Practicing Design-Build Done Right® is the Key to Success
Decades of experience across all sectors and project types have given our industry a time-tested roadmap to success. Design-Build Done Right® best practices help you engineer higher quality outcomes by showing you what works – and what doesn’t.
By convening multiple disciplines, Design-Build Done Right® helps power singular success stories with collaboration and innovation that’s driving industry transformation.
Excellence. It’s built in.
DBIA’s Universal Best Practices is a good place to start your design-build journey. This document categorizes 10 best practices and nearly 50 supporting implementing techniques into three areas:
The evolution of this document is based on input from DBIA members and the A/E/C industry.
DownloadThe challenges facing sectors can be unique. That’s why industry leaders serving on DBIA’s market sector committees created these targeted resources to address specific issues impacting the Transportation, Water/Wastewater and Federal sectors. Start with the Universal Best Practices document and then use these targeted resources to deepen your design-build knowledge.
DBIA's Deeper Dive documents provide a more targeted look at specific topics important to each sector.
Project Delivery is comprehensive, and choosing a project delivery method is one of the fundamental decisions owners must make while developing their acquisition strategy. Choosing the best method for any project must start with a good understanding of the available choices. Owners must also have a firm grasp of the impact of each choice, because the delivery method establishes when parties become engaged; it influences the choices of contractual relationships; and it influences ownership and impact of changes and modification of project costs. It is important to choose a delivery method that best meets the unique needs of each owner and their project. This primer introduces you to commonly used project delivery methods along with their pros and cons.
The transportation sector has many unique features that are central to the consideration of best practices in the procurement, contracting and execution of any design-build project. This document includes modifications to the universal implementing techniques and new techniques, all of which are intended to address the real-world attributes of the transportation sector.
Use of Alternative Technical Concepts (ATCs)
Right-of-Way Acquisition
Utilities Management
Maintenance of Traffic (MOT)
Environmental Analysis and Permitting
This document, which combines Universal Best Practices with water/wastewater best practices and implementing techniques, is the basis for Design-Build Done Right® in the water/wastewater sector. It also highlights unique characteristics of water/wastewater Owners, projects, procurement and the design-build team structure.
It’s vital to understand the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), and what it allows and/or precludes, to deliver a successful design-build project in the federal sector. Most agencies further supplement the FAR with agency-specific policies and procedures tailored to their specific mission. This guide provides best practices, techniques and Design-Build Done Right® tools to help teams navigate federal project delivery.
Federal Agency Use of Design-Build with Guaranteed Maximum Price
One application of design-build delivery is via a stepped, or progressive process (commonly referred to as Progressive Design-Build or PDB). PDB uses a qualifications-based or best value selection, followed by a process whereby the owner then “progresses” towards a design and contract price with the team, thus the term “progressive.” This Progressive Design-Build Done Right® document outlines the best practices for PDB delivery.
Design-Build and Progressive Design-Build Key Characteristics
This primer provides a general overview of common P3 terminology and the benefits and challenges of undertaking a P3. It is meant to serve as a starting point for the user to further investigate and make inquiries regarding the delivery model.
Unique Considerations for Social Infrastructure Public-Private Partnerships
Call them what you wish – owner advisor, owner’s consultant, owner representative, owner’s engineer, owner agent, criteria professional/consultant or A/E1 – they all serve the same purpose: to guide an owner through the process of advertising, selecting, hiring and working with the best design-build team for their project. Working from the assumption that the owner has already chosen to use design-build, this primer can help an owner select an owner advisor who will guide them through the process.
Building resources are, and always have been, limited. Design-build’s inherent collaboration and innovation help ensure sustainability and project resiliency are vital goals for design-build teams.
DBIA believes Lowest Price Technically Acceptable (LPTA) does not provide best value to the government or the taxpayer. Technical solutions, quality, schedule, past performance and innovation should be the key value components governments use to determine who will deliver services to communities.
Design excellence is integral to all successfully executed projects and is not the exclusive domain of any one contractual relationship or delivery system. In fact, design-build has delivered design excellence on some of the most high-profile projects in the nation.
DBIA believes that cost/price evaluations should not dominate the owner’s best value process when selecting a design-builder. While cost/price can play a role in the selection process, prioritizing technical, design, management, past performance and other non-cost/price qualitative factors maximizes the likelihood of project success.
Owners who choose their design-builders based largely on qualifications reap substantial benefits — such as increased teamwork, proactive behavior and collaboration — that help achieve project success.
Successful design-build entities — however organized — structure the design-build team as early in the process as possible and encourage collaboration within the design-build team as well as full and open communication between the design-build team and the owner.
DBIA supports the use of stipends to help cover a portion of the design-build proposal costs and provide an effective financial incentive to increase competition.
Although both the design-build single-entity model and the Integrated Project Delivery multi-party model have features in common, including the goal to achieve effective integration, there can be substantial differences between these systems.
DBIA supports public-private partnerships as a potentially effective and efficient method to help address our nation’s infrastructure financing and delivery challenges. To be executed properly, a key component of a successful P3 is the implementation of design-build best practices as defined by DBIA, collectively referred to as Design-Build Done Right®.
The Design-Build Manual of Practice is a comprehensive reference manual for owners and practitioners about all aspects of design-build practice. It provides everything you need to build your design-build foundation, such as: definitions, selection procedures, project execution checkpoints, tenets of professional ethics, risk management guidelines, contract formats, licensure data, and regulatory and legal information.
The Manual of Practice is a DBIA Members benefit. Sign-in with your DBIA online account to download.
Non-members can purchase the Manual of Practice in the DBIA Bookstore as individual chapters ($25) or a complete set ($350).
Design-Build Introduction
Design-Build Definitions
DBIA Code of Professional Conduct
Legislative Guide for Alternative Project Delivery Methods (APDMs)
Enactment and Application of the Model Design-Build Procurement Act
Model Regulation for Design-Build Procurement Act (Best Value Process)
Competitive Acquisition of Design-Build Services
Utilizing Negotiated Selection
Federal Design-Build Source Selection
Developing Performance-Based Requirements for Design-Build Projects
Contract Incentives and Design-Build Acquisition
The Proposal Process: Responding to RFQs and RFPs
Design-Build Teaming Agreement Guide
Selecting Specialty Contractors
Design-Build Insurance and Bonding Guide
Executing the Design-Build Project
Design Management for the Design-Build Environment
BIM and Design-Build Project Delivery
BIM Checklist (available to all)
Value Engineering in Design-Build: A Value Management Approach
Transportation Infrastructure Best Practices
Design-Build Process for Civil Infrastructure Projects
Process Industries Best Practices
*Please note that many of the post-award chapters contain information that is pertinent to the project team’s work in the pre-award phase.
Email Todd Rich or call (202) 454-7503.
Having access to DBIA’s Manual of Practice is just one of the many benefits to becoming a DBIA member.
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