No Smoke and Mirrors Here: Inside the DBIA Awards Jury

Every year, the DBIA Project/Team Awards recognize the teams that demonstrate Design-Build Done Right®, but how does the jury actually evaluate submissions?

In this episode, your host Erin Looney chats with four members of the DBIA Awards jury to explain what they look for when reviewing projects and what makes a submission stand out.

The discussion covers:

• How collaboration and leadership influence award-winning projects
• Why documentation and storytelling matter in submissions
• How teams can demonstrate the real impact of VDC and technology
• The role of procurement strategy and risk allocation

If you're considering submitting a project, this episode offers practical insight directly from the people who review the applications.

Resources in the episode

• DBIA Project/Team Awards previous winners
  • Orange County Health Care Agency at Marine Way (2025 Best in VDC Award winner)
• DBIA Project/Team Awards Submission Guidelines
• Guest bios:
  • Rich Formella, PMP, CPPO, FAC-C III (Retired), FDBIA
  • Barbara Jackson, Ph.D., FDBIA
  • Praful Kulkarni, Ph.D., FAIA, DBIA
  • Brian Skripac, CM-BIM, CDT, LEED AP, DBIA

Access all our free design-build resources and learn more about Design-Build Done Right® at dbia.org.

DBIA members are shaping the future, one successful collaboration at a time. 

Transcript

March 2026 Awards

Mon, Mar 16, 2026 12:23PM • 41:24

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

DBIA awards, design build, project submission, jury evaluation, best practices, collaboration, leadership, procurement, technology integration, VDC, owner involvement, teaming, documentation, project outcomes, submission process.

SPEAKERS

Barbara Jackson, Erin Looney, Praful Kulkarni, Speaker 1, Brian Skripac, Rich Formella

Praful Kulkarni  00:08

Give us the soul of that project.

Brian Skripac  00:09

Don't just tell me that you used all of these amazing technologies. Tell us about why you did it and what outcome did it drive for the project.

Rich Formella  00:18

If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. We

Barbara Jackson  00:20

all know you just don't throw a bunch of people together and say, Okay, now trust each other. That's not going to happen.

Erin Looney  00:25

And you also can't just throw a bunch of projects and people into a judging room, close the door and expect black magic to pick the winners. Welcome to the design build delivers podcast brought to you by Arcon Autodesk, Platinum Partner. I am your host. Aaron Looney, every year, the DBIA project team awards jury gathers here in Washington, DC to review design build projects submitted from across the country, all vying for the title of project of the year, as well as bragging rights across 10 sectors, a multitude of best in categories and our chairs award. And despite what you might think, if you've ever filled out our application, there's really nothing mysterious happening in that room. Still, if you have stared at the application and thought, What the hell are they actually looking for here? That's what we're going to answer today. Or if you've never submitted, because maybe it seems like a lot, or you weren't sure how to cast the right spell on our jury, or you're simply just new to the process our guests, our guests will uncover those secrets. To do this, we brought in four members of the DBIA awards jury to explain what actually happens behind the curtain and what helps a project rise to the top in an increasingly competitive field. You'll hear from Praful Kulkarni, the current chair of the DBIA project team, awards jury and a longtime leader in the design build industry. And Barbara Jackson, former jury chair, who helped shape the awards program and continues to be a leading voice on design, build teaming and leadership. You'll also hear from Brian skripak, who leads dbias efforts around Virtual Design and Construction and technology best practices. And Rich Formella, a procurement and contracting expert, longtime member of the DBIA awards jury and relatively new member of the new DBIA regions team. He brings deep insight into how projects are structured and how they're delivered. We talk about everything from collaboration and leadership to procurement technology documentation and and why? Telling the real story of your project matters just as much as the final results. You can learn more about all four guests in our show notes, as well as the design build delivers blog both have links to resources and case studies mentioned in the episode and a link to the most important piece, the DBIA project team awards submission page. And while you're planning your team's story, mark your calendar June 1 is the date. Submissions are due that day, and there will not be an extension this year. So if there's no black magic involved, how does the jury actually make those choices? Praful you chair the awards jury. So when that group sits down in July, what are you actually looking for

Praful Kulkarni  03:01

Barbara Jackson and I got together in Denver and actually formatted the initial outline of how the awards should be structured judged. And that was almost 15 years ago. You know, it's been a process. We are at a very good place. Over the years, the rub against design build has been that okay, you can finish the projects on time and within budget the way it is formulated, but can you actually provide excellence all around that includes excellence and design excellence in the overall delivery, and can these be kind of world class projects? And I think we've made a lot of progress in that as we have gone through this process, every year, the submission quality improves and projects are worthy of the honors that they received.

