The Owner's Dilemma: Driving Success and Innovation in the Design and Construction Industry by Barbara White Bryson

Author:Barbara White Bryson [Bryson, Barbara White]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Greenway Communications
Published: 2014-01-29T16:00:00+00:00

SEEK EXCELLENCE

When I first visited Rice, I was immediately drawn to the beautifully planned and designed campus. I respect and cherish the extraordinary legacy of Cram and Lovett Rice is a place of excellence I respect and cherish. This legacy, accomplished in part through architectural excellence, was enhanced further by the board’s interest in enticing world-class architects to Rice to help administrators and trustees better understand how the university could and should grow formally. These architects were also charged with designing provocative, beautiful, and functional buildings that would knit into the elegant tree-lined campus. The success of that process set a standard of excellence that administrations and boards have worked hard to maintain. It was inevitable that excellence would begin to drive the project delivery process in much the same way.

Excellence is a value that every team member can understand and embrace, whether the goal is aesthetic, functional, or financial. If the search for excellence in the building process is limited to the design of the building, then the outcomes are doomed to inconsistency and even failure in building performance, schedule, or budget compliance. Instead, excellence can be infused into every aspect of project delivery down to the way meetings are conducted, decisions are made, and problems are solved. When excellence touches every aspect of the delivery process, success can be realized at the highest levels.

It is also important to strive for excellence in areas that are not directly related to the project delivery process or the design product. The building is integral to the success of the organization in a number of indirect ways. It touches the short- and long-term financial performance of the organization, it can shape occupant behavior, and it can impact the success of decision makers and donors. Therefore, the project team must understand that excellence has to be extended to others who are directly and indirectly impacted by the building project. The delivery process cannot be just about the building.

The search for excellence is part of Rice’s culture and tradition, but more important, the university has become so accustomed to planning carefully that achieving excellence is possible and even probable. This planning is manifested in strategic planning, deep project planning, and management planning. Even communication processes must be well planned to assist in the project delivery process and to achieve expected success.

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