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By Carrie Hawley | Owners can gain greater cost certainty and protect design intent by rethinking when and how lighting distributors join the project team.

By Jeremy Clarke | A board seat comes with fiduciary duties, legal exposure, and responsibilities that deserve more than an informal handoff.

By Lauren Martin | For AEC firms, data center projects may represent game-changing opportunities, but are you prepared for the risks?

By Daryl Simons Jr. | When AEC firms can’t find the leader they want, the problem may be unrealistic expectations rather than a broken talent market.

By Matt Cooper | The gap between struggling and high-performing AEC firms often comes down to seven operational levers leaders can control.

By John Tsun & Diane Samuels | AI can process data in seconds, but experienced professionals still provide the judgment that makes decisions trustworthy.

By Michael Sanderson | The firms that truly put people first pair high standards with genuine support instead of empty promises.

By Jeremy Zick | How nearshoring is helping AEC firms reduce burnout, create capacity, and support retention. 

By Mark Zweig | When family enters the org chart, leaders must manage perception, opportunity, and accountability with far more discipline.

By Lauren Martin | A simple “time is of the essence” clause can transform routine schedule delays into costly legal and insurance risks.

By Morgan Stinson | AEC firms win when purpose, not profit, drives client experience.

By Julia Moroney | AEC firms must protect flexibility without sacrificing mentorship and visibility for young leaders.

By GinaRenee Autrey | AEC marketing doesn’t fail from lack of expertise – it fails when firms keep telling safe stories in increasingly noisy markets.

By Brian Shannon | Healthy rivalries fuel collaboration and innovation, ultimately benefiting communities and strengthening the AEC industry.

By Erik Stroemberg | Practical insights and recommendations for creating, communicating, and maintaining an effective AI policy.

By Mark Zweig | Is your firm one that commands top fees and thrives, or one that will struggle to compete and keep up?

By Lauren Martin | AEC firms should carefully assess confidentiality clauses in contracts to avoid uninsured risks, especially amid growing cyber threats.

By Mark Zweig | Don’t turn yours into a joke by getting the wrong help and taking the wrong direction with revising your strategic plan.

By Lauren Martin | Imprecise, incorrect contract language may leave AEC firms uninsured for professional liability exposures.

By Sara Parkman | Zweig Group’s 2024 Marketing Excellence Award winners share the strategies behind their winning campaigns and the impact on their firms’ success.

By Mark Zweig | You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what you are doing to demotivate people; you just have to stop doing whatever it is now!

By Lauren Martin | If you find yourself facing a lawsuit alleging malpractice, here’s what you need to look for when considering an expert witness.

By Jeremy Clarke | Use these four common sense pillars to build your firm’s compensation strategy.

By Sara Karstetter | There are several questions a seller needs to be able to answer beyond just the financials.

By Liisa Andreassen | President of Schaefer (Cincinnati, OH), a firm that provides all aspects of structural engineering across a broad range of projects and industries.

By Mark Zweig | If you don’t want your people or yourself to be judged unfairly, there are a few common problems that must always be avoided.

By Lauren Martin | It’s important for design firms to understand the potential peril to all parties involved should there be a third-party beneficiary clause in any contract.

By Javier Suarez | SOQs that are assembled without any direction just end up in the delete folder or the wastebasket. There’s a better way.

By Mark Hodges | Don’t be a victim of continuation bias; it’s time to completely change your IT strategy in the face of the ongoing cyber threat.

By Lauren Rhodes Martin | As natural disasters continue to increase in frequency and severity, so will the potential exposure to the design community.

By Liisa Andreassen | CEO of MKSK, a collective of planners, urban designers, and landscape architects who are passionate about the interaction between people and place.

By Liisa Andreassen | President of NTM Engineering (Dillsburg, PA), a civil engineering firm that specializes in water resources design, bridge design, and engineering instruction.

By Lauren Rhodes Martin | Besides placing an undue and inappropriate burden on architects and engineers, warranties are expressly excluded in their professional liability insurance policies.