Erin Looney  04:03

Speaking of Barbara, you were here, like Praful said from the beginning, and you were the chair before proof of was so we all know these types of programs evolve because they have to what today are jurors more attuned to than they might have been five or 10 years ago. One of

Barbara Jackson  04:19

the biggest impacts was when the best practices got published, that that made a big difference, because that sort of set a standard, or a minimum standard by which we would evaluate. And so I think the thing that has really shifted is what the jury is now seeking. They're seeking evidence of the best practices. And so the jurors are now really keyed in on not just I did the best practice, it's what difference did it make? How did it play out? Did it improve things? I think that is now what they're truly keyed in on.

Erin Looney  04:57

Both of those questions. Make this one. And a nice jump off to you. Rich excellence has been mentioned in different ways from both answers so far, so you get to define it for us. Have you seen the definition of excellence change, or is it our clarity around it that has sharpened? So like Barbara said, you can check the boxes on the best practices, but what makes something follow the boxes versus Wow. This is amazing.

Speaker 1  05:23

From my perspective. I think clarity is sharpened like before indicated. Focusing on excellence in the jury describes the definition of excellence in category. From the pool of submissions, how do they measure up against the best practices? How do they measure up against design build done right, and which one rises to the top? So we get an excellent in category from that. But the Design Excellence definition and metric, in my opinion, has been the one that has been much more clearly defined over the years, and we now have specific questions that focus the submission responses on how DBIA teaches what design excellence means, and those focused responses help the jury significantly when they're evaluating the results and scoring pop quiz.

Erin Looney  06:15

Brian, I'm going to see if you have anything to add to the excellence question, just to introduce you to the conversation. Otherwise, we're going to be waiting for you for you for a little while.

Brian Skripac  06:23

I think it goes back to excellence gets defined and evolves, just like Rich said. But I think going back to where Barbara mentioned, we define best practices. So from my corner of the world, we talk about how we're leveraging BIM, VDC and technology, that's another aspect of design build that we've worked to evolve by defining a series of best practices. Over the last couple of years, we've been able to expand the submission process to include and highlight companies and projects and teams that are really taking advantage of those. So now, while we have those best practices, we can check the list, as Barbara said, now we're expanding upon it. Who's excelling at doing that. So that's just another outlet that we have, and our criteria to really look at and see how people are working.

Erin Looney  07:08

Let's turn to you again, rich the optional sections that exist, they touch on some of our specialty awards, like VDC, like Trailblazer, all of those things I will put in the show notes to describe for people who want to know more about them, they're set up so that you have to really apply specifically to those Why do you think it's important? Or is it that those areas require that kind of focused, purposeful response, rather than just finding their way into the other generic questions?

Speaker 1  07:37

In a nutshell, because it helps the jury with evaluating and coming up with the right answers. The nuances of these specialty awards are much more difficult when they're spread out throughout the submission, and it makes it more difficult to properly evaluate it without having a targeted response. So in my realm of work, just like when you propose on a project, you want to really help the evaluators find the complete answers that you're submitting so that they can probably evaluate an apple to an apple, and that's why these targeted responses are so critical.

Erin Looney  08:15

Let's move from application and process to submit to what it looks like on the other side when you're judging the projects. This one is for all of you. We'll start with you, Brian, when you are reviewing submissions, what makes you just lean forward in your chair and go, Yep, I think

Brian Skripac  08:31

kind of the big aha moments are when people show an inclusive approach to how they leverage technology. I think that's a big thing. You really, really see when something becomes an approach and a process that was implemented that's outside of the box. It's not just your standard deliverables. I think that's exciting for us to see, and that comes up more and more on our submissions that we review.

Speaker 1  08:52

For me, it's seeing that the submitter has taken the time and put in the effort to answer all of the questions, even if they're afforded the opportunity not to, and that the answers to those questions focus on project specific examples relative to the design build done right mindset.

