Design Practice | Cross River Real Estate

The resolution season is quickly approaching. It’s that time of year when we reflect on where we’ve been and make promises that will shape the year ahead. If you run a small business or you’re in the 60 percent of American Institute of Architecture member firms with five or fewer people, you may think that a yearly review is a luxury only larger firms can afford. But there’s a reason larger companies take the time to consider the impacts of their efforts at the end of each year — because it’s important. Here’s a look at how smaller firms like yours can benefit too.

McInturff Architects

Where you’ve been. We’re often so focused on keeping up with our daily tasks, the immediate actions that pay the bills, that we don’t stop to appreciate the hard work that’s landed us where we are today. The end of the fiscal year is an excellent opportunity to look back and survey your wake. Can you account for the 20 percent of your efforts that yielded 80 percent of your results? That’s a really useful thing to know, isn’t it?

Project postmortems are helpful for highlighting parts of your designs, delivery and execution that still need refining. Complete postmortems for any projects you’ve closed out over the course of the year while they’re fresh in your mind.

FINNE Architects

Securing client reviews is a part of that process too, and tying it to a project close-out procedure will ensure that your client is still engaged enough to provide helpful feedback. Houzz offers an easy and particularly relevant platform for doing this; and it will make your profile more complete too. These evaluations can reinforce what you did well and flag what needs improving. Keep a list and resolve to do better next year.

You might also ask yourself:

• What did I accomplish?
• Did I meet the goals I set for the business?
• What am I most proud of?
• What did I learn?
• What worked?
• What didn’t work?

Jay Sifford Garden Design

From these simple questions, you should be able to draft the chapter heading for your year. How would the abstract read? Certain themes will likely emerge; the essence of the review process is to take note of those themes and learn from them. Decide whether those are the ones that you want to define your business moving forward. If not, the year-end pause is a good time to figure out a way to pivot and change the narrative.

Francesco Pierazzi Architects

If your business is new, you may not have any prior year goals to measure against; we’ll work on those in the next step. If you have set goals and you’ve met them all, that’s good (and bad). This year you’ll need to level up. If you’re constantly meeting your prior year’s goals, you’re not thinking big enough.

If you haven’t met last year’s goals, find out why. Were they too ambitious? Did you have trouble executing week by week? Was there another reason? Something you had control over?

Marcus DiPietro, Architect

It’s normal to not achieve everything you set out for your business to accomplish — healthy even. There’s a balance between setting the bar too high and not high enough. Challenge yourself to find that tipping point that moves the business forward without sapping motivation.

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