The Shortlist Episode 60: Leading Design-Build Pursuits

The Progressive Design-Build (PDB) delivery method has been growing in popularity since it was introduced in the 90s. With more public agencies opting for "best value" over "low bid" for certain types of projects, PDB has become a go-to tool for state agencies, hospitals, K-12, and higher education procurement. The selection process, which often includes qualifications, proprietary or informational meeting(s), technical proposal, interview, and fee proposal (but notably, often no design) can extend several months and cost tens of thousands of dollars of staff time to complete.

With so much time, money, and other resources on the line, how do you bring top-level strategy and renewed enthusiasm to each procurement stage and score the most points going into the fee proposal? In Episode 60, Middle of Six Principals Melissa Richey and Wendy Simmons discuss the origins of PDB, how to secure teaming partners, cultivating team dynamics, and developing compelling content for a series of written and in-person presentations that demonstrate why your team is the best choice.

CPSM CEU Credits: .5 | Domain: 4

Podcast Transcript

Welcome to The Shortlist.

We're exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.

I'm your host, Wendy Simmons, and each episode, I'll be joined by one of my team members from Middle of Six to answer your questions.

Today, we're chatting with Melissa Ritchie to discuss all things design build pursuits.

Hey, Melissa.

Hi there.

Thank you for being our fearless leader on this topic.

I think it's gonna be interesting.

I'm right in the middle of a couple design build pursuits, so I think I'm going to have some very relevant anecdotes to sprinkle throughout.

And this tends to be the bulk of our work, maybe not the majority, but it's a huge percentage of our work.

So we're in this day in and day out.

So thank you for bringing up this topic.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's definitely...

We're in Washington state, and it's a big delivery method that's gaining in popularity over the last few years.

So it felt like something good to talk about, and a lot of this perspective is gonna be coming from how we handle this in the Pacific Northwest, but I think it's applicable to folks in other parts of the country as well.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

And that's a perfect segue to my trivia question for this episode, because I was reading all kinds of facts and figures about the design-build-delivery method.

So because it's really fun and easy to think about it, this from a numbers perspective, two-parter here, do you think, Melissa and listeners, everyone can vote here, whatever they think, is design-build-delivery anticipated to grow, maintain, or recede in the next two years?

This is according to the Design Build Institute of America.

They did a survey or a study in 2023, so pretty relevant, and they have some data there that I'll share.

Then the other part of this question is, what percentage of construction spending is delivered through design-build?

Well, let's see.

I think the survey results said it's going to grow.

And let's see, percentage of construction spending I feel like I just answered a question about how big the construction industry is recently now.

Let's see.

It's probably, we're talking US-wide, it's probably not even an accepted delivery method in every state.

So let's see.

And then they use it in the military.

Let's go 36%.

OK, fantastic.

I love it.

Thank you for being brave and throwing out a number.

Yeah, this design build mid-cycle update report done by FMI Consulting has tons of information.

So this will be something we can link to when we share this episode, because I'm sure people will want to look into the information for their particular area.

You hit on some good points there.

It's not the same across the United States, and this information we were looking at is just the US data.

All right, well, let's get into this topic then.

Why this topic?

Why is this important to our listeners?

Why might they find it interesting?

Well, it is a growing delivery method, at least on the West Coast.

And I think other areas are looking to what the West Coast is doing and how well we are doing the design build process.

So it's something that you maybe are already battling with, or maybe you're a firm that doesn't do that type of delivery method, but it's on the planning for the years to come.

And so you want to get to understand it better and how you can be a great marketing partner to the teams that are pursuing the work.

It's also a lot bigger of a pursuit effort.

There's a two-step process, there's proprietary meetings, there's interviews.

It's just a bigger lift for both the marketing team, your business development staff are probably doing a lot more pre-positioning further out, and then your technical teams, what they have to do to bring to the table and get to know their team and come off as a really collaborative group is gonna take some more effort.

Then what I touched on in the beginning about it being a preferred delivery method for many of the public projects that are delivered in Washington state, Oregon uses alternative delivery quite a bit, and I believe California does as well.

So I think it's gonna, you know, kind of dominating in the West Coast, and I imagine it's gonna head East.

How would you define design build or progressive design build?

What's kind of the easy cheat sheet definition of those?

And maybe we'll also just like creep into, and then why would anyone pick this delivery method?

Because you mentioned it's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work to pursue work in this way.

So let's start there.

Sure.

So I do want to make the distinction that really when we're using the word design build, what we're really meaning is the delivery method called progressive design build, which that is a design build team is where the builder or the general contractor and the design team, typically the architect, come together as a team and pursue the building project, infrastructure project together as a team.

