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P R O F I L E
Conference call: Matt Burns President of Burns Engineering (Hot Firm #88 for 2015), a 220-person firm based in Philadelphia.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
“T he downside of the seller/doer model is that staff often likes the doing more than the sell- ing,” Burns says. A CONVERSATION WITH MATT BURNS. The Zweig Letter: The list of responsibilities for project managers is seemingly endless. How do you keep your PMs from burning out? And if they crash, how do you get them back out on the road, so to speak? Matt Burns: Project managers have the toughest jobs in the company.They are juggling a lot of things at all times. They’re the quarterback on every proj- ect. We try not to overload and to communicate as much as possible to make sure all is on track. We also have three levels of project managers. The first group works on legacy accounts – those that practi- cally run themselves. The second group is mid-lev- el project managers and the third group are upper level and these folks have the greatest sales goals. There’s no secret formula. We just do our best to understand their workload, have weekly/monthly
meetings about workload planning and share re- sources as needed. Our culture is one that encour- ages working across department lines. We have a strong team culture and keep backbiting at bay. TZL: The talent war in the A/E industry is here. What steps do you take to create the leadership pipeline needed to retain your top people and not lose them to other firms? MB: The talent pool is somewhat limited right now and we’re focused on not losing anyone. The re- sponsibility of the management team is to identi- fy high potential employees and then help them to create an individual career plan for the future. We look to see who is ready to step up. It’s like building a farm team. We’re always working on our pipeline and try to have conversations about the future as often as possible. We also have a matrix planning grid. We’re good at it – not great. TZL: As you look for talent, what position do you most need to fill in the coming year and why?
Matt Burns, President, Burns Engi- neering
THE ZWEIG LETTER Ap
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