Building Design Management

Colin Gray, Will Hughes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• ISBN:
  9781136424816
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

A practical handbook on the management of building design, this guide explains the processes, roles and responsibilities of those involved in the design of the building, as well as ways to maximise efficiency. Well structured and easy to read, the book includes useful notes and checklists on, for example, how to select a design team and how to organise and plan the design process. The authors are recognised authorities in the field of project management, based at an internationally renowned department. Their book will prove invaluable to both students and practitioners in project management.

Design management theory

1 Management and organization in design and construction

DOI: 10.4324/9780080500409-2

There are many ideas and concepts in the literature on organization and management that provide the context and background for thinking about how to manage work within a specific domain of activity. In considering how to manage the design process in construction it is useful to begin by reviewing some basic concepts from management thinking.

The idea of separating responsibility for managing from the responsibility for doing work is firmly entrenched in the management literature. This has been very effective in the management of industrial production processes, and can be traced back to Adam Smith and Charles Babbage, as shown by Hawk (1996). In construction, especially when using general contracting, the phenomenon is clearly visible in the separation of responsibility for designing from the responsibility for construction. It is given further focus because, historically at least, the designer has supervised the construction of the work. In practical terms, this has come to signify that design and management are two sides of the same coin. However, there is a great deal of evidence to support the idea that while it is important for designers to be the managers of the construction process, the management of the design process is something inherently different from the act of design. This is borne out in the RIBA Plan of Work, the new (draft) JCT Consultants' Agreement, and the Latham Report, all of which identify explicitly the two roles of designing and of managing.

Dumas and Mintzberg (1992) refer to an inherent danger embedded in the idea of design management. Although design is primarily undertaken by designers, decisions made by design managers may have a profound influence on what the designers do. This they call ‘silent design development’.

In the UK, the division of responsibility for design from the responsibility for construction is highly institutionalized and underpins a wide range of professional and commercial activity. This division was famously commented upon in the Banwell Report (1964) and is so well entrenched that even apparently integrated construction management practices split the running of their projects between their design managers and their construction managers.

This book is about the management of the design process. Before looking in detail at the problem of design management, this chapter introduces a series of management concepts that are used throughout the book. A glossary of terms for easy reference can be found at the end of the book.

1.1 Organizational issues

1.1.1 Organization vs. management

The origin of the word ‘organize’ is related to the notion of organs in the human body. To organize something is to arrange the elements into a co-ordinated whole. This shows that complex things can only be understood when orderly structure is imposed upon them. In other words, dealing with complex issues often requires the whole to be split into pieces. Of course, great care is needed in dealing with human and social systems in order that this kind of disassembly does not destroy their essence. Indeed, there can be enormous resistance to excessively rational solutions to human and social problems, as Morgan (1986, p. 38) observed in his comment that the mechanistic approach to organization tends to limit rather than mobilize the development of human capacities.

The definition of ‘manage’ is to conduct things and people in order to achieve some end. It comes from the Latin word manus, meaning hand. Manage has also come to mean accomplish, usually successfully, but it sometimes has the meaning of barely coping, depending upon the context. Management involves co-ordination, motivation, leadership and many aspects of getting things done through other people.

1.1.2 Contingency theories

Contingency theories are based upon system theories in that the organization is identified as an open system defined by a boundary outside of which is the ‘environment’. Within the boundary is a set of related parts that must interact in some useful way to produce some kind of output. The set of parts is what defines the structure of the organization. The output from the organization is destined for the environment where it will have an impact of some kind. The fact that the environment is the source of inputs for the organization and surrounds its activities and absorbs any outputs, means that an understanding of the relationship between the environment and the organization is essential in understanding how best to organize an activity.

In construction project terms, the participants in the process form a temporary organizational structure for the purposes of the project. The links between participants are brought into sharp relief because they cross boundaries between firms. The project organizational structure is oriented towards effecting some sort of change beyond the project itself. For this reason, it is vital that the project is organized in the context of its environment.