Progressive design build means that that team is being selected on their qualifications and you progress towards a design and contract price as a team.

And so that qualifications based selection may be similar to what you see for architectural engineering services, at least in Washington state.

So it's a way for a team that can deliver a project, design it, build it, make it happen as a one team.

I will make the distinction when you hear just standard design build, that is maybe a little less in favor.

And that might be one reason why the trivia question is receding is because design build, in the traditional sense, the design build team, the general contractor and the architect have to do a certain level of design at risk to be selected.

So that is even more costly.

So we in Washington have moved to progressive design build where the team, the builder and the architect are selected on their qualifications, and then the design happens after selection.

So progressive design build is definitely a better way to spread the risk where you're not having to do design work at risk with very little information.

You're picked because you show that you have a plan for how you would design a project and build it and the qualifications to back up that you've done that in the past.

In the early days of, in my experience, of doing progressive design proposals, the design element or asking teams not to design would always be bold, highlighted, you know, threat of disqualification if you put one drawing or sketch or concept in your proposal because they wanted to make a shift, a big shift away from getting any free design work or ideas as part of that competitive process.

I don't know that I'm seeing that flagged as much anymore, but that was something, again, like in the early days, very aware as the marketing team to not sprinkle in any ideas, which is really hard.

I feel like maybe that has loosened up a little bit and you can kind of think conceptually about how something could be improved, but definitely not the big designed effort.

Yeah, and sometimes that is a strategy.

Well, they didn't explicitly say we couldn't do that, so let's create a little site plan or let's do a rendering, but always the risk is you're coming out this with little information, so unless you've done a lot of pre-positioning with the client and really have an understanding of what they're after, then there's always a risk to putting in that at-risk design work of maybe showing something that doesn't resonate with the client.

So yeah, definitely something that I feel like there was a period where it was very spelled out.

Absolutely no design work.

Don't come with 3D models or renderings, or you'll be disqualified, and I agree.

I don't feel like I've seen that quite as explicitly as I have in years past.

And sometimes with this delivery method, there can be through the pursuit stage, like honorarium or something, a small amount of compensation, because this effort takes a lot of time, takes a lot of energy to get your partners together and to think through and to present yourself as one really cohesive team that's going to be able to do a great job.

So it's very small dollars if it is there at all, and it's not meant to pay for any amount of design work.

That way, but just to, I'm not sure how the teams end up dividing that out because it's such a small fraction compared to the hour, hundreds of hours folks are spending putting their stuff together.

Yeah, before it was Progressive Design Build in Washington State, and it was just typical design build where you were essentially taking a design to like 30%.

There was a whole formula where the GC was like, okay, everybody kept track of your hours.

Now we're going to do a percentage.

I was like, wow, but I think what that ended up changing in Washington State was industry being able to go back to the legislators and say, this is how much we're spending to win this project.

Is your intention really for us to be spending, I definitely heard a story of over $100,000 pursuing this.

They just, they had no idea.

So it did give some data so we could say, well, okay, your $5,000 honorarium isn't really doing much to scratch this $100,000 we invested in this project.

So I guess that's the upside of, you know, it was progress was made.

Yeah, that's right.

You know, we've talked about the cost on the team, the submitting teams to pursue, but there's also cost or some perceived cost savings with public agencies or anyone who wants to do progressive design build on the design and construction side of that.

I don't know if you in kind of prepping for this episode if you came up with any data or you have any thoughts about does it really save agency money to go progressive design build?

I'd like to think so, but as opposed to low bid that type of or pursuit where the government or school district is getting their hand is forced, right?

To go with the lowest number, but is that always the best number?

Right, and it creates kind of an adversarial relationship where the architect designed something that maybe is not the most efficient way to build something and the builder comes in and is the low bid, and then they're going to create change orders to make, figure out how to do this.

So, you know, in my mind and what I hear from our clients and other people in the industry is that it is a better model to bring more value to the process.

So, okay, let's look at this design before it's set, before we have construction documents, we're all getting together as the builder and the designer and the subcontractors and taking into consideration how much money are we going to spend on the site?

Those are kind of non-negotiables or what creative ways can we get around some issues with the site so we can have more money for the program?

So, I am hearing that it definitely helps.

And constructability, what's the better way to get the same gist of the design in a more constructible, efficient way?

I mean, those are the types of stories that I hear about why it is a benefit to bring together a team that is both a builder and a designer from the jump.

Right, so more hours put into design and pre-construction to work together.

