Determining priorities for in-person versus virtual participation

when engaging with a long distance client.

Traveling a significant distance to interact with a client can quickly incur a high financial and time expense. It is important to evaluate each scenario to understand the reason for choosing to meet in-person versus virtually.
Image Source: https://bigideasforsmallbusiness.com/5-things-to-know-about-business-travel/

PURPOSE:

This format is most helpful when the project poses a significant travel distance (greater than 1 hour) between client and designer. An informed blend of in-person and virtual participation can reduce project costs while still garnering the necessary support and involvement each step of the way.

DESIGN PHASE:

(highlighted in bold are the phase or phases most applicable)

Vision and goals
Site exploration
Program development
Co-design
Design evaluation
Implementation

MATERIALS NEEDED:

Pen and paper to take notes
Laptop/Computer
Internet Access
Online video platform (Zoom or Teams)
Google drive to share files
Computer application such as PowerPoint and Adobe PDF Reader to prepare presentations
Resources needed to facilitate travel (vehicle, lodging, airport access, etc.)

TIME REQUIRED:

This format and decision-making process will extend through the entire duration of the project. There is 15-30 minutes of additional time required for the design team to determine the trade-offs and appropriate format for each meeting. When opting for a virtual meeting, extra time may be needed to prepare materials to send ahead of time.

SUGGESTIONS:

Do understand the desired outcome from each planned client interaction.
Do assess if the goal can be met virtually or if an in-person interaction is required.
Do understand that some face-to-face interaction is required to understand site context and build key relationships.
Do plan ahead to ensure all virtual meetings are engaging and productive.

Overview

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many have become accustomed to fully virtual engagement with work, school, and even friends and family. But as the world begins to regain a sense of normalcy and in-person meetings resume, how can designers handle client interactions when another factor restricts face-to-face participation, such as distance? The goal of this format is to help designers make informed decisions about the best structure for each individual meetings throughout the project. It is crucial to understand the goal of each interaction and to evaluate the trade-offs of travel cost versus what may be lost with a virtual meeting. This format should be considered for any project that poses a significant travel distance (greater than 1 hour) between client and designer.

Organization and Process

Successfully planning for a long-distance client relationship requires a good understanding of the design process and the trade offs involved with each phase. Your team should carefully evaluate the client's goals and ensure that you never trade the convenience of virtual interaction for relational equity. This requires assessing the intended purpose, ideal outcome, and potential trade-offs for each step of the process.

Types of client outreach in this format can include:

Email
Phone call
Video meeting (Zoom or other)
In-person meeting

As the designer, it is your job to balance maintaining a productive relationship with your client without overextending time and resources for unnecessary travel. This might mean defaulting to more phone and video calls when an email may be misinterpreted and identifying strategic points in the process ahead of time to make an in-person visit.

Steps

Along with your client and design team, determine the next step required in the process. When this step requires a client meeting or interaction, move to Step 2.
Discuss the intended purpose and ideal outcome for the client interaction with your design team. Defining these goals will help clarify your reasoning for planning travel or a virtual meeting.
List out the trade-offs of virtual participation versus travel expense for this particular project stage. *Use the decision tree below to aid in this process*
Before moving forward, ensure that all group members either agree to the expense and time needed for travel or are willing to help create materials to facilitate a productive virtual meeting. (See Online Interactive Format for more suggestions on creating effective virtual meetings)
Inform your client of the chosen meeting format, and coordinate all necessary details in advance.

Long-Distance Format Decision Tree

[ABOVE] Decision tree created by Kayla Joiner. This provides a template for evaluating trade-offs and making informed decisions about the most appropriate meeting format for each project stage.

[BELOW] Example of project agenda provided to client in advance of virtual meeting along with a PDF presentation prepared to present design alternatives to a client via Zoom.

Case Example

Our project team worked alongside the town of Bowman, South Carolina to develop plans for a new community park. Lifelong residents Ike, Sherry, and Lindsay Carter have spent decades investing in the community and the people in it. They believe in a brighter future for Bowman and are dedicated to creating a higher quality of life for the families that live there. That dedication is what inspired them to pursue the redesign of the city park. With the help of other residents and City Council members, the Carter family has started the fundraising process and began planning for renovations. They submitted their project to UGA in order to pursue additional help generating a master plan for the park and graphic renderings to aid in their pursuit of grant funding for the new space.

The city of Bowman is roughly a four hour drive from Athens, where our design team is all located. To kick off the project, our team met with Ike, Sherry, and Lindsay via Zoom to make introductions and begin putting together a project plan. A large part of this discussion was coordinating dates and planning details for our team to travel to Bowman before beginning work on the design. This initial site visit required a lot of coordination in order to maximize our time there - we wanted to ensure we got as much one on one interaction as possible since the 8 hour round trip is not easy to replicate. The core group of stakeholders worked with us to schedule a community cookout, site walk, school visit, and town hall meeting during our 36 hours in Bowman. This visit proved to be absolutely crucial to our project success. We established key relationships and gathered personalized feedback and local context that would not have been possible via a virtual meeting.

Upon returning to Athens, we began mapping out the rest of the design process and when we would need to meet with groups from Bowman to gather feedback and present different design ideas. We used these larger "checkpoint" meetings to structure our workflow and were able to align them with some of the city's pre-planned city council meetings to get maximum participation. In between these larger meetings, we evaluated the client's needs on a case by case basis. There were many opportunities to provide clarity or answer a client's question that we intentionally opted for a phone call instead of an email in order to ensure clear communication.

For this specific project, we chose to schedule our final presentation via Zoom due to scheduling constraints. While this is not ideal, our team has explored ways to enrich the final virtual presentation by sending pre-printed packets and presentation materials ahead of time. In our case, the expense of the 8 hour round trip for one presentation did not make sense given the ability to successfully share the final materials with the client virtually. There were certainly some trade offs in making this decision and each group should evaluate this decision for themselves.

Our design team during our initial site visit building key relationships and gaining a deeper understanding of the site context.

An example of a feedback summary provided to the client to guide a zoom conversation about design priorities.

An example of a perspective rendering used to take the client on a virtual walk through the space during a Zoom meeting.

Lessons Learned

Through trial and error, our team learned to navigate the complexity that comes with managing a project from a distance. This hybrid format is applicable to any project type and team structure whenever significant travel time exists between the client and the design team. Some of the key takeaways our team had were:

Plan for an initial face to face meeting to build a relationship and collect important information about the site.
Review the entire scope of the project up front to ensure that all necessary stakeholders and contextual information can be gathered on the first visit. This will prevent multiple trips to follow up with just one key individual or check missed measurements.
Know your client. Understand the level of involvement they hope to have and keep them feeling involved using phone calls and email progress check ins.
When you choose to utilize a virtual format for a key meeting, plan in advance to have resources prepared and technology operating smoothly in order to ensure a productive and engaging meeting. Do not prepare the bare minimum, but see virtual meetings as an opportunity to innovate your format and materials.
Before making any decisions about traveling for a meeting versus hosting a virtual meeting, ask yourself what is the intended purpose, ideal outcome, and potential trade-offs? These questions will help you balance a wise use of time and resources with what the client needs to feel relationally invested in the project.

[Written by Kayla Joiner]

Sources:

Bowman Park Project Team (Elizabeth Crimmins, Kayla Joiner, Andrew Petersen, Sophia Zhang)

Professor Katherine Melcher | Fall 2021 Engagement Studio

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