This role exists to close one gap. The design department currently runs as a dialed, high-output engine. Estimating currently runs as a separate department that delivers a guaranteed price with little strategic give.
Today, closure rate is owned by Design and Business Development. Estimating sits outside that accountability. The result is a recurring pattern: the price comes back over budget, and Design is left to value-engineer after the fact, alone.
Sean's vision is two sides of one coin. Combined, Design and Estimating are the Solutions team: one cohesive package of the right design at the strategic price, handed to Business Development and Client Services ready to win. My job is to make that real on two layers at once.
Estimating is constantly at capacity, backing up the entire sales and design timeline. We have competent estimators and a process problem, not a people problem. The fix is reworked process plus AI tooling crossover from Design, before we lean on headcount.
Move Estimating from a silo that delivers a number into a partner that co-owns the win through upfront, collaborative value engineering. Closure rate becomes shared across Design, Estimating, and Business Development.
No month spent watching. The download is fast and runs in parallel with the build.
Design is solid. My work there is refinement and orchestration, not rebuild.
We likely add an estimator, but only after the new process proves the real capacity ceiling.
No silo owns the price. No silo owns the design. We own the win together.
The bigger seat does not mean Design loses its lead. Here is what moves and what stays.
| Accountability | Disposition |
|---|---|
| Design infrastructure, process, and proprietary tooling | Retain. I built it and continue to own and maintain it. Agentic upgrades planned for later this year. |
| Design data-tracking maintenance | Offload (partial). Hand off routine maintenance protocol; I retain oversight. |
| Design L10 and day-to-day team command | Clinton owns fully. He asked for more ownership and now runs point on team operations. He reports to me. |
| Cox Automotive design lead | Retain through the 2027 cycle. Aligned with Lance. Next cycle, evaluate bringing another designer in and shifting my role. |
| Booth design contribution | On-call. If volume warrants another designer of my level, I put the design hat back on, including as a design partner inside the new estimating process. |
None of the six scorecard metrics are currently instrumented. This is not a gap to hide. The plan stands up measurement first, then brings real baselines to Sean so we set realistic, ambitious targets together.
One refinement: time from design input to first concept is already built into our proven design process, so the scorecard is better spent measuring the real constraint. In its place, the plan tracks Estimating queue wait time, the backlog that holds up Business Development and Client Services every time the department hits capacity.
| Scorecard KPI | Status |
|---|---|
| Estimating queue wait time (request to active start) | Not measured |
| % of first concepts within budget tolerance (-5% to +10%) | Not measured |
| Revision cycles per deal | Not measured |
| Win rate on Tier 1 and Tier 2 opportunities | Not measured |
| Estimated vs. actual variance (rolling 90 days) | Not measured |
| Throughput of active solutioning pipeline | Not measured |
Kicking off Monday, June 29, 2026. Phase 1 is a build phase, not an observation phase. By day 30 there is a working protocol on the floor and live numbers on the board. Phases 2 and 3 prove it on real deals and lock it in.
By day 30, nobody is wondering what changed. There is a named protocol running, a shared scorecard with real baselines, and a clear map of exactly where the Estimating bottleneck forms.
All six move from "not measured" to "baselined." That is the Phase 1 win on the scorecard.
Phase 1 built the tools. Phase 2 proves they work under live conditions on opportunities that matter, and starts converting Estimating from a queue into a solutioning partner.
Early movement in budget-tolerance, revision cycles, and Estimating queue wait time. Win rate and variance are tracked but expected to move later as changes compound.
Phase 3 turns a set of changes into the new normal, and converts ninety days of baselines into a forward-looking scorecard with real targets.
Targets set on all six. Demonstrated early movement on budget-tolerance, revision cycles, and Estimating queue wait time. Win rate and variance trending right with the systems now in place.
The problem it solves: Value engineering currently happens late, reactively, and lands entirely on Design after Estimating returns an over-budget price.
The shift: Estimators become strategic partners during concept development, not after. When a deal needs to hit a budget, estimating arrives with value-engineering options already identified, each with real savings attached. Designers make informed yes/no decisions, choosing the options that preserve the spirit and intent of the original design.
Once confirmed, this refines two things only:
The trifecta reframe and the VE Protocol hold true regardless of the final pricing model, so this is a refinement, not a dependency that blocks the build.
The points I want to align on.
With baselines in hand by end of Phase 1, what does realistic and ambitious look like to you for each metric?
Are we aligned that process and tooling come first, and a new estimator is a Phase 3 evidence-based decision?
Confirm the updated model so I can lock the budget-tolerance definition and VE cost logic.
Are Business Development and Client Services aligned that closure rate is now shared with Estimating, so the accountability lands cleanly from all sides?