some of the grant programs. And so I don't really see any particular threat along delivery method adoption versus overall funding stability.
When we get into the specifics of how to manage the stuff that's happening, I think collaborative delivery has proven itself to be particularly adept at providing the flexibility to manage changes that happens quicker, quickly. So since you don't have to go through this linear process of a design and a hard bin and then a construction contract, we are seeing, we've seen a huge supply chain disruption through Covid and crazy stuff happen with the commodity prices and escalation that frankly, I'm not sure tariff's gonna give that experience a run for its money. Right. And so while it's been painful.
The collaborative delivery platforms have provided the ability to talk and communicate and collaborate to get through these things. We've seen a lot of projects built through hard times here. Right. And so I fully expect that figuring out how to manage unpredictability around tariffs and changing costs are going to be continue to be in the agenda here. But frankly, when we couldn't hold prices for a day or two on steel or the long lead item on electrical was beyond a year or two, you know, what the heck, bring tariffs on, we'll figure it out.
[00:35:54] Speaker C: So collaborative delivery allows for a lot of flexibility and adapting to those uncertainties. So what are the risks that are the biggest things that utilities ought to think about when thinking about a collaborative delivery project?
And how do you derisk those risks?
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it all comes down to culture and leadership in the utilities. And so I don't think the risks are particularly different even as we potentially enter hard times.
What our research shown from the earliest days was if you have someone at a public utility who is the guide and advocate for more tools in the toolkit and the culture of the agency, or the utility goes along with it, and there's a genuine adaptation of the collaborative approach, whether it's, you know, the CMAR flavor or one of the design build flavors, you provide the framework to work through the problem and the challenge. We have a little part of our training where we show two people talking and.
And their thought bubbles, their respective thought bubbles align. Right. And so you can work through these issues. It's not pretty. The challenges aren't going away.
The prices are going to go up. But I think good, strong delivery teams with good leadership figure out how to get through them. When you have legacy roadblocks, whether it's, you know, some specs that have been around for 30 years that might not apply in this day and age, or some procurement or other types of policies that are embedded in legacy organizations that have not been sort of readjusted or sent to the chiropractor for straightening out. Straightening out.
Then you'll continue to have problems. So it's easy in my view, to say, oh, design build is a panacea or progressive, design build is best, or we're going to do SEMAR today. It's really around owners identifying their outcomes and then being willing to work with the industry who's really good at solving the challenges.
Yep.
[00:38:20] Speaker C: So how do utilities, what process do they need to go through to determine whether or not the collaborative delivery method is appropriate for the project? And then what would you recommend for utilities considering this collaborative delivery, well, I.
[00:38:42] Speaker B: Will give a shameless promotion for water. Collaborativedelivery.org, our website, we have a handbook. We're on our sixth edition and about three editions ago we moved the should we consider collaborative delivery Question to the first chapter. It used to be the second chapter. It used to be, here's all the delivery methods now pick one.
And we did a little mind shift there and moved it to here's your project.
What are your challenges on your project? And how do you define success for your project? And it's going to be different for every project, might be different for every project team. And it's not until you can honestly assess those desired outcomes and rank them that you can then figure out what delivery method might be appropriate to solve what you've defined as your challenges. But you have to go through some sessions on the couch, so to speak, as an organization, as a project team. And so we lay out a very high level process for doing that. Ask a lot of questions, define your objectives and your definition of success, rank them and then look at the delivery methods and figure out which ones might line up to your projects. But let's not put our thumb on the scale or color the outcome by looking at the delivery methods first. Let's look at the project challenges first.
And then I think you really need a good owner advisor because you know, as good as our book is, reading the first chapter won't get an owner there.
They need someone who's either one of our members or a good owner advisor, even not our members to help them through that decision process, align their objectives with this and also do the risk evaluation. It's the big difference between CMAR and Progressive Design Build is if you want to transfer equitably some performance risk, then you know, design build will be the route versus construction management at risk, which is a little more traditional in terms of the risk part of it risk allocation. But we do recommend a formalized process. It's going to be a little bit more extensive for a big utility and a big project than a smaller utility and a smaller project. But it's fundamentally the same process and it's my first test when I talk to an owner is the basic question is how will you define success on this project and work backwards from there.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Yeah, that's great advice. Lifman, You've been absolutely phenomenal today. I've really appreciated you sitting down and spending some time with me and sharing a little more about collaborative delivery. Do you have a leave behind message before we Say goodbye.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Well, owners out there, broaden your toolbox, leverage the resources. DBIA is terrific. We, of course, Water Collaborative Delivery association offer training and resources and, you know, essentially free materials procurement templates to owners. But despite all of the resource out there, I'd say talk to your peers who've had successful projects.
You can trust their experience.
You don't have to believe all the associations with letters in front of their names.
Talk to your peers and then start engaging with the community that's found success here. And I think every utility will find their own path, but I think choice is the name of the game in these delivery methods.
[00:42:06] Speaker C: Got it. So Lefwin, for those who want to find out more about you and your work at the Water Collaborative Delivery association, where can they go to get that information?
[00:42:14] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a really long URL, but it's easy to remember. Water collaborativedelivery.org we have an extensive training program including live events that are available for registration or owner specific events where we'll come to you and do training. We have our handbook, we have procurement guides, research reports, an owner advisor guide. Lots of material that if you, if you register or ask with a.org or.gov address, most of it's, I think all of it's really free to owners and start reading up and we'll see you at a training session or at a conference and we'll talk.
[00:42:58] Speaker C: Awesome. Well, Leftwin, thanks again. You've been phenomenal. Really appreciated the time and we'll talk to you again soon.
[00:43:04] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:43:06] Speaker C: Well, if you didn't learn anything from Leftwin's magnificent performance during that interview, then you probably weren't paying attention or you're just not being straight with me.
Left one was awesome. He's a virtual walking encyclopedia of collaborative delivery methods and I really thank you for your time. Left 1. Appreciate you coming on and sharing some of your knowledge.
Well, I'd love to know what you, the listener, thought about the interview. Please check out the Show Notes page for information and links on this episode. Just Google the Water Values podcast. Click the first link that comes up. That's our landing page on the Bluefield Research website.
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[00:45:22] Speaker B: You've been listening to the Water Values Podcast.
[00:45:24] Speaker C: Thank you for spending some of your.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Day with my dad and me.
[00:45:27] Speaker C: Well, thank you for tuning in to the disclaimer. I'm a lawyer licensed in Indiana and Colorado, and nothing in this podcast should be taken as providing literally legal advice or as establishing an attorney client relationship with you or with anyone else. Additionally, nothing in this podcast should be considered a solicitation for professional employment. I'm just a lawyer that finds water issues interesting and that believes greater public education is needed about water issues. And that includes enhancing my own education about water issues because no one knows everything about water.
