Timing is everything…
The key to a successful dental office design project is proper planning. By starting the project early enough to allow sufficient time for each step along the way, everything can happen in due course, nothing need be rushed, and every team member can put their best foot forward to assure a high quality, successful result to the dental office design project. However, when things aren’t done when they are supposed to be done, it is often difficult to work around a solution.
For example, on a recent project the dental client and I began discussing furniture office for the new dental office design twelve weeks before the scheduled opening. This should be sufficient time for almost any furniture choices. I break this down as four weeks for selection and eight weeks for ordering and delivery. The issue arose when the dental client could not make a decision. Over the course of the twelve weeks, without being pushy, I would ask about the selections and even offer alternatives to the original choices selected. Procrastination ruled the day, however.
Five days, including a weekend, before the new office was scheduled to open and start seeing patients the dental client asked, “So, what are we doing about furniture?” Ugh!!! Nothing can be ordered and received in only three working days! Even most retail showrooms will not sell furniture off their showroom floor and the pieces have to be ordered. I even looked at what we could get as a temporary measure from Office Depot and Target. Everything I found even there that would come close to working needed to be ordered.
Through a lot of phone calls, visits to showrooms, and time spent on-line, I was able to find a temporary solution at the 11th hour that will give the dental patients something to sit on in the waiting room when they show up on opening day. Life shouldn’t have to be this hard.
So, when you’re putting together that master schedule for your dental office design project, pay attention. The timing of the various aspects are there for a reason and not just an arbitrary selection. They really do make things flow much smoother.
