Design Manager: design management plan-effective meeting management

Design Manager: Design Management Plan-effective meeting management is the fifteenth 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 and is it a project or firm design management plan? The key functions of the design management plan in practice. Adding to that What needs to be managed in a firm in practice. This article is the tenth article on building and writing a design management plan.

In this article, I will discuss and illustrate what design managers focus on in running the meetings in the firm. What factors do design managers need to identify in the design management plan to ensure the successful delivery of high-quality work of the running design project? What types of meetings are there within the architectural design process?

First of all, here I need to identify the importance of meetings in the architecture firm operations.

The importance of meetings in architecture firm

The key four important elements of the meetings are:

Information transfer: In general, the design manager transfers information from high-level organization to lower level related to architecture work, data received related to projects, information from sub-consultants, authority, and government-updated rules and regulations.

Reporting problems: design managers are responsible for solving team technical, social, and communication problems. For that, they prepare reports for the higher manager either to take action or for information and records. Problems come also from external meetings with clients and sub-consultants.

Receiving instructions: depending on the level of the meeting within the organization chart design managers attend meetings with higher levels to receive admin, project-related, and staff review-related instruction for application. Design managers also chair meetings with the design team and sub-consultants to pass work-related instructions for application.

Updates on ongoing projects: design managers receive updates from clients, other teams like the structural team, MEP teams design design-related update information that needs to be reflected on the project and to study its effect and revert the results to other team members.

In practice, professional organizations circle in their publications that there are two types of meetings in practice without identifying what are they. The two types are internal and external meetings. Figure 1 shows the internal meeting environment and gathering.

Figure 1 shows the internal meeting environment and gathering.

What types of meetings are there in architecture firm operations?

The architecture firm’s operations include occasional meetings to smooth its work internally and externally. Meetings include from the highest level:

Organizational meetings: are conducted between the front-line operation managers. These meetings either have a fixed schedule or are called for on-demand and when required. The general manager meets finance, admin, design, and supervision teams in a scheduled timeline within the project operations. In many cases, the general manager meets with managerial staff on the site or with clients and organizations (authorities).

Client meetings: kick-off project start meetings include most of the senior-level staff related to the project. A scheduled meeting for attendance is conducted within the project operations with the design manager and other project engineers and architects at the senior level.

New clients and presentation meetings: In the architecture firm operations the firm approaches developers, owners, and real estate companies to present either a proposal or to present the company profile to expand company reach and connections. These staff include the design manager, director level, and presentation staff architects, and others. Business development managers and marketing staff are the base of these meetings.

Administration meetings: design managers are informed about administration issues like staff evaluation and some critical decisions, the financial status of the project costs, and other decisions of company reduction in staff or expanding business.

Project progress meetings: all architecture teams and other project design teams meet on the scheduled timeline to discuss the project progress and related matters like obstacles, actions to take, achievements, staff performance, new team members required or reduction, and project timeline.

Coordination meetings: within the phases of the architectural design process coordination meetings are required at a specific time. Meetings are conducted in the preliminary phase and every stage of the architectural design till the construction phase meetings. Within the design process, various changes and adjustments are made to all the disciplines and these are informed in the coordination meetings for consideration.

Staff evaluation meetings: in the architecture firm all high-level staff give reports yearly to the director level on staff performance details such as work quality, social relations, staff development, work operations requirements, and compliance. Figure 2 shows the business meeting environment and type of staff.

Figure 2 shows the business meeting environment and type of staff.

How do design managers run meetings?

Before the meeting

• Prepare an agenda related to the subject of the meeting.
• Make sure that all attendees are aware of the meeting’s purpose.
• Only invite people who need to be there.
• Distribute the agenda and any accompanying documents in advance.
• Anyone unable to attend should communicate their apologies.

During the meeting

• The meeting chair (design manager) walks through each item on the agenda.
• Each item on the agenda is resolved through open discussion, concluding, and agreeing on an action.
• The chairperson should manage the interruption or discussion that wanders away from the agenda.
• The meeting should start with items that could be resolved quickly, to establish a sense of peace and accomplishment.
• The design manager should appoint a member of the meeting to take notes.
• Confirm all decisions and allocate responsibility and timescale for application.

After the meeting

• Member of the design team responsible for taking notes to prepare minutes of meetings and circulating them to all members.

Finally, the design manager prepares a detailed plan of all types of meetings in an application schedule regularly to enhance the quality, knowledge, and skills of the design team.