Management: Financial, Project, and Time

Understanding financial, project, and time management will greatly facilitate a firm’s ability to produce outstanding design work. This chapter examines those three practice topics. Financial data, statements, and their analyses (including various accounting types and methods) underlie important management decisions. This information reveals the firm’s existing financial state, outstanding or unresolved problems, and potentials for the future. Under the umbrella of project management, which is generally defined as managing the process not producing the product, there are discussions on working with committees, collaboration and teamwork, client and stakeholder relations, and fundamentals of building costs and cost management. A profile of the ultimate project manager, David Wisdom from Louis Kahn’s office, is included and underscores the importance of construction detailing and coordination. Consider time management as a design problem: the final section of the chapter sets forth some conventional wisdom that can help the architect boost productivity and become more effective.