Firm Size and the Design Team

It is a commonly held misconception that a larger firm will be able to produce more work at a faster rate. 500 doctors will cure more people than 50 could in the same time. However, architecture is not a "volume business" by its nature.

Think of an architectural project as if you were catering a large affair. First, while you may contract a company, you are really hiring the chef. Like cooking, architecture is largely affected not only by experience, but by talent - vision with a gift for visualization. Your catered affair may be 30 people or 300, but the head chef will make all the important decisions and prepare the most important dishes regardless of the scope.

Following our catering analogy is the event coordinator, our project manager. No matter how many coordinators a company has, as the client, you prefer to have only one of them working for you. Every time responsibility shifts, there is a chance that something may be lost in the translation. This event is important to you and the smallest of items matter when something happens only once in a lifetime.

Of course, when the day of the event arrives, someone must cook the food. A lot of work is done in a short time. But again, the number of people assigned to a single project has a point of diminishing returns. It may take a single chef 3 hours to create a soufflé, but it does not necessarily follow that 3 chefs could do it in 1 hour. The lead team members must be supported by a skilled staff. That staff may change to accommodate a specialized menu, but a small, tight, focused team can produce a great deal more in a great deal less time than a fleet of changing people which must be constantly managed and re-educated as they come and go from the project team.

If team members are skilled and have a support network based on unique talents and not quantity of hands, it takes about five or six people to produce a $30 million project. A $3 million project? About five or six people. The team can handle several projects simultaneously as the demands on time change throughout the various project phases. It's about quality and consistency. With more people, multiple unique teams can be developed to handle more projects and more specialized support skills can be added to the background. Our firm supports four to five unique teams, each of which handle several projects. More importantly, we keep our teams tight and talented. Less is more.

Factors of Deadline Management

The largest contributing factor of project efficiency is consistent team leadership. As the project moves from design to refinement to construction over a period of years, many of the client and project objectives are preserved only in the mind of the leader; passing comments in conversation, plans for future growth discussed over dinner, an understanding of the client's mission from initial design discussions or even the interview process. When the leader is involved from the beginning, the details are carried through in the final product.

The second largest factor in meeting deadlines and scheduling efforts is our accessibility to the client. We believe that the client is an integral part of the process. Meeting deadlines is about responding to clients and project issues promptly. The most important aspect of being able to meet deadlines is to create an environment of reasonable expectations and set appropriate goals at suitable time intervals. Like our habits, well-chosen deadlines can keep projects moving smoothly and successfully, while the poorly selected deadlines can short circuit decision-making processes that may negatively impact not only the design but the schedule.

Meeting deadlines comes down to good planning of an overall schedule and communicating project status on a regular basis. As the project proceeds, the client is not only informed of current status, but of the various opportunities and challenges that are present at that time. We give our clients the option of deciding which opportunities will be taken and what, if any, compromises are required in the overall schedule. Design meetings and job conferences as well as regular status checkups with clients assure that all members of the team are working together.