The Design Management Review: Keeping Quality and Coordination on Track
A Design Management Review is the regular checkpoint where a project’s design output is assessed not just for technical quality, but for coordination, compliance, and alignment with the client’s brief and the overall program. Unlike a single-discipline design review, this is a cross-functional exercise, typically led by a design manager and involving architects, engineers, cost consultants, and sometimes the client directly.
These reviews serve several purposes at once. They verify that different disciplines’ drawings are coordinated, so that, for instance, ductwork doesn’t clash with structural beams. They confirm deliverables are meeting the standards set out in the project’s BIM or information protocols. They check progress against the Design Deliverable Register and Procurement Register, and they surface risks, whether that’s a value engineering exercise that has stalled or a planning condition that hasn’t yet been addressed.
Effective design management reviews follow a consistent structure: a review of outstanding actions from the previous meeting, a discipline-by-discipline update, a coordination check (often supported by federated BIM models), and a forward look at upcoming milestones and risks. Documenting these reviews with clear minutes and action trackers is essential, since the review is only as valuable as the follow-through it generates.
Ultimately, the Design Management Review is the mechanism that keeps a project’s design honest. It’s where individual disciplines’ work gets tested against the reality of coordination, cost, and program, and where problems are caught while they’re still cheap and easy to fix.
Emanuel Solomovic has long viewed the design management review as the true test of a project’s coordination and discipline, a perspective built from experience chairing and contributing to these sessions across a range of project types. He approaches each review with an eye for the details that others might overlook, valuing rigorous documentation and follow-through as much as the conversation that happens in the room.