Praful Kulkarni  09:13

One of the thoughts that I had was about, how do we kind of look at submissions and the patterns that kind of come out of what we see. If a submission is excelling in a particular area, let's say teaming, typically, it's pretty good in the other areas as well. So I think people tend to kind of give it a good, solid effort to go across the different categories, the teaming, the process, the Design Excellence, and then it becomes kind of a tight race as we move through the process, and what surfaces to the jury in terms of what's best. So that's the kind of pattern I notice. It's not just one thing that's going to stand out in terms of. The three different areas and the others are not very or they're mediocre. That doesn't typically happen. I think the quality stays across the board.

Erin Looney  10:09

And Barbara, we're coming to you last because we're going to stay with you for a few minutes. So what do you think makes you sit forward?

Barbara Jackson  10:16

I get the best picture of what actually happened in the process of design, build done, right? And the teaming effort and all of that, and the solution finding, when there's a challenge, we ask a question about what was your biggest challenge, right? So how they respond to that? I'm always looking for intentionality, like they intentionally engaged in such a way that they took it on. Collectively, it wasn't just somebody came up with an answer that just ran with. They literally had to discover a way to go forward, maintain all the standards and best practices that we want to see. And they tapped into, when I see them tap into all the different people on the team, and, you know, they brought the plumber in, and the plumber did this, and the HVAC guys could do this, that helped the architect with this piece and that piece. So I'm looking for that intentionality around it, and agility they realize the whole point of the design, build teaming effort is I've got these resources, and I'm going to tap into them. That's actually my favorite part of the submission that I like to look at. And I go there, and I say, how did they do that? And if it's this one line thing, and they don't sort of tell the story and describe the nuances, I want to see the good, the bad and the ugly, that has me lean forward. And this team knows the design build done right, dance, and they dance. They solve this thing. They got to the other side, and it's like they came together to make that happen. Those are the ones that have me lean forward.

Erin Looney  11:56

This next question to you also Barbara builds a little bit on what you were just saying, one of the philosophies that runs through our application is this, one team, one goal, and what you were just describing does speak to that. But what are some examples of things that could convince you? Now, I'm not putting any kind of words in any submitters mouths. We're not saying this is going to win again. So don't make up stories just to appease us. When you see something like that, what does it look like?

Barbara Jackson  12:23

This is what I look for, teaming at its best, and design build done right is teaming is learning. In other words, there's a quality of what I call confident, humility. They all know their stuff. They've got technical skills. They know they're part of the work. They know what they're accountable for but then they also have enough humility to learn from one another. Teaming at its best is that, and then it's kind of like almost a willingness to take a risk every now and again together so that they can learn faster. It's learning in the moment versus waiting to get to the end of the project and then say, well, next time we should correct this, they're actually correcting it as they go. This is why that challenge kind of brings that out. The ones who do well describe that adjusting as they go, and it's kind of how they get to the most optimized solution. When we talk about excellence, that pursuit of excellence is right in the middle of all that. They're not just there to deliver the budget and the schedule and the quality and do it safely. They're there to optimize. They want to leverage what they've got in a team, and they do the work to do that.

Erin Looney  13:40

One of the components of teaming is obviously leadership. And I don't mean leaders by title. I mean the function of leadership, which you know better than most people. So how, when you're looking at these what signals authentic leadership, actual leading, versus just aligning at the surface level?

Barbara Jackson  13:59

Well, you actually use the word, and that's authenticity, okay, one of the things you're looking for is this authentic vulnerability. It is goes right back to that notion of some humility, knowing that you're there to actually facilitate excellence from the team, that you're not there to command and control. You're actually there to trust that they've got something to contribute. Create a psychological safety so everyone feels comfortable to contribute, leverage what they've contributed, and then inspire, you know, create that environment in which they can excel. So leadership again, and design build, done right, looks a little different than it does in the traditional siloed approach to design, bid, build, but in this way, leadership is about leveraging the capabilities of the people that are in front of you, and that's what we see on these very, very best projects. There's lots of components of the process. We can check off and say that is excellent in terms of the process, but I've also seen or heard we got an excellent result, but literally, this is what a client said to me, but there's dead people laying all over the place, and so that's not the kind of leadership you want. You want people fully alive, engaged, you know, excited, passionate, that they have come together to provide something greater than what they could have ever done by themselves or in this silo. That is the power of design build, and when we do it right, the results can be extraordinary.

Erin Looney  15:41

So let's move from leadership and dead bodies to technology. And Brian, what tells you that VDC or technology actually changed the outcomes? Instead of just saying it was here we used it.

