Me, moderator for Design-Build Seminar

The Vital Role of the Design Criteria Developer
DBIA Great Lakes Region Seminar

I coordinated and served as moderator for the DBIA-GLR seminar on Thursday, October 23rd at 8 AM. This was my first time moderating a panel discussion and I was interested to see what feedback we received from the roughly 40 attendees. Our panelists were Dan Rawlins, InterDesign, Sanford Garner, A2SO4, and Bob Richardson, Indiana University. All experienced and good architects. I received the tally sheet of the feedback forms this afternoon.

Well, it was in line with my impression; mostly positive, some good constructive criticism. High marks for Subject and moderate to high marks for Content. Of the 14-15 evaluations submitted, 8 felt it met their expectations. That is unfortunate, about 53% walked away with expectations met, 47% not-so-much; I thought we did a pretty good job achieving what was advertised. Comments on what to do better included “speakers should speak to the audience” (some panelists talked to me, not the audience; I need to find a way to indicate they need to look outward); “would have enjoyed more audience participation” (too much content for 1 ½ hours, I needed to really zero in on 4-6 points and let the audience drive the dialog); “presentation needs more dynamics: energy, humor, wit, etc” (true, last time I'll present sitting for sure, until I'm the panelist); “time initially allowed was not enough – program ran over” (program ran over by 5-minutes and I had to skip several of my points at the end to provide the panelists time for closing comments); “broaden – extremely project specific” (well, that was intentional, the program was on what these panelists have experienced). Another comment I received asking a contractor friend who attended was “since we were involved with all the projects, this was a review of what I already knew.” I’ve certainly learned a lot from this experience, from both the knowledge of my panelists and my role in the panel presentation process.

Lessons learned: get the presentation completed early to allow a true “dry run” with the panelists to coach items like eye contact with audience, time limits (without the use of stoplights), and opportunities for levity. Be very clear on advertising the nature of the program (i.e. project specific and role specific). I need to loosen up, not be so rigid when in that public speaking role, I think practice will help. Granted, architects talking about law is destined to be a terrible presentation (like a lawyer designing, probably not the right person for the job), but the Design Criteria Developer under the public design-build procurement law must be a registered architect or engineer…

Looking forward, I’ll be co-presenting with a work collogue in March or April at the IAHSA conference then in October or November in Chicago at the AAHSA conference. This time I won’t be moderating, but presenting on design (ah, I can breathe a little easier). I’m sure you’ll see crib notes on that presentation in a few months.