Retaining your primary consultants, project manager and architect is important, and requires careful thought. Don’t pick your colleague’s brother-in-law and be careful of choosing firms that have provided early pro-bono services or the hand-picked candidate of a major donor.
There is no right way to do this. It can be as simple as picking a firm whose work you know and negotiating a scope of services and fee. On the other hand, many managers don’t know any project managers or architects or exactly how to evaluate an unknown firm’s qualifications. Furthermore, even if a CEO has full discretion to make the selection independently, it’s often important for stake holders in the organization to have ownership of this important decision and participate in the process.
The Process
This a summary of the search and hiring process that we have successfully employed in the past:
- Identify an internal decision-making process. How wide a group do you need to include in your decision making process? There is no universal answer to this.
- Identify a small number of firms that have general qualifications that match your project. You should rely on your project manager to do this, but if you haven’t retained a project manager, it would be really helpful if you could find an advisor who is generally familiar with local firms.
- This is the time to make a special effort to include firms owned by african american or other under-representative groups in the pool of candidates.
- Have each firm visit your site or building and meet those who will be working on your project. Each firm should come separately. Try to keep your introduction the same, though the conversation may go in quite different directions. You are looking for personal interaction and a sense of who you might best work with.
- You could stop here and start negotiating with the most likely candidate, but this means that the decision process won’t be shared with others in the organization.
- Otherwise, proceed with an inclusive process. Prepare and circulate an RFQ (Request for Qualifications) asking each firm to describe their qualifications in detail, identify staff members and describe how they would approach this project. Should you ask for a fee proposal? Frequently you can’t provide enough information for the candidate to arrive at a workable fee. What’s the project? What’s your budget? What’s your schedule? Often there are open questions that you can’t answer. The truth is, you don’t need to ask for competetive bids to get a fair deal. If one understands the process, negotiating a fair fee with an architect isn’t that difficult.
- Review the responses and select some of the candidates to make in-person presentations. This should be a very limited group. I suggest three and no more than four, but it might be just one.
- Hold all interviews in one day. All the decision makers should be in the room. Allow one hour per candidate, more time for you to ask questions than for them to make a presentation. After the last interview, lock the door and bring in some refreshments. You should make the decision before you leave the room. Deferring this to a later date won’t result in a better decision. The next day make a personal call to each principal.
- Meet with the successful candidate and negotiate a contract. This may be a two-phase negotiation concentrating first on a master plan or conceptual design or field investigations. A secondary negotiation should follow to establish a framework for the balance of services when the scope is determined.
This is an involved process and while there is room to expedite each step, this can take two to three months, or even longer, if it is not pursued diligently.
Who do you hire first?
Many people are initially inclined to hire their architect first. They are excited to get on with the design and that’s understandable. However, I always encourage them to hire the project manager first. There is much work that can be done in preparation for the project before any design work starts and, if the project manager is on board, they can assist in the important architect selection. If you end up hiring the architect first, at the very least, you should accelerate the project manager selection so that they are on board when early budgets are created.
Qualifications
Project managers and architects should have a global understanding of project delivery, and there are some questions that you will ask both of them. But there are some areas where project managers or architects should demonstrate particular strengths.
With both establishing a strong working relationship is crucial
- Do you feel confident you will be able to establish a good working relationship with the people who will be working directly on your project?
- Has the candidate demonstrated an understanding and empathy with your mission?
- Does the candidate support a collaborative team management approach?
With the project manager, their primary role it to lead the project and take primary responsibility for budget and schedule. Follow link to
- Do they demonstrate really strong experience and success in cost and schedule management
- Do they demonstrate a non-combative approach to leading the project team?
Follow the link to About Project Managers for more discussion
With the architect they have a dual primary role, a creative and a collaborative design process and impeccable technical expertise.
- Do they propose a design process that focuses on your needs and will follow your lead in collaboration with and inclusion of your staff?
- Does the general direction of their design work resonate with you?
- Can they demonstrate substantial experience with projects similar to yours?
- Do they have a very strong technical expertise and ability to minimize claims during construction?
Follow the link to About Architects for more discussion