Brian Skripac  15:56

Part of it goes back to the last question, right? One of the things that we start to see now is the implementation integration of a strong VDC project leader who is able to really drive the use of technology throughout the design, construction and turnover into operation phases of the project. That's when it becomes obvious that people just aren't using the tool to make their deliverables. You know, maybe in the past, we heard, well, we used a common data environment to increase collaboration around sharing our models, and we use visualization to help with design, decision making process or clash detection to improve coordination. Those are very kind of open ended statements, and really something that everybody does on projects at this time, what we're looking for is, what was the breadth and depth of how the team used them? How did that really enhance the virtual design and construction process? What were other innovative ways that they use technology when they do that, we're able to see a strong alignment with dbias best practices, but also how those tools and processes allowed the team to better achieve the owner and project goals. And that's a real big difference between what we heard before, kind of checking the box. We did collaboration, we did visualization, these real examples that come from the project teams that tell a story and start to quantify outcomes. That's where we really see that it's helping out on projects

Erin Looney  17:21

now from technology to procurement, which the word doesn't sound very exciting, but I found that design build procurement is actually really fascinating. So we're going to look at talk to you for a few minutes rich and you can make it even more fascinating. From the standpoint of procurement, what signals to you maturity in how a project was structured and how it was delivered.

Speaker 1  17:41

I think we need to look at this from the framework of, what are they allowed to do, based on the restrictions, regulatory authorities, the sandbox they have to plan. I'm looking for descriptions. I'm looking for the rationale for how and why the owner chose to use the design build delivery method, and then how they structured the procurement of those services that demonstrate some type of alignment, or significant alignment, with design build done right Best Practices now, because this happens early in the project, and there's not significant involvement yet by the design builder. There really needs to be an alignment between the design builder and the owner on why the owner chose this process and the submitter of the award application. Really needs to be able to understand that background and articulate what the owner's decisional process was, how they made the acquisition strategy determinations that they made to initiate the procurement because otherwise the full story of how we got to the end result is not told because the beginning is not understood

Erin Looney  18:58

From procurement to risk. What tells you risk was thoughtfully allocated, rather than reactively managed, which has its tentacles in a lot of what we've already talked

Speaker 1  19:08

about on the front end, I want to see demonstration that the team has been discussing issues that could have been problematic, and how they chose to address those in the formation of the contract or the teaming agreements. I'm looking for forward thinking on the back end, I'm looking for, because of that forward thinking, there's minimal to no mention of issues arising that necessitated some significant efforts at mitigation or escalated problem resolution.

Erin Looney  19:43

Okay, that sounds straightforward, but I think in the midst of things, I could see where that could go very, very wrong if they don't plan well enough in advance. We're going to close out this section now with pro fool bringing it kind of together. What are some patterns you see in projects that ultimately rise to the top and take home awards?

Praful Kulkarni  20:00

You know, a couple of things that stand out. Rich certainly mentioned the owner involvement. Barbara talked about examples of projects and leadership. In my view, it is okay for the project to be in trouble at some point, but if you can point out how the project recovered from it and actually provided the final result that was a success. That matters. So it's, you know, any of the issues that came up and just pushed them under the rug, kind of a thing, not a good idea. Tell us how you actually solve the problem when it came up. And that kind of illustrates how these different areas number one expertise leadership and the different roles that the owner, builder and designer team plays. One of the things that stands out for me as well when we pull it all together is the role of the design manager. And this issue comes up a lot in terms of the designers. Obviously, the whole design process is a reiterative process. That's what we teach our designers in schools, whereas construction is a linear process. So that design management role and how that handled these two different processes and still able to provide that final product is important, and connect all the dots, if you will, so that you get the best design and the best quality of construction with

Erin Looney  21:34

optimal results. We're going to move now from the idea of connecting the dots to some of the dots turning back to you rich, over time, we've started to ask for more specificity in certain areas in the submission. Why does the documentation even matter? Why does it matter so much in deciding strong projects and exceptional projects? Because we get a lot of really strong projects. What in terms of documenting this specificity says this one rises up above the others,

Speaker 1  22:02

because we only have access to what is submitted to us to evaluate. And from my procurement background, I mean, I lived it for many, many years. If it's not in writing, it didn't happen. So the documentation that we have access to is what is in the submission. That's all we have to evaluate. And we are trying to evaluate the validity and impacts of the written word relative to design, build, done, right best practices, so the quality and relevance of examples helps us to evaluate how the project and team succeeded. It It

Erin Looney  22:41

sounds simple enough, but I'm sure there are times you say I would really like to have seen

22:45

more. Many times, really times.

