On Practice Management

From The AIA Center for Integrated Practice

Throughout 2011 CIP featured resources from a range of topics that address how architects and members of the AEC industry tackle the issues and opportunities facing practice today. Listen to the October 2011 featured podcast here!

On Practice Management: Introductory Article and Podcast

Raymond Kogan, AIA, is the 2011 Chair of the Practice Management Knowledge Community and President of Kogan & Company, a national A/E/C strategy and management consulting firm.  He currently serves on the Center for Integrated Practice Leadership Group.

Integrated Project Delivery: a mindset and a method
By Raymond Kogan, AIA

There are currently two schools of architecture and A/E firms: those that have engaged in integrated project delivery—either “pure” or a collaborative principle-focused variant—and those who haven’t…yet.

The qualifier is important; incremental change has already begun.  Despite the publicity and resources that surround the emergence of integrated project delivery, the firms that have executed an IPD project are still a relatively small minority.  The firms that have pioneered the principles of IPD—if not the contractual relationships—can teach five important lessons in the evolving face of practice.

1. Architects, for all that we like to think of ourselves as open-minded and receptive to change, and even being a catalyst for change, can also be innovation-crippling averse to risk.  Mindsets are formed over a long, long time, and habits run deep in firms and practitioners, especially as they relate to relationships outside the firm and especially as they relate to anything risk or risk management-related. IPD requires a mindset change, and that’s the most difficult change to effect.
2. However, mindsets can be changed.  Even when it’s not in its purest form, IPD has broadened the architect’s “loyalty” from his client to the overall project’s objectives.  Where conventional design-bid-build establishes loyalty to the owner/end user, and design-build most often directs it toward the contractor (in a contractor-led design-build project), IPD represents much more of an all-for-one, one-for-all mentality.  IPD reframes practice at a 30,000 foot view of the whole project, not just the architect’s contractual client; and, that has impact on the firm’s practice.
3. Once IPD and the concept of project collaboration emerge in a firm’s culture, it can become pervasive.  IPD principles can affect everything, from the way firms go about getting projects through marketing and business development; the way they contractually engage in projects in their proposals and ultimately their contracts;  to their design and production processes and, of course, construction phase activities. 
4. The collaborative principles of IPD are beginning to have an effect on architect’s attitudes toward owners, and even toward contractors.  Architecture firms that most want their staff and managers to be more receptive to the concepts of collaboration see the growing number of contractors that are embracing IPD as a healthy influence on the industry.
5. It’s human nature: a good experience engenders more similar good experiences; and a not-so-good experience makes people gun-shy.  Long-lasting attitude changes among team members after a project are naturally most common in projects where the collaborative spirit behind IPD is carried throughout the project.

The collaborative principles behind IPD have the potential to shake up—and improve—an industry notorious for adversarial relationships, as long as architects are prepared for it.

The Voice of CIP

Listen to the From CIP: On Practice Management Podcast on the AIA Pod Net and hear Ray Kogan, AIA, discuss the value of creating Best Practices to support components of IPD—collaboration, best-for-project thinking—that are broadly transforming practice.

Center for Integrated Practice Resources

IPD Family Contract Documents
Review AIA contracts designed for multi-party agreements.

Experiences In Collaboration: On The Path to IPD
This document represents the lessons and experiences of industry leaders and doesn’t indicate any recommendation of processes followed, but will provide project teams with useful insight into some of the opportunities and challenges facing the owner and the design and construction industry as they embrace this new delivery method. 

Additional Resources on Practice Management

AIA Best Practices

"Grow Up"
Ray Kogan explains that building up a firm in a time of economic crisis may be the smartest strategy for recovering from the recession—so long as it’s done the right way. Featured in ARCHITECT August 2011.