Five strategies of a successful project engineer.  In this video, I'm going to talk to you about the five key things that you got to do as a project  engineer if you really want to be successful.

And these videos do so well because you care about  your job you want to do well, and this information is great. So if you're into this, stay with us.

So yeah, let's go ahead and get started. I was a project engineer. I've trained probably thousands,  I'll just mention hundreds at this time. I love the position, and I learn from them a lot. Let  me talk to you about the biggest consideration, number one, ask more questions. However many  questions you're asking, multiply that by 10, and you're barely to where you need to be when  it comes to asking questions. Here's the key, and let me go ahead and draw this. The concept is,  if you're a project manager and you have a project engineer, you don't know what the project engineer  doesn't know. So if you get a question every now and then, great, but what about answering all  the questions? If I'm a project manager, I don't care about answering more questions because now I  know they know the right way. The other thing is, a project engineer, you think, if you have  assignment a that you get delegated that task, then you have to be done, start to finish, and  that's when you show your project manager and set eyes on it. That is not the way to do it, ladies  and gentlemen, you start and you get an iteration, and then you check in with the project manager,  get their eyes on it. Then you do another iteration, check in with the project manager,  get their eyes on it, multiple iterations faster, and you will get to the final product sooner,  and it will be more correct. You cannot assume that the project manager is too busy to train  you and mentor you, and if they say they are, you are 100 million, billion, trillion, gazillion  percent at the wrong company, because that person is a jerk monkey, and you don't want to be dealing  with them. They need to be mentoring and training you as a project manager. So ask more questions,  more iterations, faster, and it will make all the difference. Number two, this is a big one. Don't  disappear. Let me go ahead and draw you as a project engineer, and I'm not being insulting,  and I know you're gonna love my skills here, right? This is you at your computer and at your  desk. It's pretty clear. That's a pretty good I mean, come on, that's a pretty good sketch. Don't  disappear if you see that the PE is just always there, always typing behind emails. So don't  disappear behind emails. Don't disappear behind busy work. Don't disappear behind isolation. Don't  disappear behind introversion. Now I'm not trying to be offensive here. A project engineer  that disappears behind emails, busy work, isolation and introversion will not get promoted.  That is a fact. I don't care what they say, nobody else is in charge of their career. Nobody else is  in charge of digging in to find out how quality their work is. Nobody else is in charge of seeing  their inherent value. It is up to this person to be transparent, to communicate, to volunteer for  tasks, to be out in the mix, to build the team and to be out with a craft and to show their value  do not disappear. The worst thing that can happen to a project engineer is being victim to emails  and to then not show up. You should be stepping on your PMS toes. You should be out in the open  number three, like I said, step on the PMs toes if you've got a pm and he or she is jamming out  and doing these tasks, and you're a PE do not say, okay, these are my roles. I'm doing this the whole  job. No, you're not. I want the PMs toes to hurt once you've got these in order. Hey. PM, can I  do this? Hey? PM, can I run the next OAC meeting?

Hey. PM, can I do the next application, you get  my point. You start stepping on the here. Let me draw this. Your leg shouldn't be here. This is a  leg. Ladies and gentlemen, let's go ahead and just draw this is what I want to draw. Step on that  project manager's toes. I want your foot firmly on his toes or her toes. I need you to be taking  on these responsibilities so that you're learning and growing and improving in your career. That is  the key. Number four, you cannot be a good project engineer unless you're supporting the field. When  you're doing these assignments, when you're asking questions, make sure that you're always creating  flow to the foreman. Everything that we do is to really enable the foreman. Oh, real quick. Let me  draw this if you have a foreman, Assistant Supers, Project superintendents. Remember that  these people have a say in your promotions, in your career as well. Don't just silo over here,  like you're in a boys or a Girls Club. Get all of the information over here to the foreman, to where  the superintendent's like, I. It's my human over there like they're doing a great job. Always make  sure you're supporting the field. And remember, in the last video that we did, I talked to you  about how the focus of a project engineer is not RFIs and submittals and change orders and payoffs,  right? That's not the focus. The focus is, can you get a trade partner through the process of plan,  build, finish, and that means the buyout meeting, the pre mobilization meeting, the pre  construction or preparatory meeting, the first in place inspection, the follow up  inspection, and the final inspection. This is what we call the TP three, or the trade partner  preparation process. Hensel Phelps calls this a six step process, but make sure that you're  supporting the field, and you will be on your way to being an amazing project engineer, project  manager, because your position does not exist outside of the need to support the craft. That's  the perspective we have to get. And so number five is the trade partner preparation process. I want  you as an individual, to know how to do the buyout meetings properly. I want you to know how to queue  up the trade partners in the pre mobilization meeting. I want you to know how to run a pre  con or preparatory meeting to where we have the feature of work board, or we have the work  package ready for the cruise. I want you out in the field with the first portion of work. I want  you doing, follow inspections, final inspections, and reconcile any change orders and final  payment, be a master of this process, and you'll be jamming. And then number six, I say this to  everybody who's doing a good job, make sure that you have a personal organization system, and that  means that you have a leader, Standard Work Week planned out Monday through Friday, and you've got  your personal life planned in there. You've got your leader, standard work, the things that take  care of you and your career. You've got meetings in there, and that's your standard work. And  you also keep a to do list. And every day, when you start your day, you started out with a morning  routine, and you pull in your Leader Standard Work Items. Oh my gosh, that's such a good video. It's  time blocked properly. And then you pull in your most urgent to do list items. And you plan your  day, if you want to be a great project engineer and listen to me. Hope you're sitting down and you  want to say one to four hours a day, time block your day. Make sure that between every activity,  you have a buffer that has to be followed when you do something. Let's say this meeting. Plan  the meeting. Do the meeting. Finish the meeting right then and there. One Piece flow and do not  become a professional email typer. Email is for external communication. Only Stop it. You're going  to ruin your career and become worthless if you become an email PE or an email, PM, that's not  how we run things. Emails take 40 times as much time as normal internal communication systems  or phone calls or texts or a meeting out in the field. So keep a personal organization  system and stay balanced. We have personal organization planners for project engineers. But  I hope you've enjoyed these tips. We're going to put this into a Canva graphic for you and a blog  post. I hope you've enjoyed this video. On we go.