Obviously, if you've submitted as a team, and one as a team, hopefully it's because you have some sort of working relationship and you're not starting from scratch and everyone is able to provide input based on their area of expertise early.

And then savings comes on the construction side, which can be substantial if you have to change a system or if there's a big delay because now a system is a year and a half out, that can't be ordered in time, so there can be lots of issues there.

So it should improve the schedule and budget, and that's everything that I was reading to thinking about this topic.

So there's a lot of reasons to go for it.

Yeah, those long lead items as the pandemic wore on, the availability of construction material, switchgear, electrical and mechanical systems and units were, I was hearing stories where things were more than a year out.

So if you used a traditional design and then bid method, it was designed and you think, okay, cool design.

This was like a year long process.

And now we're going to bid it and get everything.

And they're like, oh, cool.

Well, we don't have the rooftop mechanical units for another year after we bid the project.

So I think that's one of the big upsides is that ability to figure out what are some of those systems that are going to take a really long time to get here and figuring those out early and getting the order made and storing it in your yard or finding a place where you can keep that material when it's available, and then once it's ready to go in, you've got it there.

Yeah, so a lot of opportunity for whether it's government agencies of any type, but there's also other industries that use progressive design build in manufacturing and others.

So I think we're thinking most often when it's like a school project, university system, because that's so common.

But there's potential huge savings, and also just even if it doesn't equate to actual dollar savings, the quality is going up because you're getting more programming or better level of finishes or whatever it might be because you can funnel your resources that would have been contingencies or planning for the worst case scenario.

So, savings on the owner's side for sure.

A huge investment on the design build team's side.

So let's get into how, if you're sitting on the design build team, how can you be effective, especially from the marketer's perspective, how can you be effective in putting together a really compelling pursuit process, leading that, guiding it, and not going insane over the many weeks or months that it takes to put this together and working with dozens of people through that process?

Well, yeah, I think one of the first things is kind of backing up and being in collaboration with your business development team to understand what opportunities you're targeting for the year and what, if you're already established in design build, that might mean needing to get with your construction teams to understand what's their backlog and what are their current projects, and here's one we're tracking and is our team's gonna be available for it.

So I think there's some, get out in front of it and understand, do you have the time and resources, just the labor resources to perform the project if you win it.

And then if you're new to this market and you're trying to break into the design build market, you've probably gotta spend some time doing some market research to understand what's the path to win.

How are you gonna get there?

Who do you need to team with?

Who do you need to meet with?

Kind of all of those elements of building those relationships and getting out in front of the project so that you can, it might be a journey where you have to lose a few before you win one.

So just kind of keeping those things in mind before you're even having the RFQ in your hand.

Downloading and looking at RFQs for projects that maybe you're not gonna need to go for, but to get an idea of what is this particular agency looking for, depending on where you are located.

A lot of things are going to be similar across the state, but again, there are areas where certain agencies can make decisions.

And so the RFQ will be different.

That's my point in saying it, is that it's not going to be 100% the same every time you chase a project, but you'll get a general idea of the formula that they're looking at, which is something like qualifications stage, proprietary meeting, or some sort of conversational meeting, maybe that's not scored in any way.

It can have a score, but it can also not have a score.

And then that's to learn more about the project itself that can inform your proposal package and then your pricing package.

Again, those steps can vary, and that's allowed within the law, but you might want to look at a few of those RFQs to see what is the path?

What am I going to be getting into?

Yeah, and it's gonna be a couple months at least.

Yeah, right.

And we'll talk about how you organize and manage that many team members for that many months.

Before we get to that, let's talk a little bit about teaming partners.

How do you go about figuring, or if you're in the marketing side, influencing who that would be, or what's important for the marketer to know about teaming partners?

Yeah, it's a hot delivery model, and if you're breaking into this market, teaming partners can be a way to help maybe shore up some weaknesses you have in not having done this delivery model, or maybe you've done this delivery model, but you haven't done it for this market type.

So your teaming partners can be a great way to strengthen your team, and it's a popular delivery method.

Teams are forming really early, so getting out in front of these opportunities and making those connections and getting a teaming agreement in place is a great best practice, because as you mentioned, the proprietary meeting where your builder and your architect and your engineers are gonna go in front of the client and ask them intelligent questions about the project.

There's some dynamics that are at play, and that's part of what that proprietary meeting is about, is the owner being able to see your team in action.

So you want these to be people that you've gotten to know and kind of understand each other's styles and have kind of a nice little, you know, casual nature about yourselves and can work together.

So that's another reason to lock teaming partners in early.

And then those folks may have intelligence about the project.

