Road Trip! Creating a Design Roadmap, Step-by-Step.

The Design Roadmap is an actionable, week-by-week plan for your Kitchen and Bath design projects.  It is the essential tool that helps you show up each and every week knowing exactly what needs to be done to get your projects done on time and on budget.  

Creating a Design Roadmap is very much like planning a road trip - it has all the same elements!  This week I thought it would be fun to take you through the process of creating a Design Roadmap together.  Ready to take a road trip with me?  Get your favorite tunes cued up, because we’re driving from my home town of Portland, Oregon to New York City, and along the way we’re going to create a Design Roadmap for a kitchen remodel.  

Step 1: Determine the Origin and your Destination

If we were going to take a road trip, the first thing we’d need to know is where we are starting from and where we are going.  For our trip, we’re traveling from Portland, Oregon to New York City.  

For a Design Roadmap, you do the same thing.  The client’s goal for a finished project is the destination  - in this case, a remodeled kitchen.  Where they are now is the origin  - an outdated kitchen.  

Step 2: Determine the Total Distance

If you were driving from Portland to New York, the first thing you’d want to know is how many miles is it?  (in case you’re wondering, without making any stops, the total driving distance is 2,895 miles).  This is all the miles you’d need to cover to get from your starting point, Portland, to your destination, New York.  

With our Design Roadmap, the equivalent of total mileage for a trip is everything you need to do to get the client from their current outdated kitchen to the remodeled kitchen.  This is your complete to-do list for the project.  Overwhelming?  Of course it is.  But don’t worry - just like we’re not going to drive that 2,895 miles from Portland to New York in one day, you’re not going to design that kitchen in one day either.  You’re going to break it down into smaller steps.  

Step 3 - Total Driving Time

The next thing I’d want to know if I was driving from Portland to New York would be the total driving time.  In this case, it’s 42 hours, 32 minutes. 

With our Design Roadmap, now that we have our complete to-do list, we need to figure out how long all that stuff is going to take.  You can literally write down time estimates beside each task, and then add them all up.  This is your total driving time, i.e. total design time.  

Okay - Stay with me - this next part is really important - a game-changer, really:

I think for most of us, this is about as far as our planning gets, right?  If we get as far as writing out a to-do list for the project, most likely we just jump right in and start doing the work.  And this is where the overwhelm comes in, right?  So many things on that list, and they all feel like they need to be done NOW. 

This  is where the analogy of planning a road trip really helps us.  If you were planning a road trip, there’s no way you would just figure out the miles/drive time and then get in your car and start driving.  First you would:

Step 4 - Determine your Stops 

This is the secret sauce that turns an overwhelmingly long drive into an actionable, day-by-day plan. So on our Road trip, we’re going to break down those miles and hours of driving, and determine what’s a reasonable amount of time/miles to drive each day.  We’d look at the map and plot out all our overnight stops.  We’d determine the total number of stops we’re going to make during the trip, and now we know how many days we’re going to be on the road, and what we’re doing each day.  

Guess what? Now that overwhelming 2,895 mile, 42 hour, 32 minute drive is broken down into very manageable shorter drives each day.  Now you can put it on the calendar and tell your friends when you expect to arrive in New York!  Now you can call ahead and book a great room for a particular night in Boise.  Now you have an actionable plan!  

Portland to New York looks like this:

Day 1: Goal - Arrive in Boise

• Start in Portland
• Drive for 7 hours

Day 2:  Goal - Arrive in Laramie

• Leave from Boise
• Drive for 10 hours

---Etc. etc. until...

Day 5: Goal: Arrive in New York City

• Leave Toledo (Ohio)
• Drive for 9.5 Hours

For our Design Roadmap, the stops on the road are our Milestones.  Milestones can be design presentations, meetings or deliverables.  Anything that you’re working towards that marks a natural stopping point during the design process.  This is the secret sauce that turns an overwhelmingly long design process into an actionable, week-by-week plan.

