This blog post was authored by Andrea Cecelia, AIA, LEED AP, Senior Project Manager, BWBR.

As we grow in our profession, each project and experience offers something to learn. I have yet to encounter a project that didn’t contain at least one insight that could be carried forward and applied in the future.

These lessons can range widely in scale from major life lessons, to understanding minimum space requirements that can impact a project’s bottom line during construction, to smaller takeaways such as realizing a question should have been asked earlier in the design process.

Each experience leaves an imprint that shapes the path forward. When those moments are acknowledged, studied, and carried with us, they deepen our perspective and enrich not only future projects, but the arc of our entire career.

Live and Learn

One of my earliest experiences was during a summer internship while I was still in school. I was tasked with preparing a graphic presentation for a client—back in the days when presentations had to be plotted and mounted on boards.

I was using Photoshop for the first time and created a site plan. On the screen, everything looked fine, so I sent it to print less than an hour before leaving for the meeting.

The final printed version, however, was a disaster. Trees of slightly different shades of green that looked fine on screen printed as a chaotic mix of unrecognizable green blobs—a very unpolished result. Thankfully, the client was understanding, and we were able to laugh it off.

Still, the experience was both embarrassing and unforgettable.

The tense drive to the meeting, knowing what awaited, is seared into my memory—but so is the lesson: Never underestimate the difference between digital and physical media, and always allow time for careful review.

Practice Makes Perfect?

While I’m no longer printing out presentations regularly, process improvements are constantly evolving at all levels of our projects. There is always opportunity for change and growth from one project to the next, and once we establish a path that works well with a particular client, it’s valuable to carry those lessons forward.

While we strive for seamless coordination, we recognize that it doesn’t always happen perfectly. In one instance with a valued client, several coordination items were missed during design and surfaced during construction, resulting in conflicts within the document set and subsequent change orders.

In partnership with our construction team, we responded quickly—rallying to develop and implement practical field solutions to resolve the issues. Although the situation was not ideal, it became a meaningful learning opportunity.

That experience reinforced the importance of deeper collaboration and earlier, more thorough drawing reviews. As a result, we have adopted a more proactive approach with our consultants and partners. We now schedule dedicated coordination meetings with both the client and the full design team to collectively review drawing sets, allowing potential conflicts to be identified and resolved before documents are issued.

Applying those lessons today, I have built an additional week into a current project in the design phase to bring the team together for a focused, collaborative review. Given the complexity of several details, this extra time allows us to work through challenging elements collectively and ensure stronger alignment before advancing.

Stronger, Faster, Smarter

The most impactful attribute a team member can develop, in my opinion, is accountability.

By taking ownership of their work and embracing responsibility for their efforts, individuals create the conditions to truly learn from each experience. Every project leaves its imprint—lessons both large and small—that shape how we approach future challenges. When accountability guides us, those lessons are not lost; they are carried forward, informing decisions, refining processes, and enriching our growth over the course of a career.

In this way, each opportunity becomes not just a task to complete, but a building block in the ongoing development of both skill and perspective.