They might have done a project, a progressive design build project for that owner before and kind of know some of the hot buttons that would be important to feature.

You know, they're gonna help you be a stronger team.

Yeah, having multiple options is really important.

I have worked with teams where they may even have partners lined up for one pursuit, and they have another partner lined up for another one or in their conversations, they'll say, great, this one's not the right one for us, but we're going to look back six projects down the line.

And that's the one we're going to go together.

So you don't have to worry about just the one that is in front of you.

You can look at anything that you have Intel on that's coming down the pike so that you can get some commitments made.

And obviously, if you're the GC, finding your architecture partner, those are exclusive agreements.

There are no, no one's on two teams.

No.

But there's a deeper level of partners, sub-consultants that might be proposed.

And those are good conversations to start having as well.

And some of those are exclusive, and some of those are not.

And depending on your relationships and your firm style and how much in demand a certain sub-consultant team might be, you can use that to your advantage or decide what the strategy is for having someone who's gonna be on multiple teams.

Yeah, you might have the people be exclusive, and the firm, the engineering sub-consultant is on multiple teams, but the person on resume who's featured is gonna go in the meetings is different.

But I think it's definitely a conversation to have early.

And I've had, in my past experience, situations where they wanted exclusivity, and in the case, it seemed to always burn.

The couple, we don't go exclusive, and the couple of times we broke the rule, we picked the wrong team.

So it's a big ask for especially engineering consultants that they are doing public projects where an architect is often the lead.

They're used to being on multiple teams.

So that's something that, why you want to talk early and get an understanding of what that looks like.

I've even seen kind of specific to engineering teaming partners, some progressive design build RFQs are saying, don't list your engineering team members because we want to have input on that.

So that's another thing that sometimes it is just the architect and the builder going in.

So kind of back to those things where you said, check out RFQs of the past because they might have some different ways they're doing the procurement of the team.

On the engineering side too, I've been on teams where we know that the MEP is on every team because they are the preferred vendor and everyone wants to be with them.

And they know that group, they're winning no matter who wins on that one.

So you don't necessarily have to push for an exclusive or to find a different team.

If you know, don't be scared, right?

If you're a preferred partner, the one that you think is like this is going to strategically position you the best is on other teams because that might be for a very good reason.

And then, you know, they'll be professional and what they can share and what they can't share.

It always seems to be very like, you know, on the up and up from my perspective, but on the marketing side of things, once you know who those teaming partners might be, marketers, we can connect with the marketing people on those teams and you already might be connected to them, but that's a good thing to get ahead of the game and say, you know, decide who's leading what and just build that relationship and friendship and accountability because you're going to be working together for a few months.

You've got the design build team sorted.

Someone has made that decision or you've highlighted, we need a few more names or firms in this area, but you probably have some sort of kickoff meeting or gathering of the minds even if it's before the RFQ is out.

What are some of the things that you want to accomplish in those very early stages?

I think starting to identify who are going to be writers of the project approach language.

There's going to be usually a question about what's your pre-construction approach and your construction approach and going to want to have that tailored to the project and to the client.

So starting to identify that, and then also starting to think about what projects you're going to feature.

Often we see a limit on the number of projects that can be featured.

So trying to create a matrix where you've got all the potential projects, what are the relevancies and who are the people that worked on them because that can be a fatal flaw.

Oh, we've got the great project.

It's the exact same thing, but nobody that worked on that project is available for this pursuit.

So kind of getting into those details and kind of understand what's the best project that featured the most people on the team who've worked on it.

And then you've got some time to start digging into what makes that project ultra relevant.

We're not just pulling the standard description.

We're going to tailor it to this pursuit.

We're going to try and understand what are those compelling stories that we can turn into case study call outs.

If you can get ahead of knowing kind of a bit about the projects you're going to feature, you can start digging into those stories and talking to other people at the firm to dig out those little nuggets, get a testimonial from the client, kind of dig into all those facts and figures, ask everyone on the team that worked on it, can you send your description for this project?

And you might find some really compelling information about something on the mechanical system or how they designed the foundation, but just pulling the resources from your team is a great best practice.

I've sat in lots of kickoff meetings where the discussion of which projects to feature can go on and on.

It can be really tricky if you have a great project, but the team wasn't on it, or there's just not enough connections.

And I don't think there's a perfect answer.

Sometimes you need to use it as the highlighted featured project, or maybe if you know enough about the client and they have said that it is okay, that the team wasn't on it.

I mean, sometimes you have that intel.

You just know from past pursuits that they're not scoring that fiercely on that element.

Or sometimes you've heard in the debriefs that absolutely the whole team needs to be on those projects represented, or they do not consider it like qualifying.

