Summer 2005

The Cost of Quality
By Robert P. Smith, AIA
Design firms frequently establish their own internal baseline standards for quality. When these internal standards diverge significantly from client expectations, the firm is exposed to unnecessary costs. Here are some ideas to discover the optimal "cost of quality" for your firm, reduce unnecessary costs, and improve or maintain client satisfaction across the board.

Win-Win Negotiations
By Steve Wintner, AIA
The negotiation process is difficult enough, so give yourself the edge by investing the time to define your project cost, profit, the scope of services and deliverables included for each project fee proposal you submit. A win-win outcome is more likely to happen if you’ve done the necessary preparation for negotiating with all of your clients. Here's how.

Clarity and the Power of Expertise
By Jack Reigle
Firms that are solely design-driven occupy an enviable place in the profession. But what about the majority of design firms—those in the middle ground where design is valued but perhaps not the be-all of their existence? For these firms, the clarity of choosing market-driven expertise is the real path to success and higher profits.

Recent Changes in Project Delivery
By Michael Strogoff, AIA
While design-bid-build is still the delivery method most frequently used, many owners now favor methods that facilitate facilitate earlier communication and greater collaboration between the parties. In response, architects, engineers, construction managers, contractors, and specialty disciplines are forming more strategic alliances and offering cohesive teams.

Emerging Risks in Practice
From "Guidelines for Improving Practice," Victor O. Schinnerer & Co.
With fewer "traditional" projects, less separation of design and construction, digital design processes, and other changes design and construction professionals must reassess their preferred roles. They must also realize that their professional liability insurance needs to be broad to provide protection for an expanding range of services and responsive to the changing needs of the professions.

Prepare for Building Information Modeling
From "Guidelines for Improving Practice," Victor O. Schinnerer & Co.
BIM is leading to an even more complex phase of design, construction, and operation. As the construction industry (and the law) begins to deal with new BIM-related issues, the professional liability exposures are yet to be defined. Here are some of the issues to watch.

Letter from the Chair
By Andrea Cohen Gehring, AIA, LEED AP
The 2005 Advisory Group chair gives the Practice Management Knowledge Community (PMKC) a mid-term grade of A+ for activities and programs through the first half of 2005. The PMKC leadership is now gearing up for its 2005 fall conference, "Getting to Great."

Practice Management at the AIA 2005 National Convention
By Andrea Cohen Gehring, AIA, LEED AP, and Amy Yurko, AIA
The PMKC's annual Practice Management Breakfast included a stimulating discussion on leadership in practice with Gensler principals Walter A. Hunt Jr., FAIA, and R.K. Stewart, FAIA (who also was elected 2007 AIA president at the convention). In addition, the PMKC-sponsored preconvention workshop, "Managing Design: An Oxymoron for the Ages?" drew more than 100 professionals from a wide array of design firms and other companies and organizations.

AIA-AGC Joint Committee Meeting
By Amy Yurko, AIA
Issues related to building information modeling (BIM) dominated the discussions during the biannual meeting in Memphis of the Joint Committee of the American Institute of Architects and the Associated General Contractors of America.