22 to 10 in 15 minutes

I agree - that's a strange title. Let me explain.

A few weeks ago, we met with architectural firms interested in doing the programming and design of our new building. There were 22 firms at the meeting. That's where the "22" in the title comes from. I was not excited about reading 22 proposals - especially if they weren't legitimate contenders.

Programming is the process where we figure out how many classrooms we need, what size and configurations those classrooms need to be, how many offices we need, how many meeting rooms, etc. It's complicated stuff - especially with the dynamic changes happening in business education right now. We really want to work with someone who has been through the programming process for a business school in the recent past. I spent 15 minutes explaining this need to the 22 architectural firms.

Apparently it worked. We got 10 proposals - not 22. It is taking me an hour or more to read and evaluate each proposal. So my 15 minutes saved me more than 12 hours of work. Hooray!

And I still have time to write this blog.

Ken Snyder