So it's nice to have that intel, but that's why teams will go round and around trying to figure out what is that right mix of projects that matches the criteria.

And so starting those conversations early, and then if it doesn't qualify to be a main project, developing those stories, you can use them as sidebars.

You can highlight them on resumes in a more grand way than maybe a traditional proposal.

But they're going to want to see a lot of proof points throughout the proposal.

Absolutely.

Org charts and which projects to feature seem to be the biggest discussion points on a progressive design build pursuit.

Yeah, the org chart, it's a fun challenge, and then it can be frustrating when you've gone through so many iterations, you're starting to wonder, question the value of what to do.

And I think we've landed on most often something that's very straightforward, that clearly shows the flow of communication.

I guess you can think of that as like a hierarchy or reporting structure, but in this way, in design build, progressive design build, it's really about where's communication going between the team members and how are they working together?

I think in most cases, we can scrap the giant circley org charts that are very confusing for people to understand, who am I talking to?

Who's really leading this?

And if you do have something like that, make sure it includes a traditional hierarchy, hierarchical org chart, that would be my recommendation.

Yeah, and I'd say there could be someone like you on the selection panel, and if there's round and round on this org chart and there's something so different that you've never seen, if you're looking at it, you're like, I still don't really get what this is saying.

Like speak up and say that, like I think this is what we're trying to communicate, and I'm not getting how this visual is doing that.

So, you know, I've seen people up the whiteboard sketching and oh, I've got it.

And I've been to times where I'm sitting there, I'm like, I don't get it.

So I think, you know, don't be afraid to speak up and also maybe just like, why don't we table this and move on?

Cause I have seen meetings go to 45 minutes on an org chart and yeah, like he's like point of diminishing returns.

A good tip that is something that I have, I often forget, I'm sorry, I space it, but it comes back to me as we're kind of, you know, doing the final reviews of things is that it's good to look at those, well, all graphics for that matter in black and white, because some reviewers are going to hit print and maybe their copier machine at work mandates black and white only, or, you know, they don't want to print it in color.

And so these beautiful complicated org charts with subtle color differences between the roles and their level of involvement and their companies can totally get lost in black and white.

And then that makes it even harder to understand.

It can be beautiful on a PowerPoint slide, on a giant screen when everyone can look and it can be described.

But sometimes in a proposal, it's best to go with a straightforward option.

Well, then there's another accessibility issue with using colors if someone on the panel is sight impaired, color blind.

They might not be able to tell the difference between these colors that are making the chart or the graphic make sense.

So keep that one in mind too.

Yeah, maybe this is why we spent 45 minutes on work and conversations for each meeting.

But if you haven't been in that conversation, plan on time.

Just know that even if it's set, it's not set until the proposal goes in.

There's just a lot of conversation around that.

I don't know what else about...

Is there any kind of like highlights on the actual content itself of the design build proposal?

You've identified who's going to be responsible for a technical section, pulling past examples of that for that person.

So hard to start with a blank page.

I would caution you to maybe highlight if there's words or phrases that are specific to that old proposal, scrubbing those out or highlighting them because you don't want that to be a remnant that gets carried forward because no one realized it wasn't relevant to this project.

But giving some people some past go-by, some inspiration from proposals you may have pulled on a public records request just to see how other teams might be talking about those concepts are all good things to help generate ideas and get those writing juices flowing.

Yeah, and then depending on the steps in the particular pursuit you're working on, you might just look for any gaps that if they haven't asked really about kind of your specific approach or if the RFQ and RFP are so similar that you see like, we have an opportunity to do a little bit more here.

I mean, obviously, it has to fit in the confines of the page limit, and you don't want to be confusing by shoehorning something in, but there are ways to call something out if you feel like it may have been missed.

And with some jurisdictions, some agencies, being newer to this delivery model, then it might be something that's missed.

So anyways, scrubbing that can help you figure out what you need to create as far as the text and content.

Yeah, at least here, many of the owners, agencies, they provide a draft.

In the RFQ stage, they provide a draft of the RFP.

Go ahead and make sure you review that, because it will help you understand, like, what do we need to absolutely make sure we cover here?

Or maybe we tease something and know we'll go into more depth during the RFP stage, but kind of get an understanding of the whole full cycle of what you're responding to on a pursuit.

Definitely want to have your eyes looking ahead as far as possible.

I mean, they're probably going to even, if they're giving you the draft of the RFP, they probably also have some draft of what that proprietary or informational meeting will look like if they're doing that.

That's pretty common.

