What inspires you as a design professional?

How should designers and contractors work together to deliver highest value to owners

If you could give an award for the best owner, who would you give it to and why?

What is most challenging about successfully delivering quality design projects in this market?

What are the best ways and the right timing to bring in MEP and specialty consultants/ contractors to a project?

For workplace and/or community transformation projects (you choose), what advice do you have for owners regarding what they should be doing?

What are the most important features of the modern work environment that design can significantly impact?

What mistakes do owners make in the design and construction of new workplaces? How should they avoid them?

What are the keys to working with regulators to minimize adverse impact to projects?

If you could teach younger design professionals anything that would make an impact on their careers and projects, what three things would you tell them and why?

What designer in the industry (living or deceased) has inspired your work the most? What did you learn from him/her and/or his/her body of work?

Of the possible procurement methods for projects (CM@R, Design-Build, Design-Bid-Build, IPD, PDB, etc.), what do you prefer and why? For the work you do as a design professional, what method would you recommend to owners?

Describe your most memorable project. What made it memorable (good or bad)?

Gathering space is important to any workplace environment (across workplace types – healthcare, corporate, educational, etc.). What do you recommend to make these spaces more functional, cost effective, better?

What is different about working in a healthcare or high tech environment from other types of work environments?

How are the clients you currently work with unique? How does it/should it influence the way in which you work as a design professional?

What is unique about your firm that would be valuable to clients? Create a ‘Why Us?’ presentation and deliver it related to a project on which you’d like to work?

What was your biggest mistake on a design/ delivery project? What would you do differently if you could go back in time?

How do we build effective teamwork on a complex project? What tools, strategies, methods do you recommend and why?

What are the costliest elements of the projects on which you typically work? How can clients, contractors, designers help achieve higher value?

What are trends in design that you think teams/ owners will regret ten years from now?

What is the most important tool you use as a design professional? What impact does it have on your work?

How do you think design and construction will change in the next five years? Ten years? What do we as professionals need to do to be ready for these changes?

If you controlled the budget within your firm, what would you invest in right now? Why?

Where do you think areas of market growth and market decline are right now? How does this influence the practice of architecture?

What changes do firms need to make right now to be viable design practices in the future?

What current sustainability trends are a waste of money? Which ones have promise for longterm building, occupant, planet health? How would you change how owners, designers, contractors think about sustainability?

If you could make one change in how clients work with you/your team/your firm, what would it be and what impact would it have on projects? On the way you work?

What is your favorite project type? What do you like about it?

What human resources practices, policies, etc. are influenced by architecture? How should we be thinking differently about design given current trends in human resources like #Me Too?

Automation continues to impact our work environments. How can we plan for and/or adapt to changing technology within a five to ten-year ROI on projects?

Do you like to work as part of an integrated team or more of a maverick/loner? Why? What impact does your work style have on your work?

What are the keys to successful project management? Tell us something we don’t know – that others might not be able to articulate.

What is innovative about your work that responds directly to the needs of the market or your clients?

If you could design to improve society, what would you do/work on that would be transformative? Provide a big idea, even if it’s in a smaller context.

What regulations need to be changed (beefed up, eliminated, etc.) in the types of projects on which you work? Why? What impact would this have on design and construction?

What’s the coolest piece of office furniture you’ve ever seen? How could it be integrated into your existing project?

What are the keys to collaborating with difficult clients? What processes work and/or don’t work?

When owners want more project than they can afford, how do you demonstrate good stewardship of their budgets without losing money as a design professional?

How do we design/construct for a warming planet and in response to energy and environmental concerns? Beyond the pure marketing, what are the most promising concepts and/or ideas that might really make a difference?