Best Practices

09/26/05 LEAP by Design: The Leadership, Empowerment and Accountability Program The future success of your firm is linked to how well you manage and motivate your employees as well as hold them accountable.
09/26/05 Designer Compensation: How Important is Money, Really? As the economy grows stronger and the range of new work expands, there is a renewed focus on the importance of attracting and retaining qualified staff. In the scramble to attract and keep top talent, compensation once again becomes a much-discussed topic for both employers and employees. Robert Smith
09/08/05 Firms Report Fees, Profits Edging Up This headline is not a mistake. *DesignIntelligence* is currently conducting research on the growth rates at several hundred firms in the United States and Canada. James P. Cramer
09/08/05 DI’s Firm of the Month: HKS CEO Ralph Hawkins Speaks out on Growth, Recruitment, BIM Technology, and the Future
09/08/05 Confronting Commoditization Commoditization is a big, handwringing topic that conjures up any number of nuisances in the path of what should be an enjoyable professional practice. In this era of rampant consumerism, still no one wants to pay more than is necessary for goods and services. [Admit it, dear reader, neither do you. Or me.] Problem is, neither does anyone want to pay even reasonable fees for design and construction services. Not the private sector and certainly not the distrustful public sector. Joan Capelin
07/26/05 Deeper Strategic Thinking In the 10th anniversary issue of DesignIntelligence, I wrote an article titled “Why the Future Won’t Need Today’s Architects” that some of you thought was overly sensationalist. My point was simply that changing demographics, technology breakthroughs, and scientific discoveries will bring a new and challenging context for architects, designers, engineers, and their clients. The bottom line was that each leader and design organization must create a blueprint that goes beyond survival toward a new agile relevancy. James P. Cramer
07/26/05 Redesign Your Profits: Value-Based Fee Structure A brutal fact of reality for architecture and engineering firms is that prevailing pricing and compensation methods—setting fees on the basis of direct labor cost (whether selling hours on a time-and-materials or lump-sum basis)—provide only minimal profits for most firms.
05/26/05 Why the Future Won’t Need Today’s Architects What’s next for successful architecture, engineering, and design practices? This is the question we will explore more deeply in the upcoming months in DesignIntelligence. We believe that firms will not only be faster and smarter but also wiser and more independent. James P. Cramer
05/26/05 The Importance of Being Bucky (Buckminster Fuller) An Unorthodox Primer on How to Be Great. As a 20th century futuristic practitioner and iconic philosopher, “Bucky” Fuller was and is, an architect’s architect and a scientist’s scientist. Andrew Charles Yanoviak
05/26/05 Who’s on the Team? Rapid Role Changes in Design Ed. note: This is Gerry Hammond’s perspective on how design roles have changed in the past decade. Gerald S. Hammond

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