DTS Discussion Session A: It’s a wrap!

By Bob Yori – DTS Committee Member

DTS Online Discussion Session A is in the books! It was a thrill to be able to participate in each of the two breakout sessions, interacting and learning from everyone.

I’d like to extend a warm thanks to everyone at DBEI who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to put on the day’s event, especially the entire DTS team. Together we translated the energy, enthusiasm, and collegiality of our in-person roundtable events to a virtual forum – not an easy task!

Most importantly, special thanks to all our attendees for your contribution. Your personal insights helped us all to better understand the challenges and opportunities of today’s business landscape. With this understanding comes a greater ability to address current needs and future plans.

As a recap, Topic One tackled one of the greatest challenges of our new working environments from four perspectives: Firm Leadership, Production, Senior Level Personnel, and Mid-Level Personnel. Topic Two explored the greatest opportunities from the perspectives of Firm Leadership, Production, Business Development, and Mid-Level Personnel.

Some of the greatest challenges highlighted were:
1. Leadership: Longevity goals – developing, retaining, and maintaining knowledge and expertise through economic downturns.
2. Senior Level: Communication within teams and project quality
3. Mid-Level: Gradual transition to digital and work from home scenarios
4. Production: Re-emergence and reprioritization of challenges previously faced by firms

Greatest opportunities centered around
1. Leadership: Optimization of real estate expenditures, shift from local to regional modes of thinking
2. Mid Level: Flexibility and availability of team members
3. Production: Developing new team processes for project execution
4. Business Development: Learning how other industries successfully embrace technology when new opportunities arise

Do you agree with the takeaways? Want to learn more? It’s not too late to participate – we will be discussing new ways of client engagement in Discussion Session B, which will take place on October 21st. If you’re interested in attending, contact me at bob.yori@dbei.org. We would love to have you! Once registered, we also invite you to join our DBEI Community discussion forum to share your thoughts and keep the conversation going.