And what an agenda and, you know, the requirements are for an interview stage.

Yeah, and there's just a lot of moving pieces in this.

So as the proposal manager, marketing manager, whatever your role is in this pursuit process, making sure that you got to handle on all of those bits and pieces.

Like, I've seen requirements on the proprietary meeting that you need to send the agenda 72 hours in advance, and then you need to follow up with meeting minutes 24 hours after the meeting.

And sometimes the team is just so focused on, what are we doing that those little details might get missed?

So make sure that you are the keeper of all of those things.

You do not want to get disqualified or be scored down because you didn't follow those types of directions.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And if you, maybe it's part of your process already, or maybe not, but sending out calendar invites to core people that you want it flagged, knowing the different stages and phases, because we could be looking out several months.

And so whatever, June 14th, I just feel like a lifetime away when you're creeping up towards it, but it'll be really nice to have that flag that these questions are due or that we can't forget to submit this particular component at that time.

So there's a lot there.

Well, Melissa, you mentioned DEI and that kind of growing importance.

Let's think about how you represent that as multiple firms and make a really good showing and representation of how much your firm has been working to improve and to track their progress in that area.

It just feels like it's getting bigger and bigger and worth more and more points for very good reason.

What do you suggest?

Well, documentation is major.

We used to be able to just kind of talk about what we're going to do or that, you know, oh, we haven't teamed with that many diverse firms, but here's the makeup of the team inside, which is great.

And showing equitable distribution amongst women and people of color on your team is great, but that's often not what the question is.

So really documenting this.

What are the efforts you went to to try and identify teaming partners?

Have you been having outreach events?

Have you been going to events put on by different professional organizations, but keeping track of all of that because if you've got to scramble and put it together when you're under the deadline, it's rough because there's a lot of bits and pieces and there may be you have a dedicated person in your firm who's responsible for that.

Maybe you don't.

So if you don't, maybe you need to find a diversity, equity and inclusion consultant to put on your team, and then you're going to need to get that information from them.

So there's just, for some agencies, it's worth a lot of points.

It's really important.

So you want to make sure you're doing everything you can to be prepared for that.

Finding those stories.

If you've mentored a firm and helped them get registered as a woman or minority firm, and you've helped them improve their processes, all those types of stories are great sidebar callouts.

They're things that the team can talk about at the proprietary meeting, or they can talk about at the interview.

So looking for those little nuggets, getting photos.

Those are all great things that you're going to want to pepper throughout the DEI section in your submittal.

Yeah, and then, you know, don't forget that everyone on the team can be represented.

So you don't have to just look at what your firm has done.

Have this be a talking point on an agenda to find out what stories might be out there.

And someone might think something feels too small, but it's actually nice to have the voices of, you know, your entire team in the proposal.

And I think as marketers, we hear that all the time.

Oh, this is just what we always do.

Or I don't know, it wasn't worth a lot, but we really made a difference by bringing on this partner.

Whatever it might be, the marketer's ear should perk up and say, tell me more.

That could be something.

And then, you know, it's also maybe not too late to go and get a photo from them that's represented.

You know, maybe you don't have it from when the project was being done, but you know, they're a firm doing work.

Maybe you can, you know, get something kind of like it's retroactive in that way.

Go and get that.

That will be really amazing, a little nugget to have.

So yeah, definitely starting to talk about it early because it just tends to be worth enough points.

And the old statement, like you said, Melissa, that this is what our plan is, is winning less points than here's what we're going to do for you and here's how we have done that.

So you don't have to worry.

We've got it.

Yeah, and I think another important point is back to those projects you select.

Were there diversity goals and did you meet them?

Maybe there weren't diversity goals, but you still had great participation numbers.

So you might need some time to work with your accounting team to identify all the subconsultants.

You might have to recreate information on who worked on these projects yourself.

You might have to get a list of the subcontractors and the dollar values from your accounting department.

If they don't track, if a firm is minority or woman owned at this point, one, they should be doing that for the future, but you might have to be recreating some past information.

So you might have to go look up these firms on your state database and see if they're certified as a woman or minority firm.

So there could be some things you need to do to recreate the goals that you achieved, even if there wasn't a set goal or reporting process on your past project.

Yeah, marketing is going to need to push a bit on this topic in most cases to say, we want some more data, we're going to have to dig.

How can we think about the different scopes of work and our preferred vendors and how we might be able to create a path for the owner?

And I'm saying that because I've gotten a lot of pushback.

We're like, well, we don't know.

Obviously, there's no scope of work yet, right?

We don't have a design.

I mean, there can be lots of reasons why it feels like there's barriers to showing more of your plan.