Erin Looney  22:49

Well, I guess that's what sets apart the award winners from the try again next time. All right, so let's look at another dot, Brian. Not that Brian's a dot. We're transitioning to VDC again. You talked a little to me, just in conversation at the office one day about showing your work in VDC. What does that mean in that context, to show your work?

Brian Skripac  23:09

It kind of goes back to what Rich said, and something that was mentioned earlier was show us what those quantifiable outcomes were. Don't just tell me that you used all of these amazing technologies, or you applied 10 BIM use cases on the project, but really tell us about why you did it. How did that align with an owner's project goal, and what outcome did it drive for the project? What value was there at the end of the day? I think those are the opportunities that give us the chance to really look at how we compare one project to the other when we're choosing, you know, who really rises to the top.

Erin Looney  23:45

Another thing that we've talked about, of course, is the inherent nature of like VDC being part of design build throughout the entire thing. So why is it then important when submitting to clearly connect BIM uses, clearly connect these outcomes you were talking about and the tools that are being used to the goals, to the budget, to the schedule, or the quality outcomes.

Brian Skripac  24:04

From a differentiation standpoint that we're trying to get to is it's moving beyond those anecdotal conversations, right? The it improved coordination, it improved quality. Anybody can say that. But what did you really do? And I think that's a big aspect of some of the modifications and the tweaks, right? This is always about continuous improvement. You know, Praful talked about the evolution of this awards program from the first time he and Barb sat down the VDC conversation is relatively new, so we are continuing to improve it. And I think one of the things that we've learned the last couple years, we got much better answers last year, and we really hope to get even better answers this year about identifying what type of results we're looking for, and that's an update that we made, and so it's good to be able to talk about it here as well. So saying measurable benefits to budget, schedule and quality outcomes, what were we seeing? Where were their cost savings and. Where was there a schedule acceleration? Where was rework mitigated that we didn't have to do? Was there a reduction in RFIs? Were there other ROI or performance metrics, maybe sustainability, that were able to be achieved throughout the project? The project that won last year for best in VDC, did a really good job, and some of the other ones did really good job too, but they talked about a nearly a million dollars of potential rework that was avoided just in the hardscape and landscape areas with site utilities outside. They talked about a 20% increase in schedule from the prefab MEP racks and restroom pods that they developed they leveraged drones to accelerate their surveying time by 60% which reduced the surveyor mobilization by half. So there are all of these key numbers that they were starting to show, and that was really something that set that project aside from the others

Erin Looney  25:53

and Brian, just for listeners, that project that won VDC in 2025 was the Orange County health care agency at Marine way, which I will link in the show notes, if you want to learn more about it. The Design Build delivers podcast is brought to you by Archons, your technology optimization partner, helping design build teams streamline workflows with Autodesk solutions, expert support and real world training ready to work smarter and faster, get tools insights and schedule your AI readiness check at archons.us/dbia

Erin Looney  26:31

the questions also now ask for more detail around governance models, Co Location, guiding principles, leadership behaviors. Why does that granular level of structural detail matter

Barbara Jackson  26:43

highly effective teams don't happen by accident. Again, I'm going to use the word intentional. There's an intention to create a culture of collaboration. And the big challenge in it all is that every member of a design build team is coming from a different organization or a different company or a different location, even in the country and so on and so forth. You've got all of these different cultural experiences that people have had wherever they've worked before, and now you're trying to bring this team together. So there has to be a intentional engagement, if you will. We've got to create that psychological safety environment so people feel comfortable contributing, and that's a big deal, because we've got really great, talented people on these teams, but if they're too afraid to speak up, or they're concerned that nobody's going to listen to them, or, you know, they'll just shut down my ideas, like they always do, kind of thing. So that leadership component is critical, but the leadership has to happen all across the entire team. So we want to hear the details of how they created greater transparency, how they intentionally built trust. Trust does not happen automatically. So what did you do? Did you have some background of relatedness? Conversations try to find out what's important, what's a win look like for you those sorts of things where you start to understand your team members as people first, and then you access what they have to contribute, their technical skills, their mastery and whatever it is, and now you've created an environment in which they can engage. And that's the whole point. And so the detail we're looking for, quite frankly, in the structure of the team and the governance and the Co Location and all those things, the detail of teaming is, what have you done to create an environment of trust and contribution? I mean, we all know you just don't throw a bunch of people together and say, Okay, now trust each other. That's not going to happen. It does not happen by accident.

