Architectural design is a process that can involve numerous complex activities, regardless of the project’s size and depending on its type and diversity. To address this complexity, various stakeholders—such as designers, consultants, material suppliers, and others—who are experts in their fields are involved in the process and contribute to the design through information sharing. Consequently, in this lengthy process involving numerous stakeholders, ideas, and information, it is essential to eliminate issues such as difficulties in accessing information, delays in feedback, and disagreements among stakeholders, thereby ensuring the process is carried out as effectively as possible.

Today, factors such as the increasing complexity of projects, rising quality standards, technological advancements, the integration of technological elements into buildings, and the inclusion of ecological elements—such as green buildings—in the process have created a need for more effective design management. To ensure that the design process is completed in the most optimal manner—in line with the client’s requirements, within the targeted quality standards and processes, and without the need for revisions—there is a growing focus today on “Integrated Design Management.” “Integrated Design Management” is fundamentally characterized by early collaboration beginning in the initial stages of the design phase; it is a management system in which all disciplines contributing to the project are involved from the very beginning, all project participants act in unison when making key decisions regarding the project, and the decision-making process is thereby accelerated.

Based on research conducted in the industry and in the literature, the most significant factors leading to the emergence of the “Integrated Design Management” system can be summarized as follows:

• The absence of a specifically defined roadmap, or an incomplete roadmap, or failure to adhere to the roadmap;

• The emergence of numerous errors and deficiencies due to communication problems in processes, which in turn affect design performance;

• Failure to reach any conclusions at the end of design meetings due to improper planning of meeting structure and flow;

To eliminate these issues, efforts are underway to implement an “Integrated Design Management” system by following the basic steps below:

• Forming a project team capable of adopting the concept of integrated design management;

• Ensuring that the entire project team considers cost management from the very beginning of the project;

• Supporting the design process with preliminary environmental studies, particularly in green building projects;

• Evaluating the results of these preliminary environmental studies before beginning the detailed design process and exploring alternatives if necessary;

• Conducting workshops and meetings with relevant project participants to brainstorm and discuss priority issues that must be addressed, such as the direction of the design, necessary measures, design decisions, constraints, obstacles, regulations, standards, challenges, performance targets, etc.;

In “Integrated Design Management,” since there is an opportunity for timely intervention by experts in their respective fields to address any potential issues, if all the stages and activities mentioned above are carried out with the assistance of expert teams from the very beginning of the project, success in both the initial design phase and the subsequent construction phase will be inevitable. For this reason, “Integrated Design Management” is currently one of the most critical aspects of properly managing a project within the context of project management—a modern way of working and a new discipline—and in recent years, the “Integrated (Integrated) Design Management’ service has become an integral part of project management services and has begun to emerge as a service specifically sought after by clients in its various forms.