But teams that win take a bolder approach to making commitments and being thoughtful about the project and how that they can improve in this area.

Yeah, maybe you have an engineering partner that is not, you know, it's just a large business.

But you might talk to them about, is there some part of your scope that you could peel off to mentor a woman-owned firm and help them understand how to be successful in public projects or in design-build projects?

So those are some ways you can get diverse participation.

We're still having the firms that you have great past teaming experience, but how can you pay it forward and bring more firms into the fold and teach them the best practices and how they can be successful?

Yeah, haven't we seen where all of the larger firms, every single one had some sort of partnering relationship with a mentor relationship with someone?

You know, so even to the smallest amount, that makes a very strong statement.

It's like, we are all responsible for this.

So get creative.

And this is not a place for very much boilerplate.

We kind of mentioned at the top of this whole thing about how there's a lot to manage from the marketer's perspective.

And so maybe let's just spend a couple of minutes thinking through like, what are some of our tips?

What do we do to make sure we're getting accountability and keeping all of these names in order and the different firms and getting what we need?

Probably it starts with that kickoff meeting, having a really clear agenda, making introductions, sending out communication now that we're all linked.

You know, people might get added to it in time, but just creating that central hub.

Melissa, can you share any other tools that you've used that felt like successful for keeping all this straight?

Yeah, I think on a design build pursuit, weekly check-ins seems to be a really great way to keep things moving forward.

We're talking about a builder who's probably got another project that they're actively building while they're pursuing this work and maybe pursuing multiple design build projects at the same time.

So keeping that weekly cadence, even if it is more of a like, I know I still need to do it, I'm going to do it, just having that face time and checking in.

And you've probably come up with some questions between last week's meeting and this week's meeting that even if it's not getting a bunch of content, you've got everyone's ear where you can check in on some things.

If you are in close proximity to each other's, because sometimes teams, there's a little, there could be a couple hours commute or whatever, you're generally in the same area, but not super close.

But if you happen to be in the same city or town or reasonably close, then having those check-ins or at least a couple of those check-ins in person, I recommend like bringing in lunch so that people can start having casual conversations.

Now, you may have worked with everyone on the team one million times, and that you know everyone really well.

But what I'm getting to is like this level of comfort within the team that shows up in the informational proprietary meeting and in the interview, you can almost finish each other's sentences.

You have this casual, comfortable nature about yourselves and as a team that the owner can feel.

And what I'm guessing that they're thinking is, I want to work with that team.

That seems like a good group of people.

They are interesting.

And as much as we hate to admit it that we're being selected because of our personalities and not just that we're technically really brilliant, there is that element of like, no, who seems smart and interesting and solutions-oriented and kind and generous?

Someone that the owner is going to be working with for a year plus, like, who do I want to be sitting in meetings with regularly and feel like is going to listen to me and bring value to this process?

And you can have a lot of people at different levels of their career on these pursuits.

And that's another good reason to have them all together because you're just, you know, by the nature of meeting in person, you get people who are earlier in their career get to see like behavior modeled.

Hopefully, it's positive behavior.

They start to have a level of confidence in what their area of expertise is and what they might be asked to talk about.

Everyone is informed about the project.

So now they can more comfortably on a whim kind of be able to talk through solutions as opposed to being brought in at the last minute.

So if you can get their time and attention, bring them in early and start everyone getting up to speed on the project.

Agreed.

I was going to mention the use of technology, Mural or Mural or other types of whiteboards or sharing collaborative apps.

I feel like in Progressive Design Build, those are amazing, amazing tools.

Because, well, not only can everyone contribute to it, they can be hands on with sharing and cutting and pasting and adding content, all of that.

But it's almost like it is a little bit like what your project will be.

It's like a case study for how we work together.

And so sometimes a team will work on a mural board in the early stages of the pursuit and then bring parts of that into a new mural board for these proprietary meetings because that content was good.

And it doesn't have to look perfectly polished and presented on a board to be able to show the owner team, this is how we work together, this is how we solve problems, this is how we will work with you and communicate as well.

So...

Showing, not telling.

Yes, exactly.

It brings people together using some things like that as opposed to just blue beam review of proposal status updates.

I find I'm asking that to teams a lot.

I'm like, well, what is it like, how are you going to figure out this puzzle?

Like, once you get the job, like, what is that going to be like?

And how can we try and make it like that in this proprietary meeting?

Yeah, it's practice.

Practice for how we're all going to work together eventually, so we might as well get some of those kinks worked out.

All right, well, we are bumping up on our time for this episode.

