Final The Risk in CM At Risk - cmaanet.org.pdfVIP

THE RISK IN CM “AT -RISK” BY WARNER STRANG INTRODUCTION The objective of professional construction managers should be to give their clients the best possible experience with design and construction, without endangering their own firms and families. The focus of this article is to describe how a construction manager can improve an Owner experience by accepting the transfer of some cost risk, without endangering the relationship of trust, or the CM ’firms’ financial footing. In the last thirty years, public agencies in the United States have won the right to use a method of construction contracting that engages a construction manager early in or prior to the design process. It uses that entity to manage the project until its completion. The construction manager is an agent of the Owner in managing the design process, but takes the role of a vendor when a total cost guarantee is given. Many professional construction managers are leery of this change of role, and resist being placed “At-Risk”. The traditional system of public construction in the United States requires the selection of an architect who prepares complete plans for lump sum bids by general contractors. The development of construction management can be seen as a moral revolution against the poor performance of the traditional system1, or as a natural extension into the public sector of practices that had improved work in private construction since the end of World War II2 . Regardless of whose writing of history is correct, with the advent of CM At-Risk owners on public projects now have the option to be protected from cost overruns beyond a certain point in the project, in exchange for some worries. The objective of this paper is to pick those worries apart, and suggest some ways to alleviate them. In choosing the CM At-Risk method there are some pote