Operations Conference a boon for new District 2 employees            

For District 2 EITs Riley Bender, George Elliot and Marvin Ramirez, the 2017 Operations Conference was exposure to a lot of new ideas that can translate into better work processes and workflow back in the district office. That’s the goal of the conference — to share best practices that can be used across the state to do jobs easier and faster.

Each of the three — all of whom began with ITD Jan. 30 — had a unique set if takeaways from the conference:

Bender: Being a new employee, there was a lot of useful information presented at the conference that helped me get a general overview of how things operate at ITD. For instance, it was great to get an idea of where funding for our projects come from and learn about the "color of money" in "Project Funding 101" as well as how a project is justified from an economic standpoint.

During the "Project Management at ITD" session, I learned a lot about how to use PSS (Project Scheduling System) and particularly Microsoft Project. That’s one program I know I will be using in the near future. It was also good to find out there was additional training available for that and I will likely seek that out later.

I wish we would have had more time to go into more detail on some of the topics, such as the "Environmental Impacts on Projects" —we only got a brief overview of what we may see on a project, but there was no time to teach us what we would need to do if we ran into any of the issues.

I also think that hearing from the Associated General Contractors (AGC) about what we can do better to help them, and in turn help ourselves, was invaluable. I think that communication between contractors and the state is necessary for innovation to occur throughout our whole industry, not just here in Idaho.

Another great part about the conference was the ability to meet other people from around the state who work for ITD. For instance, I got to meet Travis McGrath, our new Chief Operations Officer and fellow lefty. That is an opportunity a new employee who works outside of headquarters would likely never have without something like this conference.

I almost filled my entire notebook — the only person who probably took more notes was Travis!

Elliot: For me, the most valuable topics covered at the conference were project funding topics. It was helpful to see the different sources of funding and some of the distribution process. I also saw a lot of value in the discussion with Wayne Hammon (AGC President) and guest contractors.

It was great to hear some perspectives from people other than ITD employees. That gives us a chance to see how outsiders view the department and allows us to see some potential means of improvement. VERY valuable!

The project management topic was interesting. I am somewhat familiar with Microsoft Project, but have not yet had an opportunity to use it on an ITD project, so some of the discussion was somewhat unfamiliar.

I also found the "Public Records requests" interesting and important, but it seemed incredibly brief. It would have been much more effective with a larger block of time to go into more explanation and depth."

Ramirez:  Here are some of the highlights of the conference for me:

- It helped in meeting new people from the HQs and other districts
- It helped us get familiar with them and will help when working on different projects in the near future (ideas, guidance, etc.)
- It engaged the district (D2) design and construction team in knowing more about each other through activities.
- Presentations were very informative, especially for us (new EIT employees):
- Information about how the horizontal career path will work:
- Gave us an idea about which direction we need to go.
- Trainings we need to obtain.
- Information about project funding:
- Described where money comes from for ITD projects and how funds are distributed and handled.
- Provided information about Highway Design Standard and Engineer's Estimates:
- Told us how to access average unit prices for items based on different type of projects for future projects.
- Showed us how they come up with estimates.

For new EIT employees like me, the conference was really informative. I was able to learn new skills that I can put into practice.

 

Published 04-14-17