Design Firm Management & Administration Report

The key question A/E firm managers ask about their best employees is: “How can I possibly keep them here, when there is so much competition today in the design professions for good people?” Every manager struggles with the issue, and good solutions are rare. To help, DFMAR has uncovered 11 practice-proven pointers from someone with vast experience as an HR professional—Trish Jacobson, vice president for HR at the Inter Valley Health Plan (Pomona, Calif.; 909-623-6333; e-mail: pjacobson@ivhp.com):

The use—or rather, misuse—of cell phones can have costly consequences for A/E firms. Just ask the partners at Smith Barney, who recently shelled out $500,000 to settle a lawsuit involving cell phone use. A/E firm managers should protect their firm with a written risk-management policy that details what’s expected of architects, engineers, and staff while working away from the office. What to include: In the car …

Today’s participants in your firm’s 401(k) plan expect more from their statements than simply beginning and ending balances and a summary of activity in each account. That’s because 401(k) plans are much more complex than they once were, with a wider selection of investments from which to choose and numerous occasions to change contribution levels and investment choices. On top of that, increasingly savvy employee-investors realize that a growing percentage of their retirement income will depend on their own decisions rather than the firm’s, according to Patrick Walsh, senior vice president and director of Merrill Lynch’s Group Employee Services (Princeton, N.J.; 606- 282-4089). To do this, he says, your architects, engineers, and staff want guidance in tackling the big question: Will I have enough money for retirement?

Finding skilled managers to run projects continues to stymie A/E firms, according to DFMAR’s 1999 Design Firm Management Survey. Typical of respondents’ comments is this one from a $2.6-million firm in the Southeast: “One of the most difficult tasks is to identify professional technical people who are well-rounded with technical, leadership, and marketing skills. Desire and initiative are key and somewhat rare qualities.” Others, as you can see from this sampling, echoed these concerns:

Information architecture—using architectural design methods to design and produce informationdelivery systems—offers A/E firms new design opportunities and new sources of revenue. That’s the way it looks to Giles Jacknain, staff member of the AIA’s economics and research department, writing recently on the AIA’s Web site (http://www.e-architect.com/news/research/articles/infoarch.asp ). Because successful graphic design of Web-based information sites relies ever more on spatialdesign concepts, clients are looking for information architects who can meet their design needs, he states.

A/E firm managers view information technology as a vital tool. But they’re sometimes overwhelmed by its complexity, the need to train staff, and the unrelenting pressures to keep up with new products and upgrades—which seem at times to happen every Monday morning. The recent presentation by Kristine Fallon at AEC Systems made a strong case for outsourcing many IT functions. Fallon, an architect and influential expert in the computerization of design firms, is principal at Kristine Fallon Associates, Inc. (Chicago; 312-641-9339; e-mail: kfainc@kfa-inc.com). Fallon pointed out the following findings:

When did you last chomp at the bit while a major project that you hoped would raise your firm’s profile ran into a mandated public-approval process, with its vast array of time-consuming steps? On the other hand, have you ever had a project where you anticipated public hostility, only to find the approval process helped to sway people and enabled the project to sail through on time and on budget? The trials and benefits of public approval are the subject of a survey of some 700 A/Es, developers, public officials, realtors, and other players. (For selected comments, see the sidebar, “Four Opinions.”)

Clients have eyes, ears, and self-esteem. How you carry yourself when making a presentation at a client interview can single you out from your competitors or drop you out of contention. Here are some tips on what to do and what not to do, as compiled and presented at the 1999 AIA convention in Dallas by Joanne Linowes of The Corporate Media Group (Westwood, Mass.; 508-359-1011). The top priority when presenting at an interview or when giving a lecture, Linowes says, is to project an attractive vocal image. She urges you to follow these tips:

A/E firm administrators and managers curious about what their peers consider significant in today’s practice can turn to the findings of a recent survey by Kermit Baker, AIA’s chief economist. Number 1 on the top-10 list is electronic construction documents (CDs). More than half (52%) of the firms that took part in the AIA Work-on-the-Boards surveys cited electronic CDs as an asset and also as a potential source of confusion and occasional enemy of prompt decisionmaking (see the figure, “Top 10 Emerging Trends”).

Have you ever felt that a project was moving along swimmingly, perhaps with only a small snag here and a hitch there, when suddenly an official-looking letter lands on your desk with a state court letterhead and the title “Complaint: Index Number 1000” splashed across the top? Chances are that those snags and hitches were more serious than you thought, or at least they seemed serious to your client. How you detect the warning signs, what you can do to deal with them, and what can happen en route to a possible trial were covered this fall in a seminar offered by Donald L’Abbate and Douglas

Proposals take so much time to write—and time is often so short—that you are always sorely tempted to pull sections out of other proposals (ones that won and ones that didn’t), tweak them a bit, and plug them into the current document. If you give in to this temptation, be careful! Using boilerplate is a quick fix that more often than not will fail—in great part because the client will notice what you are doing, and that sends a clear message along these lines:

Knowing which markets to enter and which to quit is one of the benefits of reading construction forecasts. They can answer such questions as: ! Do your services match the projected demands of the construction market? ! Are you correctly positioned in that market? ! How should you mold your business development to take best advantage of pending economic scenarios?