Managing Design

Preface

It's Time

Managing design is an oxymoron but can be done – by those who want to and know how. This is a book for readers who seek to fulfill those conditions – one that explores the hearts and souls, minds and processes of design and construction collaborators. What core issues create this conundrum? Why is it so hard for designers to grapple with the constructs of budget and schedule control? How can team members understand one another better to mutually intensify the value of their teamwork? These decades-old questions have resurfaced with the convergence of pressures such as more participants, growing complexity, and hyper-track schedules.

In the thirty years since Chuck Thomsen's Managing Brainpower books were published, we've seen significant change in the design and construction industry. In the span of these decades, technological change such as the advent of CADD and BIM, and new contracting approaches like Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), have had dramatic impacts on design practice and the ways projects are delivered. Who could have imagined virtual meetings, Web-based access, remote computing, and the schedule compression and new collaboration forms we've witnessed? In the last few years, Randy Deutsch has addressed this change and looked to the future of practice. In the foreword I've asked both to link past to present to frame current industry challenges.

What challenges are inherent in managing design? To begin with, centuries-old cultural norms – the ...