By Lauren Rhodes Martin | More owners (or their lawyers) have tried to insert these clauses into design contracts, and this should be a red flag for AEC firms.

By Mark Zweig | There are so many positive aspects of this industry, and it’s important that we keep reminding ourselves and our people why this is such a great business.

By Mark Zweig | Business ownership can be one of the most rewarding things for any person to participate in.

By Eduardo Smith | With more work than we can handle and the current recruiting challenges we face, we need to be sure that our organizations have the foundations for sustained growth.

By Mercedez Thompson | Leaders must engage in burnout prevention strategies that alleviate overburdened employees, reduce the number of meetings, encourage PTO, and promote flexible hours.

By Rob Hughes | This subtle but onerous language is becoming fairly widespread in design contracts and, if overlooked, could leave design firms with significant, potentially uninsured exposures.

Contract disclaimers reflect the reality that estimating is an art, not a science – and that design professionals cannot guarantee or warrant the actual costs of construction.

President and CEO of Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (Northbrook, IL), a global firm that’s committed to helping clients solve, repair, and avoid problems in the built world.

Firms are discovering new ways of operating that will allow them to be more effective and efficient throughout the rest of the pandemic and after.

By Mark Zweig | There are 10 things practically every firm in this business should do but won’t. If you try these things, your firm will be more successful.

The ways our businesses and facilities function in relation to employees and customers are bound to adjust due to COVID-19.

You don’t achieve success by going solo. You need allies – your manager and your direct reports – to make the load lighter.

President and CEO of CORE Consultants, Inc. (Littleton, CO), a professional services firm with a unique culture that empowers its people to thrive at home, at work, and in their community.

Believing in your value is the first step to success in winning on value. The next step is to walk away when clients don’t fit your new standards.

As Zweig Group’s director of ownership transition, Will Swearingen understands the emotional stakes at play when a firm founder decides it’s time to pass the torch.

In any business, there are good risks and bad risks. Find out which ones are right for you.

Unless you put yourself out there as perfect, courts will typically hold you to the standard of reasonable care if you make a mistake.

Prepare and execute a plan for balance and growth in the three biggest areas of your engineering career: technical ability, social skills, and stewardship of the profession.

If you’re a firm owner or design professional, don’t leave contractors guessing. Using plain language, make your intent clear to avoid disputes, change orders, and claims.

AEC firms have new options for addressing the ‘Duty to Defend’ obligation in indemnification provisions. As clients continue to look for ways to transfer greater amounts of project-related risk to design firms, it has become...

President of Pond & Company, Inc. (Best Firm Multi-discipline #19 for 2018), a 550-person firm based in Atlanta with 25 offices in the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Spain. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “One of the...

As communities look for ways to protect themselves from large-scale weather-related events, design firms are equipped to help them meet the challenge. Through mid-2018, the U.S. experienced six weather and climate disaster events with losses...

By Phil Keil | The development of high moral and ethical standards is the most important thing you can do as a leader, and it will transform your team for the good.

Be careful. While a design firm can retain its copyrights by contract, the firm can just as easily give those rights away – by written contract. Design professionals are, traditionally, reluctant to give up ownership...

As 2018 approaches, A/E firms may want to revisit professional liability insurance limits, and find optimal solutions for their requirements. As design firms look ahead to 2018, the time may be right to reassess their...

A/E firms with new projects should carefully examine their contracts, or risk expanding overall exposure and adding potentially significant uninsured liabilities. Before inking a deal on a new project, architects and engineers should conduct a...

President of Wakefield Beasley & Associates (Hot Firm #14 for 2016), a 165-person architectural design firm based in Alpharetta, Georgia. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “We are a fast-paced, high-performance company, and underperformers are detrimental to...

You want your firm to be more valuable at the end of the project than it was at the beginning. Start to GRIPE. Many of our clients turn to us for assistance in providing project...

Claims are not like fine wine – they do not get better with time. So take these four steps to assess and manage potential exposures. Design firms are always looking for ways to increase revenues...

If improperly worded, they not only can shift significant risks, but do so in ways that leave design professionals exposed to potentially large claims. A critical component of effective risk management for design firms involves...

