AE Blog - Training to Avoid Professional Liability Claims Made Easy

I’m writing to let you know about a really easy way to train all of your Project Managers about things they need to know to help them avoid professional liability claims.

During the last five years of my full time employment, every weekly staff meeting was started with a Safety Topic.  I was amazed at the effect that weekly emphasis on safety had on all of us, both at work and at home.  As I got into the training of engineers and architects in the area of minimizing professional liability claims, I found that most design professionals really don’t like to think about professional liability very much; that is, until there is a claim, then they have to think about it a lot and wish that they had been more sensitive to those issues that influence the likelihood of a claim while they were doing the design.  That prompted me to apply the Safety Topic model to this problem.  Each week for a year, I sent out a topic relating to professional liability to each of my 400 or so contacts.  The weekly e-mails were well received and I’m confident were beneficial.  When I wasn’t satisfied with the number of folks that I was reaching with the e-mails, I wrote a book entitled “A Guide to Managing Engineering and Architectural Design Services Contracts” to reach a wider audience.  The book has been very well received in the printed (see Look Inside feature) format (less than $20 + S&H) and is now also available for download as an eBook ($9.95) from Amazon.com.  The book may also be purchased in quantity directly from me.

Those who are responsible for training have indicated that the information in the book would be beneficial if known by every project manager.  The problem becomes one of getting the information from the pages of the book into the mind of the project manager since most are really busy managing their projects and feel that they don’t have time to read a book.

So, here is the plan: Put a copy of the book in each profit center and encourage briefly mentioning one of the more than fifty topics in the book at the weekly staff meeting.  This would accomplish getting the information into the minds of project managers and would have the dual benefit of having a regular reminder to be aware of these topics while they are in the design/construction process.  At the end of a year, everyone that attends the staff meetings would have been trained in the topics and reminded to apply them as they go along.  I can only imagine the enhanced efficiency that could result from having this level of knowledge throughout your company!

Let me know what you think about this idea or if you have questions.

Best regards,

John M. Lowe, Jr., P.E.