Erin Looney  28:54

Let's take all of this now and turn to you Praful and ask, it's a yes or no question. But I want you to tell me more than yes or no. Have you seen strong projects otherwise, very nice, very well done. Have you seen those undercut themselves because they just didn't clearly connect all of these dots

Praful Kulkarni  29:13

that actually happens quite often, invariably, the issue seems to be the project looks nice. Obviously it performed in terms of the overall parameters of budget and schedule, but there was no passion in that project and the way the submission came out. So what happens is the project team itself, obviously, is led by a project executive or project director, project manager, and sometimes, when these submissions occur, they go to the marketing group, and they may not have the same understanding or the passion that occurred in that project, and if they cannot truly translate what happened in that project in the way they. Submitted, what we need. There's a gap, right? The project may look good, and as I said, meet all the parameters, but if all these things that the four of us are talking about in terms of give us the soul of that project, how did it happen? How did problems get solved. How did we actually connect the dots and make made better? There are projects that are delivered by different methodologies, the design bit build, our construction management at risk, and those projects, we understand the issues there, but design build is a whole different way of doing it in a much more integrated, collaborative, cohesive manner, where the owner, the designer, the builder, we all come together and actually deliver the project to create maximum value. And that's typically needs to come across, and the marketing writers or people use AI that's not going to come across, it is going to look generic. And you don't want that.

Erin Looney  31:11

What you really need is good marketing and communications writers. They Don't Want You disparaging my area here

Praful Kulkarni  31:18

to kind of get the sense of what was that about, what was that project about? I mean, you know, technical people are not necessarily the best writers, so that's where connecting the dots, again, comes into play, is that, how did we get that idea across, rather than just meeting the basic requirements?

Erin Looney  31:40

So Rich, let's talk to you and actually to you as well. Praful, right now about the owner side of things. Why Rich is owner preparedness such a differentiator in design build success,

Speaker 1  31:50

because owners start the process, and they're the ones that set the stage. Without the owner having a need, a project would not occur. So the owners have got to understand the design build process and have or put in place the organizational culture and staff mindset to properly manage the entire process. I mean, however you look at it, because the owner starts it, how an owner acts impacts how the design builder is going to react.

Erin Looney  32:24

Building on that profile, can you tell when an owner was fully ready versus still learning, or when they're not ready at all? Yeah.

Praful Kulkarni  32:33

I mean, this is a very important question, because owners sometimes think that going through design build is a panacea to all their issues that come up on other delivery models. And that is not the case if the owner is not fully understanding how involved design build processes are. You can't just hire a design build team and say, Hey, go do it. The owner has to have active participation, and we at DBIA have now identified specialists, the owner advisors, if you will, who can determine and advise the owner of what the process is and when they need to interact, and how all that needs to come into play, because having an owner advisor on the professional side, a program manager, construction manager, kind of a role for design, big build or construction management at risk deliveries, it's a whole different role compared to what we talk about in terms of an owner advisor or the design build processes, both that includes best value as well as progressive design build. And so the owner needs to be thoroughly informed, especially if they're starting out with the process. And then the owner advisor needs to continually stay engaged to get the right participation from the owner if they're new to the process.

Erin Looney  34:03

The flip side of all of this is not every project wins. That is submitted. They might be wonderful, and the team should be very proud of what they've delivered, but not every project can wins. The other thing is, great. Projects may never get submitted because there are reservations. So we're going to look at that side a little bit here, starting with Brian and rich, let's talk about the size of the project. Sometimes people say to me in interviews, well, this wasn't a very big project, or this was so big we had to do this and that and the other do larger or more complex projects have an advantage? And on the other side of that, can smaller projects compete on equal footing?

Speaker 1  34:40

From my perspective, the jury is very cognizant of the perception that size matters, and purposely tries to evaluate and focus on how the principles of design build done right were incorporated into the project and. Impacted the results achieved. Also, smaller projects have an additional Small Project Award category specifically tailored to remove that perceived barrier of concern and allow proper recognition of success. I believe if you look at the past years, there are many examples of smaller projects being recognized within a pool of bigger projects. So in my opinion, the jury is getting it right. It's not a one size fits all, and it's not skewed toward the magnitude or size of the project. What about you, Brian, what have you seen?