1.2 Environment

The environment comprises everything that is not a part of the system under consideration. In distinguishing what is outside from what is inside, one simply needs to imagine a line enclosing the system under consideration. This line is drawn wherever it seems most useful for the particular analysis. In organizations, it is not too difficult to imagine that outside the line are things over which managers have little control and/or influence, and inside it are things over which managers have more control and/or influence. Deciding where this boundary is and what to do about it, are serious tasks for management at different levels. At the most senior level, the definition of the boundary between the project and its environment helps to define the purpose of the project organization and its place in regard to the rest of the world. This is a question of policy. At the strategic level, the managers of a project need to regulate flows across the boundary (in the open systems view, the critical element is the modelling of boundary transactions). At the tactical level, work undertaken within the project needs to be done within the context of how the project organization is seen in relation to the environment. Although these ideas have been developed in relation to the management of firms, research has shown that they are equally applicable to the management of projects (Hughes, 1989).

1.2.1 The environment influences the organization

The definition of the boundary of an organization takes account of the way in which the environment influences the project. The context of a project organization can be viewed from a number of perspectives; physical, social, cultural, economic and political. Each of these is important for different reasons. Understanding the way in which these things have an impact on the organization is critical in defining the role and purpose of the project. Similarly, understanding their impact on a project tells us much about how to define, organize, and manage the work.

1.2.2 The environment is influenced by the organization

The organization is a part of its environment. And, as the environmentalist movement would constantly remind us, all organizations have an impact on the (physical) environment. Just as an organization needs to develop a policy for ensuring that atmosphere, water supply and land are not polluted, so the organization needs to develop a view as to what impact is intended on its social, economic, cultural and political environment. This constitutes a loop. The organization undertakes work as a response to its environment and transforms inputs into outputs via some process so that the environment will be modified in some way. This means that any organization deliberately sets out to have an impact. This is the view of the project strategist – to decide the nature of the impact required. Ultimately this will underpin the development of a design philosophy for a project.

1.2.3 Scanning

Figure 1 depicts interchanges between the project and its environment. One critical feature is that while the environment can be seen in terms of inputs and outputs to and from the project, there is constant interaction between the project organization and its environment. The environment is dynamic, constantly changing and subjectively defined. Therefore, what might have seemed appropriate yesterday may no longer be appropriate tomorrow. This is one reason that so many management writers stress the importance of change and of organizational learning. Innovation is partly concerned simply with developing new ways to help an organization adapt to its changing environment. If the organization is contingent upon its environment, then it is clear that there is no single best way to organize. Moreover, if the key variable upon which appropriateness depends is itself in a state of flux, then the best way to organize a particular project will change from time to time (Mintzberg, 1991).

Fig. 1 An organization interacts with its environment.

1.2.4 Fit

The purpose of analysing the environment is to determine the most appropriate way of organizing the work. Goodness-of-fit is not a question of seeking an ideal or perfect solution but merely of ensuring that what is provided is the best reasonable fit under the circumstances (Dawson, 1996). Moreover, as the circumstances change, so the goodness-of-fit of the project organization will change.

1.3 Complexity

Complexity is common in construction projects (Bennett, 1992). However, it is not (usually) the result of technological complexity. The need for many different disciplines to come together during the design process is often compounded by the process of specialization, and the economic and professional pressures for each of these diverse disciplines to belong to a different firm. The same is true in construction: main contractors can no longer maintain a supply of work for their operatives. It is uneconomic to pay the wages of bricklayers, joiners, and all the other construction trades as it is not feasible for contractors to provide a continuous flow of work for these people. This is why subcontracting in construction is so widespread. So, for different reasons, participants at the design stage and at the construction stage, tend to be from different firms. This leads to a high degree of organizational complexity of the process and a tendency for complexity to continue to increase, as well as a lack of effective tools for measuring complexity (Gidado, 1996; Trinh and Sharif, 1996).

As will be seen later in this chapter, such complexity should not be avoided, but is a necessary part of a flexible and responsive industry. It is not the presence of complexity that is a problem, but the inability of project managers to deal with it (Southwell, 1997).

1.3.1 Technology

Dawson (1996) defines technology as the materials and processes used in transforming inputs into outputs. She adds into this definition the skills, knowledge and labour that an organization ‘possesses’. Thus, technology has both hard and soft components, machinery and people, or in Dawson's terms, materials and operations on the one hand, and knowledge on the other. Technology may be described as a combination of the accumulated scientific knowledge, technical skills, implements, logical habits and material products of people, but it is always more than this, more than information, logic, and things. It is people themselves, undertaking their various activities in particular ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Part One: Design Management Theory
• Part Two: Design Management Practice
• Glossary
• References
• Index