I’m honored to have been selected a judge for the Engineering News Record Best Projects of 2011. ENR is the top construction magazine in the world, delivering in-depth coverage on innovative projects, pricing trends, overall economy trends and stories about the people who push the business forward. The Best Projects of 2010 shows the diversity of the projects they cover.

For this year’s projects, the 24 judges will rate about 80 projects that have already won regional honors. Then the judges will discuss the top vote getters and try to agree on the most impressive projects in the USA in 2011. When I look at the judges from last year, I feel like, to borrow my father’s phrase, a bastard at a family reunion. I’ll give it my best, though.

I’m enjoying studying the project details as I work through the rating process. I glean some ideas that could help us all. For example, Cape Corral, FL had tremendous population growth with no water and sewer upgrades. They were in a crisis. They had thousands of customer complaints each year and were failing regulatory requirements. The decision makers opted to go with a Design/Construction Management at-risk concept that had a guaranteed maximum price and shared savings. The seven year project produced 740 miles of pipe, 240 miles of roads and 34 wastewater pump stations. That’s a mega-project.

What impressed me most, though, was the Design/CM team‘s attention to customer communication and satisfaction. The CM set up a 24/7 telephone hotline available to the 23,000 utility customers. The CM tried to communicate their intentions and their struggles in many different ways, from door hangers to emails. After the project, an astounding 83% of the customers approved the way the work was done. The project was completed early with $26M in cost savings.

I noticed that they included keypad entry systems for the buildings, the kind of upgrade that tells me the CM was operating with the customer’s best interests in mind. I love to see innovative project delivery methods that work.

Another project also had an innovation that impressed me. The DiMenna Classical Music studio was renovated in Manhattan and the designers dealt with lots of hoitytoity musicians with opinions about everything. As an example, the musicians were positive they needed 100 foot-candles of energy inefficient halogen lighting. The designers did some mock-ups and testing and determined that 60 foot-candles with a mix of metal halide and halogen lights satisfied the musicians. So the Owner got lower installed costs and lower operating costs. That happy outcome occurred because someone was willing to put forth the extra effort and to go beyond the perceived design requirements.

As you think about how you do your job, ask yourself, “Do I push for the best solution, even when it makes more work for me or do I just go for the easy answer?” Those that do the extra work see increased success. It’s harder and more fun.