Benefits of Programming Design Activities Within an Architectural Organisation

Programming design activities within an Architectural organisation has many relevant advantages in terms of timing, costs, coordination and problem-solving. An Architectural organisation use to carrying-out a huge number of different projects. Without an efficient programming plan, this would be much more complicated and probably not enough profitable. In order to achieve good activities Programmation, some standards are adopted. This is essential because that works as a map for a sailor, it gives the right tools in order to plan any step, organising the timing of any stage of work as what can be done in parallel, what must be finished to proceed with the next step, individuate the critic aspect, when do the necessary applications etc.

In this way, the activities are visualized, how much time any of those should take, how to coordinate the different tasks. Helps to prevent confusion regards the progress of the activities and any member of the team can clearly understand the situation about the stages of work not under his competence but important for the following stages. This kind of plan is very important when due to some delay that always can occur, is necessary to understand how and how much time can be reclaimed during the process and if the critical path will be affected from it. A good plan is also useful in order to show to the client the work progress. The mentioned optimisation of the profit is not the only advantage of the Architectural organisation, but also a proof for the client that the organisation is healthy, competent and competitive.

Some of the most adopted standards are the Gantt Chart, which gives a clearly graphic visualisation of the time each task is supposed to taken and which tasks depend from the ending of the previous and which could work in parallel. It is easy to define the deadlines of any task or group of those and also is extremely clear when the graphic of the works progress is visualized against the programmed plan. Another format is represented by the RIBA Plan of Work 2013 which, more schematically, defines all the stages and tasks and could be easily tailored on the specific project. The combination of the two, defining all stages by RIBA Plan of work and translate it in a simplified schematisation of a Gantt chart is also a good solution.

The benefits in term of time are obtained by the clear visualisation of the deadlines. Planning the time of any stage and define deadlines is essential in order to optimise the time and also understand the gap with the critical path, how much flexibility is possible to manage in case of delays, define instalment payment or more simply create the invoices for the final bill (depending by the contract). Delays may seriously impact on the payments and a good programmation helps to prevent them or reducing it for example by carrying out works during a season where very bad weather is rare or dispatch the materials order in advance so if any miss production occurs is still possible to change supplier with a minimum impact.

Another benefit is to planning the work during the time necessary to obtain the approvals for the project as the definition of contractors and suppliers. Any time that an Architectural organisation develop a program and carrying-out one project, that program and the records of all unforeseen situation and how those have been managed became part of the organisation’s know-how and helps do define better the following project, foreseen problems and planning the solutions with an important impact in term of time and cost involved. This is also helpful during the firsts meetings with the client, in particular when the client does not have experience in the project and construction area.

The architectural organisation is in the best condition to explain the process, cost, possible problems in order to find with the client the best solution and then planning a customised program on the clear definition of the client’s willing. When the programmation is planned either through Gnatt chart or RIBA Plan of work 2013, is possible to define who and when needs to work on the project, which kind of skills are required, which staff member has those skills and if the necessary members are available at that time and in case of necessity employ professionals with the required skills. When the project starts, the work progression meets some important steps usually marked by some main deadlines. These usually are the obtainment of the planning permission and the building warrant approval or the start of the structure itself after the organisation of the site or again the end of the structural work or any other.

Some of those may be used by the Organisation as a stage of payments in order to carrying-out the works. This because to pay in advance is a risk for the client in case of failure of the organisation or it could be subject to devaluation in case of delay or other kinds of problems when the work is carried out until the end. It is a risk for the organisation the final payment in case a lot of work is already done but the client incurs in failure. The only case where those kinds of payment may be accepted is for very small works. When the payment is performed in stages is important the valuation of the progress against the dealt plan and its deadlines. How has been explained, the planning activity as a strong and positive impact in design activities and if time ago was a specific characteristic of the big companies, today is very diffused at any level and maybe with a slightly different standard, in the most of countries. For this reason, is important that anyone approaching some role in this business has a good knowledge of this mechanism.