Why look at management practices in the design of the built environment?

Architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) involves forms of organizing that are becoming more prevalent across the economy. These contexts are highly institutionalised, with public-private partnerships and yet dynamic project-based forms of organizing.

This Fellowship examines 'explaining practices, exploring implications' through engaged scholarship investigating how management decisions are visualized and made in these settings. It examines the 'barriers to sustained improvement' in management practices by studying the adaptation to the digital economy. The aim is to provide new policy and management guidance.

Policy-makers highlight a significant opportunity to improve design quality, as the UK government invests in major infrastructure projects and programmes. These include the £54 billion Building Schools for the Future Programme, £16 billion CrossRail and £9 billion London 2012 Olympics. The management of design is both challenging and important in these contexts.

AIM Management Practices Fellowship

Over the next two years my personal research focuses on management practices in project-based design work; and how such practices are changing in the digital economy. It is funded through an Advanced Institute of Management (AIM) fellowship on 'Management Practices in Project-Based Design Environments.' This blog is associated with this fellowship research, which addresses two themes relating to management practices that were identified by AIM: 'explaining practices, exploring implications' and 'barriers to sustained improvement'.

For more details of the AIM Management Practices cohort see: http://www.aimresearch.org/about-aim/aim-fellows/management-practice/
For details of the Design Innovation Research Centre and related research that I lead at the University of Reading see: http://www.personal.reading.ac.uk/~kcs07jw/projects.htm