Deep Dive with Adam Way
Our Deep Dive series features our technical experts who give you an inside look at how we are solving complex infrastructure challenges for our clients from across the world.
This week, we are highlighting a program manager for technology and data center projects, Adam Way, from our Buildings + Places business. Adam and his team used their skills to deliver an expedited, mid-pandemic add/move/change program to upgrade facilities for one of our logistics clients. Launched at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020, the effort involved working simultaneously at over 60 sites in 26 states across the U.S.
A registered civil engineer with more than 20 years of experience, Adam works at the intersection of people and technology. His team spans all geographies and employs advanced yet simple technologies to deliver services ranging from site selection and due diligence through building prototyping, detailed design and operational overhauls.
He is well-versed in industrial site development engineering, general infrastructure and inter-company coordination. His team broke geographical and organizational barriers, tapping into expertise and resources from around the world to quickly stand up virtual and co-located teams of professionals to support this challenging, fast-tracked program.
Tell us about a project that has impacted or been a major highlight of your career?
It would have to be the 2020 multi-site logistics facility improvements for a global technology client, where we studied, planned and designed uniform upgrades at over 60 active facilities in a matter of weeks. The program was identified about four months before the Covid-19 pandemic impacted the U.S. and, keeping an eye on the global horizon, we knew we had to move fast and plan well.
We pushed both real and perceived boundaries with creative, responsible resource and pipeline management. The result was a geographically and culturally diverse project team with more in common than they knew they had at the onset. The lessons learned and values affirmed at this stage enabled us to quickly scale up a round-the-clock project team that included more than 600 AECOM field technicians, engineers and architects from across the world. Our team was under contract and working in the field within a month.
As part of this project, my team and I evaluated delivery fleet electrification and incorporation of photovoltaic technologies, improved the working conditions for the client’s employees, phased the construction planning to minimize client’s operational downtime, maximize revenue and enhance customer service.
We also established a “project toolbox” of client-facing KPI trackers that allowed us to plan and execute the work in spite of the challenges presented by the pandemic. Throughout this project, we demonstrated that we can quickly form talented teams and have systems in place to collaborate and respond to our clients’ needs. In short, this program formed the identity that we have today.
The lessons learned and values affirmed at this stage enabled us to quickly scale up a round-the-clock project team that included more than 600 AECOM field technicians, engineers and architects from across the world.”
What was a key challenge you/your team faced while working on this project? How did you solve it?
Executing a fieldwork-intensive program during the pandemic was a major challenge that we were able to turn into a major achievement. In March of 2020, we had dozens of people deployed in the field and suddenly the airports, restaurants and gas stations all shut down.
Our journey management, safety and contingency plans enabled us and our clients’ management teams to safeguard our employees and the project, making sound decisions based on risk, schedule and cost data in order to hit the standard. As a result, our employees remained safe in the field, knowing they knew they were supported by our Safety, Health & Environment (SH&E) officers, our human resources team and their own local business and operations leaders.
When the pandemic hit, we brought people home safely and were able to regroup. Within a few weeks, we formed a remobilization plan with the approval of AECOM and client executives — and despite the global shutdown — we ultimately delivered a successful program.
Executing a fieldwork-intensive program during the pandemic was a major challenge that we were able to turn into a major achievement.”
How has AECOM enabled you and your teams to cultivate the expertise needed to deliver the project — and future work like it?
AECOM’s unique combination of reinvestment into our people and technology drives our team’s expertise and capabilities across geographies. As a firm, we sponsor specialized training, mentorship, and team building within and across the thousands of organizational possibilities, so that we all can thrive. The 2020 multi-site program is one of many examples of the success of this readiness.
I participated in the 2018-19 Lift Program, one of AECOM’s executive readiness tracks and, coincidentally, our program group’s capstone for the year was a study in how to quickly assemble and mobilize our company’s major project teams amidst known and unknown headwinds — an example of firm-driven insight that proved to be fundamental in delivering the program for this logistics client.
This program, in fact, resulted in digital innovations that now drive quality workflows within our region and are being evaluated for standard adoption across AECOM globally.”
Focusing on our core value of Innovate, our company also represents and develops digital solutions to address our clients’ legacy, current and future challenges. The availability of enterprise-level technology subscriptions such as Power BI, ArcGIS and Autodesk Construction Cloud also plays a big role in advancing our work.
High-powered design and quality automation tools, along with dashboards like SmartSheets and AECOM in.SiteTM are part of our everyday workflows. This program, in fact, resulted in digital innovations that now drive quality workflows within our region and are being evaluated for standard adoption across AECOM globally.
How has this experience shaped your approach to future work?
There’s a saying that “great leaders create more leaders, not followers.” Working on this logistics program really accelerated the careers of the team members who spoke up with their best ideas — and had the resourcefulness and initiative to make them work. Many have taken on lead roles in comparable and even exponentially larger programs. It’s brought a real can-do, no-blame culture across our teams.
Years later, we’re using these same core values to answer our technology clients’ toughest questions around regional trends, geopolitics, and lingering supply chain and corporate real estate issues, including a multi-geography prototyping and bridging documents design project for a first-of-kind data center fleet. These aren’t just designs, they’re reliable, repeatable solutions that hold their value and relevance throughout complex, end-to-end client organizations.
We triangulate across our own regional and global design and decision hubs to expedite knowledge and culture transfer, regardless of the project’s origin and location. The success of the logistics program helped us expand our design and engineering capabilities and advance knowledge share among developing teams across all our geographies. We train, support and empower teams to propagate into self-sustaining operations.
Maintaining and strengthening these internal relationships allows us to connect with other parts of our global business doing the same work and pair them with each other. It’s another way we provide best-in-class client support, and collaborate and innovate to deliver for our clients.
Working on this logistics program really accelerated the careers of the team members who spoke up with their best ideas — and had the resourcefulness and initiative to make them work. Many have taken on lead roles in comparable and even exponentially larger programs.”
