FMI Blog

past posts

Houston Market Done Deals – Movers & Shakers

Quanta Services Acquires Stronghold. Ltd. In July, Quanta announced the acquisition of Stronghold for $548...

Metrics and Musings: October, 2017

Lockers That Don’t Lock The title for this piece comes from a founding principle...

Board Members, Accountability, and Misguided Loyalty

Have you ever read a news article where directors are quoted giving a glowing endorsement...

FMI’s September Houston Update: Construction Has Character-Based Lea...

Among the most positive things that can...

CEO Derailment: The Warning Signs, Succession Pitfalls
Part 1

This is the first of a four-part series examining...

Cadre Coaching to Build Peak Teams

It is not one husky, but rather 12-16 dogs that make the 1,049-mile trek...

Houston’s July Metrics: Succeeding at Succession – Part II

Succeeding at Succession – Part II In this second...

Houston’s June Metrics: Succeeding at Succession – Part I

Succeeding at Succession—It Takes Time Senior executive succession planning...

Are You Losing Money From No Communication Strategy?

On January 9, 2007, Steve Jobs walked out onto the stage of the Macworld Convention....

Act Now or Wait Until Tomorrow?

I have studied multiple leadership models over the years but rarely find patience mentioned...

Plan for Contingencies, Execute Based on the Facts

The election was a big point of uncertainty and contention. With that behind us, many...

The Isolated Executive: Four Ways to Avoid the Executive Bubble

There is often a sense of mystique about the...

The Reengineering of the Design and Construction Industry: Getting You...

While design and construction functions are becoming...

Making Your Company a Better Place for Everyone to Work

They say that construction and engineering are male-dominated fields, but is that really the whole...

Five Reasons Why Millennials Are Great For The Construction Industry

Much has been written about millennials and how they...

The Big Shift in Construction: Moving from Talent Training to People E...

The fact that most construction firms are...

Getting Paid: How to Avoid Cash Flow Issues in Today’s Business Envi...

Any principal of a construction firm will...

Four Ways to Engage Your Employees to Build Loyal Clients

Today’s business environment is very different from six years ago when the pace of economic...

Navigating a Clear Path to Successful Ownership Transfer

While there are no cookie-cutter solutions for ownership transfer, there are some viable strategies to...

Creating the Discipline of Execution

In their book “Execution, the Discipline of Getting Things Done,” authors Larry Bossidy and...

5 Reasons Why Feedback is Crucial in the Workplace

In today’s team-based, fast-paced work environments, the ability to communicate effectively over several channels and...

Eight Characteristics of Agile Leaders

The race to cultivate and transition leaders into executive positions is on. Is your...

Five Ways to Get Your Compensation Systems in Order

Is it easy in your market to recruit and retain top estimators, project managers and...

8 Ways Construction Firms Can Plan More Strategically For The Future

For many firms, financial regulators, and homeowners, the most...

Building Your Digital DNA: Five Key Steps

Today’s new technologies allow industry professionals to link up and share project knowledge across integrated...

Your Hotline: Building a Better Reporting Mechanism

A strong corporate culture and open lines of communication go a long way when it...

Three Key Ingredients of an Accurate Cost-to-Complete Estimate

Trade contractors live and die by their ability to...

Six Things You Need to Know About Public-Private Partnerships

Through in-depth interviews with more than a dozen public-private...

Six Global Trade Strategies for Today’s Engineering and Construction...

A relatively new concept for many U.S....

7 Ethics Best Practices for Construction Firms

Driven in part by regulatory pressure, ethics programs are gaining prominence within firms whose leadership...

The Data Sprint: Construction Can Catch Up!

It’s all around us. Doctors are looking at patterns of effective care; retailers are watching...

Is Your CEO Culturally Intelligent?

Whether they are large public businesses or small, family-owned startups, successful construction companies have...

Must-Have Skills for Today’s Leading CEOs

When companies go looking for a new CEO, they either turn to professional search firms...

Your Next-Generation Leaders: Are They Ready?

Many construction leaders assume that leader development and succession issues have blown over since the...

Full Speed Ahead for 2016

With the Federal Reserve Board raising fund rates, fuel at historic lows, and consumer...

Construction Materials

Small, strategic, bolt-on acquisition and corporate divestitures dominated M&A activity in 2014 in the...

America's Energy Transformation: Petrochemical Manufacturing's 21st Ce...

Based on exciting trends for the petrochemical...

Adapting to the “New Normal” in Oil and Gas Construction

How the Market Will Endure Growing Regulatory, Labor and...

Is Copy-and-Paste Compliance Enough?

An issue that is becoming an ever-increasing challenge in the oil and gas industry...

Developing Your Personal Social Media Strategy

The Internet has given individuals the power to create their own personal brand. We now...

Why Strategy Matters in the Oil and Gas Industry

What separates great companies that can consistently achieve high performance over a long period of...

Six Steps to Successful Management Succession

When leadership transitions from one generation to the next, the resulting transfer of power, influence...

The Truth About What It's Like Being a Millennial in the Workplace

Millennials have once again been trending in the news,...

Three Reasons to Embrace an Offensive and Defensive Risk Management St...

Construction projects are always unique and carry...

Nonresidential Construction Index Dips in Q3

The great man of letters and champion of reason, Voltaire might have been talking about...

What I Wish Someone Told Me When I Was 25: a Note From Cynthia Paul

For those of you that do not know Cynthia...

Will Falling World LNG Prices Slow Down the U.S. LNG Boom?

The advent of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the United States has fundamentally changed...

We Didn't See It Coming: Strategy and Scenario Planning

We all have experienced problems in the workplace where a quick decision needs to be...

Have Oil & Gas Infrastructure Valuations Peaked?

With more than 330 billion in capital expenditures to be conducted over the next four...

Great Construction Operations: Bridging the Silos

Done correctly, effective business leaders know that sustainable operational excellence in construction can create a...

Nonresidential Construction Index Fourth Quarter 2013 Highlights

After hitting its highest marks in the last two...

FMI’s 2013 Prefabrication and Modularization in Construction Survey

According to FMI’s 2013 Prefabrication and Modularization in Construction Survey, only 40% of all...

Partnering for Profitability

Since the design and construction industry embraced the partnering concept almost 25 years ago,...

If You Want World Class Operations, Focus on the Foreman

What sets world-class contractors apart from average and struggling contractors? World-class contractors all have incredible...

Tenets of Transfer

FMI’s Investment Banking Group has assisted thousands of contractors in planning and executing the...

Construction Estimating Software UserView, 2013

Software Advice, a company that helps people find the right software for their companies, recently...

The Basics of Cost-to-Complete Forecasting

For the first eight months, the project manager had been telling them that it was...

Nonresidential Construction Index Third Quarter 2013 Highlights

The NRCI Index for Q3 of 2013 = 60.3....

The 25th Annual State-of-the-Industry Report

FMI recently released The 25th Annual State-of-the-Industry Report, which covers design and construction markets for...

FMI’s Second Quarter Construction Outlook, 2013

The improvement in residential construction is the primary area of growth in our latest forecast....

Help Software Advice Evaluate the Effectiveness of Estimating Software

I was asked by Derek Singleton, managing...

NRCI Second Quarter 2013 Highlights

“I think I can. I think I can,” said the Little Engine that Could....

Adding Science to the Art of Leader Selection

When the time comes to select a new leader, difficult questions arise, such as whether...

Assess Your Leadership Pipeline

Succession planning is a continuous and systematic process that should be tied to the...

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