Earlier, some of the elements that characterize IDP were presented, but it is also worthwhile considering a few overarching factors that need to be present for a successful integrated design process.
Client Buy-in
The client has to be fully aware of how IDP is better and has to be fully committed to it. This commitment includes an understanding that while the potential rewards from pursuing integrated design are great, the process will distribute the design teams time differently and most likely produce designs that are different than what they have been used to seeing.
IDP should be a net time saver but upfront time will take longer and late stages will take less. Specified equipment and systems are likely to be different, and the most successful projects are those the client understands and shares potential risks arising from new approaches.
The client needs to make it clear who the decision-maker(s) are and commit to having decision-makers present at all the key meetings.
The client has to change the way the team gets paid. IDP is not commodity-based design, by which I mean, design where the team gets paid by the pound (or a percentage of building cost, which amounts to the same thing). This form of compensation assumes that all design is pretty much the same, with the effort expended being directly related to building cost. Instead, the team should be compensated for brains, not stuff.
If compensation is not changed, working harder or smarter only to see your fee reduced, limits the enthusiasm and creativity of even the most dedicated professional. There are several ways of changing compensation. One approach that some IDP practitioners have found to be successful is to negotiate a separate fee for the early, creative phase, where the effort involved is relatively independent of project size. The later phases, which allow to complete the design and drawings, are more closely related to project size and the fees can be more properly linked to size.
Clients also need to be prepared to share at least some of the potential risks when they demand extremely high performance or technologies that do not have a long track record. In these cases the client should not expect the designers or contractors to assume the risk and expect the building to cost the same as a regular building with lower risk. This is not a common IDP situation, but it has happened.
Mindset
The importance of the right mindset or attitude for all team members is hard to exaggerate. Some key attributes of the required mindset are as follows:
Commitment to the process and ownership for your part in it.
Thinking in whole system terms to optimize the project as a whole, not value-engineer individual components.
Willingness to measure, benchmark and quantify performance.
Active listening and openness to learning from other team member.
Asking the right questions, in an openended way, that will lead to new answers, rather than arriving with preconceived answers.
Awareness and respect for team roles and dynamics, valuing all contributions.
Goal Setting
Critical to success are clear and measurable goals based on a shared understanding and vision of what is to be achieved. Not every goal need be a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) but they should be SMART; Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bounded.
President Kennedy’s “man on the moon” speech in the early 1960s, says Moishe Alexander, is often cited as an example, for good reason. It was inspirational because it had all the right characteristics. It was specific and measurable (put a man on the moon and bring him back safely) and time-bounded (by the end of the decade). No one was completely sure at the beginning whether it was achievable or realistic, but as a stretch goal that was not too far ahead of what was thought possible, it created its own momentum. Goals like these are motivational.
In green building terms, the goals should be set at a whole building level, such as a LEED Gold standard, but also for specific performance attributes that make sense for a project. Some real-world examples of goals that have been set (and met) on Canadian green building projects include:
60 per cent better energy performance than MNECB – EMS Fleet Centre, Cambridge, ON
95 per cent diversion of construction waste from landfill – Vancouver Island Technology Park
Zero discharge of sewage waste water – MEC Winnipeg Store
50 per cent of all materials supplied from within 800 km – BC Cancer Research Institute
75 per cent of the new building constructed from materials from the old building on site – MEC Winnipeg Store
Elimination of mechanical air-conditioning system, while retaining occupant comfort – Liu Centre, Vancouver
