Addressing complexity requires an integrative approach to design – working across scales, organisational, physical and professional boundaries. To be a boundary spanner requires strong grounding in one discipline, with a skillset and disposition allowing the spanning of others. In effecting systemic change, the boundary spanner is a critical role, however often overlooked amongst more commonly understood traditional professions and roles. In the field of engineering consulting, Rick Hopkins discusses the practice and education of the Design Manager as boundary spanner and argues for the long overdue recognition of this critical technical leadership role.

Image source: Rome University of Fine Art – Design Management

In January 1998 I arrived in Sydney for what was to be a 3-month stint at Connell Wagner. I stayed 23 years! I started out in structures, moved to telcos, then to the Cross City Tunnel project. Then in 2004, I landed on the Holsworthy Special Forces project as the ‘Design Manager’. I’ve been in that DM space ever since. But what is it?

Multi-discipline Design Management is not formally recognised within the industry as a discipline in its own right the way that Project Management is. How can this be? It is talked about. It is needed. It is critical! It is that person that sits over and drives the entire design team.

You need some coverage of every discipline. You need to be able to challenge each discipline and be a part of detailed discussions and problem solving involving multiple disciplines. A good DM doesn’t just float over the top and hope the problems resolve themselves. You must have the birds eye view but be able to dive into the detail when necessary. The Generalist who facilitates collaboration between the Specialists!

But strangely, Design Management is seen as more of a ‘role’ than a discipline, and mostly, people just fall into it because someone needs to do it, just as I did. There’s no guidance or rule book as far as I am aware. You just learn as you go.

Design Management, as the words suggest, is one part ‘design / technical’ and one part ‘management / organisational’. In my experience, the technical is the harder part to learn. The best DM’s are engineers who have mastered their technical field first (minimum 10 years) and understand how a building, station, bridge, facility, etc. works. THEN, they develop the management skills. I did a GradDipPM in my late 30’s for this reason.

People who come from the Project Management side are typically not the right people for this role. I say this respectfully, because I am not talking here about program and budget, though they are both important. I am talking about technical leadership and the experience needed to guide a team to a quality outcome. DM, not PM!

A perfectly competent Project Manager can oversee the preparation of a design package, run the meetings, facilitate co-ordination sessions, tick all the assurance boxes and issue the documentation within program and budget without having any idea that the design is utterly un-buildable and riddled with errors and clashes. I’ve seen it before!

Some universities now have courses in Design Management. But if these graduates go to organisations that don’t recognise it as a discipline, how is the skill nurtured? And I really don’t think it should be an undergraduate degree. It should be a post-graduate course for people who have already mastered their technical field.

So then! Design Management as a distinct discipline – I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!

To read more about this topic, refer to the following article from the June edition of the Engineers Australia monthly journal “Create” – Design Management – The missing discipline?

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Rick Hopkins (FIEAust) is a structural engineer who has spent the last 25 years specializing in the design management of complex, government infrastructure projects for Aurecon and Mott MacDonald. He is also a musician, songwriter and producer.

Header photo by Marvin Meyer on Unsplash