Design manager: design management plan-managing multiple projects

Design Manager: Design Management Plan-managing multiple projects is the eleventh article of a series of articles about design management in architecture practice. I have discussed in the previous articles what is design management, who is the design manager in practice, what a project or firm design management plan, what are the key functions of the design management plan in practice, what needs to be managed in a firm in practice, and this article is the sixth article on building and writing a design management plan.

The design management plan includes managing multiple projects in the architecture firm. The firm takes on projects whether directly hired by the owner, developer, third party, or sub consultancy. These projects vary in size, work requirements, value, and profit. Managing multiple projects means understanding firm resources, ICT, and employee skills, which will contribute effectively to pushing forward projects to achieve their milestones and successful delivery.

Two characteristics affect the achievement of reaching project goals and successful handover.

Priority is the main character of many projects that an architecture firm takes on or is awarded. Either the project is a government project that a firm does not want to lose as a valuable client that passes jobs from time to time. The project is subject to a schedule and timeline connected to a bank loan and fund that require urgent work and fast delivery. The project is an EPC, engineering-procurement-contracting, project in the whole process of design and construction is linked together in a specific timeline and a delivery time that has been decided by a high official or VIP person or a high-value project like the Abu Dhabi International Airport that I worked on in 2014. In some cases, the project is a high-priority project but does not have much value and has less income for the firm and that causes lots of stress on the firm in terms of extra work and more payments to employees when the firm is overloaded with projects.  

Value is the character related to the size of the project, its esteem, fee and income, and overall contribution to the smooth running of the firm. Firms understand that their capacity is linked, as mentioned, to the available ICTs and the number of staff. I have discussed in previous articles that firms tend to specialize in types of projects like hospitality, hotels, and resorts, that require a large, specialized team of engineers, architects, planners, urban designers, and landscape architects. Infrastructure projects like sewage treatment plants, district cooling plants, roads and highways, sewage and electrical networks, and specialized industrial projects like oil and gas projects also require a large team of engineers and planners. These types of projects bring high income and firms continue to take the same projects always as it is valuable projects in terms of benefits that cover all expenses and all company overhead for the long run.

In many cases, firms take jobs like high-rise buildings because it contributes to the firm capabilities in providing innovative architecture and creative work. Day by day the firm builds a team of architects and engineers that can take more load based on the previous experience in running one project in terms of time, staff number, and revenue obtained. The firm in this way could overlap and create gaps so that the design manager can move his resources, and employees, from one project to another or assist in other projects. Attached is a sketch, figure 1, from my design management plan I submitted to a firm I was working with in 2014 showing the relationship between time and value and how projects are linked and managed all together.

To summarize this graph content the characteristics that have a significant effect on the ability of the firm to make a profit are:

• Small, High-priority, low-value:  these projects may help to fill a gap in capacity, but too many will place unnecessary burdens on the firm.
• Large, long-term, high value: these are the targets of many large-scale firms, they provide stability, and continuous cash flow to business.

In practice, problems appear when the firm is actively working on various projects and different scales.

Now, what makes all projects go and run smoothly to their planned deliverables deadlines? Or what is the key factor that makes the design manager and the design management plan guide and run the projects to their planned goals and efficient delivery?

All clients regardless of their class developers or lower require the firm to respect their project submittal deadlines. Submitting the planned and required deliverables on time makes the client issue the phase payment on time. That is very important for smooth firm operations. If payments do not come on time and on the specified schedule that causes the firm to use the firm fund’s assets, reducing project revenue, and delaying other project’s progress and work. I experienced that when I was design manager handling a design management division in the UAE.

Thus, submitting the required deliverables on time for all projects means in practice the effective use of firm resources and how to use them within the design management plan, when managing multiple projects, to reduce the defects in running the projects smoothly. Assigning the proper, we will come to that in later articles about resources, teams of engineers, architects, planners, urban designers, landscape architects, and so on is the key factor for the effective delivery of submittals on time for each project. The firm to receive their payments on time smoothly. Increasing revenue and reducing repeated work on projects. Satisfying clients for high-quality management, work, and deliverables, and achieving client goals will increase the possibility of the firm obtaining more jobs without relying much on marketing individuals or assigning a marketing agency.

The design manager in the design management plan to consider two techniques in the process of managing multiple projects to overcome delays in submitting the project’s scheduled deliverables on time when managing multiple projects. For every project especially for large developers and clients, their projects are subject to review in every stage of the design period. The client at the large scale will have various departments to review the submittals from engineers, architects, QS, and so on. Mostly the submittal review is between two weeks to three weeks. This period is used to shift and mobilize the project staff to handle other projects in their hand to speed up delivery for other projects or to assist other teams on other projects. Shifting and reorganizing the team members from time to time, whenever required, between all projects is another key technique to manage the delivery of project deliverables on time. All that is based on the full study, analysis, and understanding of employee’s skills, capabilities, and capacities to accomplish required work on time (we will come to that in later articles).