By William Quatman | We all know negotiating enforceable contracts is part of the game, but in case you forgot a few things, here’s a refresher.

While the numbers behind failure are staggering, when you look at the characteristics of successful M&A transactions, the math is pretty simple. M&A transactions can fall apart for dozens – maybe even hundreds – of...

While the numbers behind failure are staggering, when you look at the characteristics of successful M&A transactions, the math is pretty simple. M&A transactions can fall apart for dozens – maybe even hundreds – of...

While the numbers behind failure are staggering, when you look at the characteristics of successful M&A transactions, the math is pretty simple. M&A transactions can fall apart for dozens – maybe even hundreds – of...

Even minor changes in contract language can create major liability and insurance issues for design firms, so be aware of what’s out there and act accordingly. Today’s contracts involving design firms and owners, project managers...

New Recruitment and Retention Survey sheds light on key issues in finding, hiring, and keeping the best talent in the design industry. One thing I enjoy about working here at Zweig Group is that we...

Troublemakers within a firm can do a lot of damage, especially if they are tolerated. Every firm has these people to some degree. The naysayers, the skeptics, and the gossips. These people are holding back...

There are probably many reasons why people have trouble completing tasks; here are some ways to solve the problem. It seems to me, a common problem we all encounter these days – either with ourselves...

Here's another snip-it from the 2nd Edition of Successful Project Management by Ernest Burden. Many project managers are more comfortable with the technical side of the business. The marketing hat that firms are now asking...

Some firms want to stay small; here’s some advice for them, and they’re welcome to ask for more. Small firms … small businesses … entrepreneurial businesses: Are they all the same thing? No! Some firms...

By Mark Zweig | If you really want to raise your effective labor multiplier, here are some things to try.

I’ve said it before. The standards— what we expect— from people who are supposed to sell the work to keep our staffs busy in our A/E and environmental firms— are woefully low. Forty calls a...

For whatever reason— and I have seen it countless times— sometimes the work environment just goes bad. Like fruit that sits in the bowl too long, it rots, it molds, and it becomes intolerable. Just...

It’s one of those certainties, like death and taxes. Managers are supposed to hold those who work for them accountable to reaching certain goals or achieving certain performance metrics. It sounds good to say, “I...

I can’t tell you how many business planning meetings I have sat in on in large firms where someone comes up with the novel idea of checking all project deliverables before they go out. It’s...

You know what? Turnover is not always so bad. Sometimes people just don’t keep up with the firm. There are all kinds of reasons for it. Maybe they got tired. Maybe they got turned off....

Most of us will never get rich quick. We won’t have a single breakthrough discovery that makes us millions. We won’t win the lottery. We won’t have a rich aunt who leaves us her art...

He’s a really nice person, a “people person.” He’s someone who deeply cares about other people. He’s a really good listener. He’s someone the employees will confide in. Does this sound like the ideal human...

I’m convinced that it’s part of the job description for principals and managers of A/E/P and environmental consulting firms to keep reminding their employees and themselves why this is a great business to be in....

“You’re only as good as your reputation.” Somebody wise must have said that somewhere along the line! It’s certainly true. When your reputation is good, the phone rings with new work opportunities, your competitors’ staff...

Here are 10 things about the A/E/P and environmental consulting business that they don’t teach you in college. The best clients get crapped on. I hate to say it, but sometimes we treat our best...

Everything you read on psychology tells you that we, as individuals, should each have a healthy self-image. It’s only common sense. Without a healthy self-image, we won’t live up to our career potential; we won’t...

Just about every A/E or environmental firm wants to grow. And there are a lot of good reasons for it. To paraphrase an old adage, “growth covers a multitude of sins.” When you are growing,...

This year’s Professional Services Management Association (PSMA) National Convention was held in St. Paul last week. (I keep wanting to say “Minneapolis,” but St. Paulians are sensitive about that). Ed Vick, president of PSMA (Charlotte,...

We were talking in our office the other day about the “Big 6” accounting firms and their problems. One of our newest staffers just joined us from a Big 6 firm, and, believe me— those...