Understanding the Opportunity You’ve Got
A short talk given by Oliver Salway to the RIBA ‘Guerrilla Tactics’ conference in November 2019.
Guerrilla Tactics is the RIBA's annual flagship event for small and medium sized architectural practices. The event provides a wealth of insightful information with a focus on essential business skills for architects, and how they can develop their practices through innovation.
I’m hoping that I can share some thoughts based on my own experiences of how to weigh up the relative values of an opportunity, so you know what the opportunity means for you.
When new job opportunity arises it’s perhaps worth pausing for thought to examine the different ways we can find value in an opportunity. And that insight is valuable if it then helps prioritise what and how you pitch in terms of creative material, but also how you value it financially, and how you price for delivering it.
In basic terms, we could say that the value of an opportunity broadly splits into two categories; firstly, economic terms, where the opportunity is allowing you to sustain your business goals. Will you make any money and if not, can you afford to do it? Then there’s its value in artistic terms. And as well as career portfolio progression, within that I would include social value, ethical value, environmental value.
One place to start the evaluation is to understand why the opportunity came to you in the first place (if it isn’t a prospect that you actually generated yourself). Does the job really have your name on it? Is it a perfectly natural fit for you, or will you have to spend extra time and effort convincing the client that they made the right choice?
And knowing how they heard about you is informative. It’s useful to know what the initial line of enquiry was - did they find you via a random Google search of local practices, or because you won an international award? Or because the CEO is a big fan of yours? If it’s via publicity, then where did they hear about you? I think this is all valuable information in terms of shaping your response to the opportunity.
At the outset it’s also worth considering, what are the odds? If you’re being given the opportunity to pitch, do you know how many other bidders there are in the running? If it’s more than a handful, and unless your name is on it, or unless you have a killer approach, is it really worth the risk and effort of bidding? Were you put on the shortlist for this job because you’re special or are you just a make-weight? Are you just bulking out the bidding list as a tick box for a project manager?
And what are the aspirations of the client in terms of creating an outstanding result? What is the need for differentiation? Producing a genuinely original piece of work clearly has great kudos for the designer personally, but it’s a lot of extra effort and does the client actually want that? Do they want something different or are they happy with just meeting the ‘table stakes’ in their market? Do they want you to show them a vision or just a straight solution? Simply put, do your ambitions match your client’s and how will you manage expectations all round if there’s a mismatch?
So, as well as thinking what an opportunity means for you, what does it mean for the client? Sometimes the project will be the very personal expression of one particular individual, whether that’s a private homeowner, or a flamboyant CEO. So at least you know who the decision maker is on the client side and that they are personally invested in the opportunity. And—so long as they stay in their job, and there’s a clear channel of communication to them—that’s a big bonus.
Is the project under stress? I’m always looking to diagnose ‘Sick Project Syndrome’. Where are the points of stress in the opportunity? Is the budget just too small, or based on inaccurate assumptions? Is the client being impossibly optimistic about the capacity of the site? Is the timeline unrealistic or driven by the need to hit an impossible date? Understanding the client’s attitude to the opportunity and what is driving them is essential help in terms of knowing how to respond.
Turning then to the ‘artistic’ concerns, one simple question is, “is this the kind of work you want to be known for?”. Where does it fit in your career? Does it move you out of your comfort zone in a good way? Is it time to wean yourself off yet another familiar commission? Is this what you pictured yourself doing, or want to do long term? And perhaps most importantly, is this an opportunity to enhance social and environmental conditions? For you, how much can you allow the artistic to outweigh the economic?
Where does it lead? I always liked the warning sign they had on French railway level crossings “one train can hide another”. And in the same vein, is this opportunity a stepping-stone to something bigger? In which case how much of a loss leader can you afford if you have to? Or is it simply unmissable as an opportunity, whatever the short-term cost? Of course, if it offers a step change in the development of your practice, you’re likely to be tempted. But is the growth, in terms of any required increase your resource, sustainable in the longer term—after the fees on this one job have been expended? What will your profit margin be if you have to hire expensive contract staff rather than expand your workforce permanently?
Then, what does it do for your studio, for your team? Does it allow you to expand to new premises? Or buy new equipment? Does it offer opportunities to gain Research and Development tax credits? What is its contribution to the satisfaction of job flow and mental happiness? Or could it negatively impact the wellness of your team? So, will you need to incentivise your team to work on something that offers less satisfaction, but secures people’s ongoing employment? Or does it provide great opportunities for the personal professional development of your team that outweighs other factors. Even a modest project can provide site experience or client facing exposure.
Ultimately, unless it’s a truly amazing opportunity where the client has come to you as a guru and gives you endless time and funding, the reality is that each opportunity is going to contain challenges of some sort. So how flexible are you prepared to be? What are your own rules you’re prepared to break? I suppose you just have to take a rounded view—from as many angles as possible. And make sure that none of your—or your team’s—red lines are crossed by it. Unless you’re feeling rich, the likelihood is that you will seize the opportunity, so just make sure that you’ve taken the moment to evaluate what it really could mean.