Brian Skripac  35:40

Yeah, I agree with rich. I don't think the integration of technology and the best practices that we talk about really look at the scale of the project, whether it's a large or small job. I think that implementation, it's about how you choose to bring a collaborative team approach and utilize the tools and processes you have available. I think, for a design build company who has a skill set and the appropriate toolbox to solve the challenges, they can do it on a small or large project. It doesn't really matter.

Erin Looney  36:12

Another aspect of this is kind of goes to what you said, Praful about people not being able to articulate the narrative here in a way that really, really speaks to you all the way you want it to. I suspect that's come from patterns that you've seen So Barbara and Praful, why don't you guys tell me what are some of the common weaknesses you see across submissions over the years?

Barbara Jackson  36:33

I was just thinking about this just a second ago, and you know, the one thing that that I've seen that it's kind of like, Oh, they've missed the boat. It will be a submission, and they're talking construction, construction, construction, construction, construction, and they never mentioned design most of the narratives, except for the one question or two questions or four questions on design, they never mentioned it in the construction sections, and the same thing in the design sections, but I don't see that as often as I see construction, construction and no design is mentioned. Well, that tells me that's not an integrated group of folks. That tells me they're operating, probably from segregated services. So that's one thing that I notice. And again, when I don't see anything where they're talking about their specialty contractors or their sub consultants, how they helped create the solution. That's kind of a red flag for me.

Praful Kulkarni  37:28

The thing that I would add to that is that because of the balance sheet and bonding requirements, typically the construction firms take the lead and design build delivery, and the designer is a sub consultant to the builder. So invariably, the submissions are made by the builders. So that's where this issue that Barbara is talking about comes up, is that it is kind of construction focused, right? So the trick is to get the designers involved in that submission, so that you have the right balance and you really have then the idea of how the process was actually handled. So that would be a strong recommendation. And vice versa, by the way, sometimes the designers submit and then they're not talking about how the whole process went, including other sub trades and how the construction went. So it works both ways.

Erin Looney  38:24

So we got a common weakness and a way to avoid said common weakness, perfect. All right, so this last little section is slightly speculative. First thing this is for all of you, give me up to four words that would define a design build project of the year.

Barbara Jackson  38:40

What I look for in Project of the Year is a comprehensive integration of all the assets and resources and the collective genius of that team in a pursuit of excellence,

Speaker 1  38:51

overall excellence. So you got in under the word count Brian,

Brian Skripac  38:55

excellence and collaboration,

Praful Kulkarni  38:57

memorable, collaborative success.

Erin Looney  39:01

Somebody is listening and they're considering submitting a project. What is the mindset they need to bring? Just distill everything we've talked about, what is that mindset they need to bring to the process of submitting? Because it is very important to submit.

Brian Skripac  39:16

Well, I would say answer the so what you did, all of these things, we have a checklist of best practice. Practices. Why did you do them, and what was the outcome? Expand on that and show us what the value was.

Praful Kulkarni  39:28

Typically, the marketing teams are used to Okay, architectural, submission, engineering, submission, construction submission, you can't use that for this. This is inclusive of all these different facets that come together to deliver a project, from the initial planning all the way into execution of the project, it has to be looked at in that holistic, light

Erin Looney  39:53

Praful you and I use lagging off the marketing. We're gonna have to have a chat about that.

Barbara Jackson  39:57

Just kidding, the mindset. I would say is stop trying to get the right answer and tell us the real story of what worked, what didn't work, and how you remedied that.

Speaker 1  40:12

Show us and articulate your pride in the processes and results of a project designed and built

Erin Looney  40:19

right See, there you have it. No black magic, just a group of people in a room, reading carefully, arguing thoughtfully and looking for the projects that really show what design build done right looks like if you've got a project your team is proud of. This is your moment to tell that story, not the polished highlight reel, the real, gritty story, the challenges, the teamwork and the decisions that made the outcome possible. You'll find links in the show notes to the resources and case studies mentioned in the episode, along with the DBIA project team award submission page and all the guidelines to do this right. And before you close out this episode, one last reminder. Submissions are due June 1, and there will be no extension this year. So if that applications been sitting on your desk or in your inbox or just in your brain, consider this your very friendly nudge. Thanks, as always, for listening to the design build delivers podcast brought to you by our cons and Autodesk Platinum Partner. Learn more at arkons.us/dbia