Designing Profits Creative Business Strategies for Design Practices

A successful design practice requires principals and staff who are creative, technically proficient, and financially savvy. Designing Profits focuses on the last component—the one that is so elusive for many architects, engineers, and construction professionals—the business aspects of practice. Not an ordinary book on practice issues or finance, Designing Profits explains the application of design thinking to guide wise business decisions. It is indeed possible to be as creative in establishing and operating a practice as in designing and constructing a building. The book offers comprehensive guidance and objective tools for design professionals to reap financial rewards from their practices, and to discover innovative strategies to become entrepreneurial and implement creative practice models. An extended case study is woven throughout the book. Witness the trials and tribulations of Michelangelo & Brunelleschi Architects as they engage problematic clients, tight project budgets and schedules, low fees and insufficient profits, marketing issues, quirky staff, technology upgrades, and growth, among other difficult challenges. This mythical firm, a composite of several real-life practices, navigates through these various dilemmas, providing readers with insights into superior financial management and a reimagined services portfolio.

Foreword Preface Acknowledgements 1. Brief Overview: Formulating Wise Business Decisions 2. Meet the Firm: Model for Analysis 3. Accounting: Creating Reliable Inputs and Outputs 4. Data Application: Refining Analytics and Controlling Costs 5. Growth and its Constraints: Making Wise Choices 6. Strategic Financial Planning: Setting and Reaching Profit Targets 7. Rethinking Practice: Tactical Innovations for Financial Prosperity and Professional Satisfaction 8. Progress Notes: Wrapping Up and Moving Forward Index

Morris A. Nunes is an attorney with over 30 years' experience as outside counsel for businesses and professional practices. He has served as Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University and Catholic University. He has writtenfive previous books on business topics, and holds a law degree from Georgetown and degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. Andrew Pressman, FAIA, an architect, Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico, and Lecturer at the University of Maryland, leads his own award-winning architectural firm in Washington, DC. He has written numerous critically acclaimed books and articles, and he holds a Master’s degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.