And I know we mentioned, like, kind of the in-person component, the interview and that type of thing a bunch of times, but I think we need to earmark that for a future episode, because we could spend just as much time talking about, who do you bring to the proprietary meeting, and how many people are too much, and what if there's no agenda, how do you use that time?

Or what if they ask for a tour on that?

How do you use a half-day proprietary meeting?

Well, I don't know.

There's so many variables, which would be really fun to talk through and share our experiences on that.

But before we kind of wrap it up with the overview of what we discussed today, I do want to go back to our little trivia question here.

I know everyone's been dying to find this out.

All right, so like I mentioned at the top, these are numbers from the Design Build Institute of America's Mid-Cycle Update Report that came out in March 2023 from FMI Consulting.

And so they said that, what was my first question?

Is it growing, receding, maintaining?

Well, it's growing.

That's no surprise.

We said that like 10 times, even as we were talking through.

It's growing.

And I don't actually know when the first Design Build projects started.

Someone could probably chime in and say that.

I'm sure it's documented out there, but more than 10 years.

Oh, I mean, military in the 90s, early in my career, there was projects that were Design Build in the 90s.

Yeah.

So, you know, it continues to grow.

The data that FMI Consulting came up with was that basically over between 2022 and 2026 is going to grow about 5% in that time.

So that to me wasn't like it was a rocket, you know, it was just increasing.

And I think so I don't think we're taken over by this delivery method.

There's a lot of work that goes into it.

So it's not appropriate for some types of projects for sure.

Well, yeah, and then some states are going to have to change laws in order to allow that delivery method.

So if your state's not currently using Design Build as a delivery method, maybe it's in the works.

Yes, absolutely.

There's like a longer road to get it all implemented.

And Melissa, you were right on when you said that it's not equal across every state.

The regions that account for the largest volume of Design Build delivery and spending is South Atlantic, West, South Central and Pacific regions.

So Pacific is Washington, Oregon, California.

That's West, South Central, according to FMI, their map was Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana.

And then I believe that the largest was the South Atlantic, so Florida and kind of that, Georgia, South Carolina, all the way up to DC and Delaware, that kind of area.

So those are the three regions that see the most spending, and that represents across the whole United States, 47% of construction spending is under Design Build delivery.

So close, but so far, yeah.

I was like, I did not think it was going to be nearly half, so all right, noted.

Here's my asterisk for this, though.

This report came out 2023, and all of these numbers are talking about what they expect by the end of 2026.

So it's a little bit forward thinking.

But again, like with that growth number, it's not like it's skyrocketing.

So if you were to read this report, you can see that it's just stepping up every year, becoming more and more common.

The different segments that see the most of this is like highway and street at 18%, educational at 13%.

I would have thought that was way more, but it might be because we're in Washington state, and we see so much of that, and then manufacturing at 14%.

So yeah, anyway, it's definitely not going away, and I think that's really good for a lot of reasons, so that's great.

Thanks for humoring me with my little data dump there.

It's always fun to go and dig in to something and see what's different from just our experience and what's really happening out there in the industry.

Design Build Institute of America, DBIA, has a ton of free resources on their website.

They have white papers about Progressive Design Build done right.

They have a deeper dive, so lots of great resources there for free at DBIA.

So you can dig in if you want to up your knowledge in this delivery method.

Yeah, definitely.

Okay, well, then let's summarize some of the things that we talked about as far as our hot fakes, our tips for being a marketer on a design build pursuit.

Start early, whether that's identifying the opportunities, identifying the team and locking those in, starting to collaborate on what projects you'll feature.

It's just a big process with a lot of moving parts.

So the earlier you can start, the more successful you'll be.

Yeah, and then you mentioned, like, reviewing the full procurement schedule.

Who is our team even going to be available?

I mean, this can feel very different if you're used to more of a quicker turn type of proposal process.

So that's a really smart tip.

And then also, like you said, Melissa, reading ahead.

What are they going to ask for?

By when can we get this flagged?

Just because there's so much to kind of track.

So it's starting early, and as the marketer, having that map and feeling good about owning.

Owning those dates and, you know, pushing people to keep moving forward.

They'll thank you for that, like having that authority, I think.

Yeah, don't let anyone tell you, oh, we've got a month to respond.

We don't have to start the day it came out.

You do.

If they gave you a month, it's probably because you need that month, or at least your competition is going to use that month.

All right, well, great.

Thank you so much for having this conversation with me.

It was always good, like it is with you.

Thanks, Melissa.

Thanks, Wendy.

The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six and hosted by me, Wendy Simmons, Principal Marketing Strategist.

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The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.