If your practice was born of your passion for architecture and design, and your success is the result of the same, how on earth are you supposed to know how to run your business?

You’re not a businessperson. You’re not an administrator. You’re not an accountant, analyst or actuary. You’re an architect … aren’t you?!

The question, then, is how to run your firm so that it enables you to have more time for design, not less? How to run your practice so that it carries your success as an architect, not so it’s additional weight on your shoulders? How to run your business so that designing the built environment, and designing it well, stays at the very centre of your focus?

Effective architecture and design practice management enables you to achieve your business objectives and meet the needs of your customers, while maintaining control and visibility of your business trajectory. It enables you to draw the lines, both literally and metaphorically.

Your professional success is dependent not only on the quality of your designs, but also on the quality of your business. We understand not wanting to be consumed with the time it takes to administer your practice, but know that running it poorly is more time and resources consuming than doing it well. Life’s cute like that — we know that too *wink*.

In order to set up and manage your firm properly you need to know the key elements for consideration in practice management for architects and built environment designers specifically.

Practice management requires speciality methodologies and structures, especially adapted to our industry. Read the full Practice management: A guide for architects, engineers and built environment design professionals on the Total Synergy website to find out how to use data, tools and systems to:

• make business decisions
• allocate resources
• streamline revenue/costs, and
• generally promote growth and efficiency across your business.