Effective Communication for a Stronger Project

05 Communicating During the Project

Communication is the most important aspect to any project. Good architects are generally effective communicators as well as being technically proficient, experienced, and organized. If they can’t explain their actions, the project will struggle. This is a two-way street, though. It is worth considering if you, as the client, are a strong communicator. What do you do well? What could you improve on?

This is important, because effective communication from all sides will result in a far stronger project and a better experience for the whole project team, including yourself. You should expect project updates from your architect and general contractor that are timely and sufficiently detailed to answer any of your questions. Your part of the deal is to respond clearly and promptly. The best way to ensure everyone works together well is to agree on a communication method early in the project.

It is worth noting that email is not a great way to have a dialogue. It is still best suited to formal exchanges. Long email chains of back-and-forth chat soon become difficult to manage and key pieces of information can get lost in the dialogue. Before sending an email, it is worth spending time checking that you have created a well-composed response that provides the required information clearly and concisely, responding to all questions asked. The takeaway here should be to respect people’s time and understand what the sender needs from you. There are, of course, instances when picking up the phone to ask questions directly might be the better means of communication. This can often save time by ‘cutting to the chase’.

Your project team may also use project management software or an app to communicate. These often streamline processes and can be very helpful. If they do, make sure that full access is available to you to view records throughout the project. If texts or an app are used on the project, it is probably worth following up any important messages by email to ensure a more considered response is recorded. Over the years, email has become the default primary communication channel for many construction projects. Advances in message chains, search functions, and the organization of subject threads have been combined with better practices by most users. When paired with a large file-sharing method for the exchange of drawings and presentations, email is certainly sufficient as a formal means of communication. It also provides a digital paper trail, that can be very helpful along the project timeline to retrace decisions or a specific conversation in time. It is best to save communications with your architect and general contractor on a regular basis during the project and keep them in a safe place and backed-up with digital and paper records. You may need to refer back to them at any point over the lifecycle of the project and property.

You will be required to make many decisions during the course of your project. This is a long process – some decisions will be easy and quick, while others may be difficult and require much more thought and information. And with the duration of the project, many decisions can be hard for anyone to keep track of. To help, it is important to be on the same page with the project team and comfortable with the flow of information. This will keep the process moving as smoothly as possible. During the project, floor plans, elevations, building sections, renderings, and other drawings, images, and deliverables will be created to communicate ideas for the project. These documents will be presented to you throughout the project, and you will be asked for feedback and decisions.

The design team will quickly become intimately knowledgeable about your project. It can be easy for them to assume that you are keeping pace, so they may provide too little information or skip over important items by moving you too quickly through the process. If you feel this is the case, have a conversation about slowing the process down. It is important that you understand everything that is necessary to make the best decisions. All projects require a constant flow of effective decision-making to keep on schedule.

Decisions are what drive projects forward from iteration to iteration and from phase to phase. From when the architect begins to define the project, including all the features on your wish list, through to the general contractor’s detailed input, there are many decision points and milestones for you, as the client, to handle. You will be given countless opportunities to review and approve the next steps. Your agreement with the architect may stipulate a certain number of revisions or rounds of changes with each phase. This should be clear from the beginning of the project. Constant reiterating the same point or revising drawings slows the project down and creates stress and anxiety. It is important that you make firm, clear, and proactive decisions. This will help the project keep a reasonable pace, reduce stress and anxiety, and keep the financial aspects of the project in order. Architects should be in tune with their client’s pressure points too, and it’s fair to have conversations about this to make sure that the process can be adjusted as required. It is in everyone’s interest for you to have a positive project experience.

What experiences will the finished project provide? How will the building or project host home or work life?

Architecture is constantly evaluated through the experiences of people using the spaces and buildings we design. Improving the lives of residents or workers or visitors is one of the most important objectives for any architect. As a client, it is important this way too. What do you want to achieve? How do you want users of your new project to feel mentally and physically? By designing and arranging our spaces and selecting the materials and finishes, fixtures, and equipment, architects create holistic ensembles of pieces and parts that work in concert together. Each project is a bespoke invention, a new solution to the client’s situation. It is an opportunity to do things better than other buildings. You can, and should, consider this desire to change life for the better with your project. You’ll get the best from your architect that way.

What design elements are important?

When writing the project narrative concept statement and assembling the presentation of precedents into the storyboard with your architect, think about the different areas of the project and where the focus should be. Are there areas that stand out as more important than the rest? For some, it may be the primary bedroom and bathroom. For many others, it’s the kitchen, living, and dining room. For commercial clients, it may be the entrance, reception, and client-facing areas. The staff wellness and break room may be a priority. It is very important for your architect to understand your priorities. Difficult decisions around where and how to spend the investment available for these projects are inevitable. It is helpful for you and the project team to be aligned and clear design goals make this easier for everyone.

How much money are you willing to invest?

The investment available to the project should be clear. The financial aspect is no different from any other goals of the project, and the more transparent and franker you can be, the better. The design and construction process can be adjusted to respond to your circumstances. If acquiring a loan, for example, tell your architect what kind of loan you have and how it will work. What are the deliverables and timetables that your lender requires for the project? They should be reflected in your upfront project goals, as discovering they are not in sync once the project is underway will cause friction. Rigid lender processes can work against best practices given your project’s other goals. If possible, it is useful to involve your architect and, possibly, general contractor (if one is on board at this point) to help give feedback on the loan criteria and its impacts on the design and construction process. Paying back the loan, of course, needs careful consideration. You should always remember the value of the finished project is an important goal too.

How much time are you willing to invest?

In some cases, the project schedule is more important than the goals above. For all its complexities, the financial investment that a project requires can be less important than completing a project on a specific date. Hard-moving dates, family holiday expectations, office deadlines, or commercial sales cycles are often non-negotiable. If this applies to your project, it is important to communicate this from the early stages of engagement with your team. Often dramatically called a ‘drop-dead’ completion date, the entire project team will need to be aware and on board with this, as it will shape plans and decision-making from day one. If you aren’t under time pressure, it is still worth considering a time goal for your project. Even an open-ended completion date benefits from a vague target, otherwise you’ll continually be set back by more urgent deadlines. Whatever your time goal, it is important to build some contingency into the schedule to accommodate unknown circumstances that may arise. There are so many moving parts and parties that it can be difficult to keep all in alignment right to the finish line.

The language of your project goals is translated into architecture, design, and construction objectives by the project team. The only way this happens is through transparency. First, you define what you want with the architect, then make sure that your project team understands and includes them in their processes. These goals and objectives should be tracked throughout the duration of the project to make sure that they are being maintained. These projects are time-consuming, with long durations and many factors that need to be aligned. It is easy for them to drift off target. Your successful project will employ a process keeping you at the center, managing all of these factors in a manner that you understand.