 Just like you would look at the whole map and break the journey down into manageable driving days, you’re going to look at the whole design process and break it down into manageable milestones for your work each week.  How much time do you need between meetings to get the work done?  What’s a natural rhythm for your meeting schedule? Every week?  Every two weeks? How many weeks do you need in total to get the work done?  Start to break down your design process / to-do list  into milestones, and pace them out on the calendar, week by week.  

Just like in our trip to New York, now you can know when you expect your kitchen plans to be completed.  Just like you booked that great room in Boise, you know what week you expect to visit the plumbing showroom so you can book an appointment with the client and the showroom in advance.  You know what’s coming up so you can get your ducks in a row, and set up expectations with the client and the General contractor for when the work is expected to be done.  

So for our Design Roadmap, it would look something like this:

Week 1: Goal - Programming

• Interview client, design questionnaire, etc.
• Measure house and create as-built drawings
• Appx. 5 hours of work
• Milestone
• Week 1: Site Measure, As-builts complete, questionnaire complete.

Weeks 2-4 (3 weeks):  Goal - Schematic Design

• Complete first pass at design - floorplan options, concept images, first pass at finishes and fixtures and a 3D model to pull it all together
• Appx. 20 hours of work
• Milestones
• Week 3: Schematic Design Presentation
• Week 4: Schematic Design Revisions

---Etc. etc. until...

Weeks 9-11 (3 weeks): Goal - Construction Documents complete

• Plans and specifications as need for construction and permits
• Appx. 35 hours of work
• Milestone: 
• Week 11: Complete Construction documents and send to client and GC.  Meet to review.

Beginning a Design project  without a Roadmap is just like taking a road trip without a map.  You can do it.  You’ll probably get there, eventually, but who knows how long it will take or how much it will cost?  There’s no control, just winging it, which can lead to stress and overwhelm, not to mention fire-fighting.  

Also, keep in mind that you’re not on this trip alone - you have the client and the General Contractor along for the ride with you.  And just like kiddos in the back seat asking “are we there yet?”  they’re going to be asking you when things will be complete.  Calling to ask you for the plans or design selections because they “need to get ordered today!!!”  Without a Design Roadmap, you’ll probably feel the need to jump to respond to those calls - which, when you multiply it by all your projects, can lead to being in constant fire-fighting mode. 

When you have a roadmap, and share it with your fellow travelers, several magical things happen:

1. You can set up expectations for what’s going to happen and how long it will take.
2. You give them a chance to weigh in on the timing, and you can work around their upcoming schedule way in advance instead of being surprised (on both sides!).  If the GC is planning to start work in 3 weeks and you have a 12 week design process, don’t you want to get that out on the table to discuss before the project begins?  Without a roadmap, you’re just hoping for the best!
3. When your fellow travelers have a roadmap and know what is going on, they can relax and enjoy the journey.   You’ll find you just stop getting those calls and emails asking for things because everything is accounted for, and everyone knows what the plan is.  For the most part, you’re left to do your planned work on your own schedule.  Sounds good?  I thought so!  

With a Design Roadmap you have an actionable, week-by-week plan to get the work done.  You can show up each week knowing exactly what to do to get your project done on time and on budget.  You can set up client and contractor expectations at the start to reduce headaches and stress.  The Design Roadmap is the foundation to gaining relaxed control over your projects.  Just like you can relax and enjoy the sights on a road trip when you know your hotel is booked and when you’ll be arriving, you can relax and enjoy the design process when you have a Design Roadmap.  

Would you like help in setting up your Design Roadmap from someone who has made hundreds of them, for all different types of projects?  No need to reinvent the wheel, just get on the waitlist for my upcoming Design Roadmap System course.  I’m going to take you through this step-by-step and give you downloads and printables you can use in your own business to get up and running as quickly as possible.  Save your creativity for your design projects, not creating your Roadmap!