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Smarter by Design

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by Knowledge Architecture

4.5(2 reviews)

11 episodes

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Podcast Overview

The Smarter by Design podcast explores how leading architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms are reimagining knowledge management, learning, and AI to build smarter, more adaptive practices. Hosted by Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO of Knowledge Architecture, the show dives into the real stories behind how firms are scaling expertise, transforming culture, and creating modern learning organizations. At the heart of the show is a simple belief: AEC firms should spend as much time designing their businesses as they do designing buildings, bridges, and infrastructure. The systems we design for capturing, sharing, and distributing knowledge shape everything else we create. Through thoughtful conversations with AEC leaders, knowledge managers, and innovators, we explore how design, leadership, and technology intersect to shape the future of practice. If you’re curious about how AEC firms are learning faster, working smarter, and designing better ways to grow—this is your show.

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12/23/2025

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Recent Episodes

June 24, 2026

Better Learning Starts With Clearer Goals | Jackie Baxley of HRP Associates

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Jackie Baxley, Principal and Practice Leader for Environmental Health, Safety, and Sustainability at HRP Associates. Jackie has spent years helping HRP evolve from a more organic, apprenticeship-driven learning culture into a more intentional learning organization that thinks carefully about competency, capability, incentives, mentorship, and organizational performance. Her perspective is shaped by the realities of consulting work, where the product is ultimately the people themselves.One of the central ideas Jackie returns to throughout this conversation is that not every learning experience is trying to accomplish the same thing. Organizations often get into trouble when they fail to define the actual goal upfront. Is the goal simply communication? Awareness? Skills development? Demonstrated competency? Different goals require different approaches, different investments, and different ways of evaluating success.Jackie walks through the practical frameworks HRP uses to think more intentionally about learning design, including her “inverted pyramid” model of communication, awareness, training, and competency, as well as the EDGE framework: Educate, Demonstrate, Guide, and Evaluate. We explore why awareness is not the same thing as competency, why repetition matters, how HRP approaches skills validation and quality audits, and why some learning experiences work best asynchronously while others must remain in person.The conversation also explores the operational and economic realities of learning inside consulting firms. Jackie discusses how HRP has worked to remove the stigma around training and development by redesigning incentives, rethinking billability, and treating learning as a strategic investment rather than overhead. We also discuss HRP’s evolving employee lifecycle programs, their growing focus on soft skills and management development, and the challenge of building deeper organizational capability without turning learning into bureaucracy.If you lead an AEC firm, manage teams, oversee operations, or are thinking about how to scale expertise more intentionally inside your organization, this episode offers a thoughtful and highly practical conversation about designing learning around real outcomes. A conversation about clearer goals, stronger capability development, and building modern learning organizations that keep getting smarter, by design.<h2>Guest</h2><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-baxley-76954422/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Jackie Baxley</a>, EHS&S Practice Leader, <a href="www.hrpassociates.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">HRP Associates</a>Jackie Baxley, a professional engineer in several states, has over 28 years of experience as an environmental engineering and risk management consultant specializing in the areas of environmental health and safety (EHS) compliance and management systems. As the EHS&S Practice Leader for HRP Associates, Inc, her responsibilities include fostering operational performance to a project and management staff of engineers and scientist. Throughout her career, Jackie has developed a strong working knowledge of the principle federal and state EHS laws and regulations, the principals of management systems and the application of sustainable practices and policies. Jackie is well known as a compliance trainer and has developed training courses delivered in person and online. She has managed or performed hundreds of site EH&S audits for a multitude of clients. <h2>Credits</h2>Host: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The Parents<h2>Episode Resources</h2>People & ExpertsKent Jonasen — CEO, Leadership Pipeline Institute<a href="https://www.leadershippipeline.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.leadershippipeline.com</a>BooksThe Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company — Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, James NoelThe Specialist Pipeline: Career Development for Technical and Professional Specialists — Kent Jonasen, Stephen Drotter, Aigerim Edwards<h2>Chapters</h2>(00:00) Welcome and Episode Overview(02:49) Introduction to Jackie Baxley, HRP, and HIKE(10:16) Inverse Pyramid Framework: Communication, Awareness, Training, Competency(24:06) Building Skills with the EDGE Method(34:07) Reframing Training as a Strategic Investment: Time Tracking, Overtime, Stigma(43:54) Defining and Measuring Competencies(49:15) The HRP Employee Life Cycle Program(01:00:03) Balancing Internal and External Role: Serving Clients and Developing People(01:04:48) Future Goals: Skills Development Matrix

June 3, 2026

Why Every AEC Firm Needs a Leadership and Specialist Pipeline | Kent Jonasen of the Leadership Pipeline Institute

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Kent Jonasen, CEO of the Leadership Pipeline Institute and co-author of the third edition of The Leadership Pipeline as well as author of The Specialist Pipeline. Kent has spent decades helping organizations rethink leadership development, succession planning, and the challenge of scaling expertise inside complex companies.His work starts from a deceptively simple premise: leadership is not leadership.Each transition—from leading yourself to leading others, leading leaders, leading functions, and eventually leading an enterprise—is fundamentally a different job that requires different skills, different priorities, and even different values.But this conversation goes far beyond leadership development.Many organizations unintentionally build systems where leadership becomes the only visible path for growth, recognition, and advancement. Specialists—deep technical experts, practitioners, strategists, and problem-solvers—often feel forced toward management roles simply to continue progressing in their careers. Over time, this creates frustration, weak leadership transitions, and the gradual loss of highly valuable expertise.Kent and I explore why organizations need both leadership pipelines and specialist pipelines working together. We discuss:<ul><li>Why leadership transitions so often fail</li><li>The hidden importance of discovering and aligning with your “work values” in career progression</li><li>Why many specialists feel alienated inside traditional organizations</li><li>The difference between knowledge experts and knowledge leaders</li><li>How companies accidentally push people into management roles they never truly wanted</li><li>Why specialist career paths need more than just new titles</li><li>How dual leadership and specialist pipelines create healthier long-term organizational design</li></ul> Along the way, we connect these ideas directly to architecture, engineering, and construction firms, where specialized expertise is often the core engine of competitive advantage. From healthcare planners to sustainability experts to technical design specialists, many AEC firms are wrestling with how to scale expertise, accelerate development, and reduce dependency on a shrinking number of senior experts.If you lead an AEC firm, oversee learning and development, manage technical teams, or are thinking about succession planning and long-term capability building, this episode offers a powerful framework for rethinking how careers evolve inside organizations. More importantly, it raises a deeper question: what if building a stronger company starts not just with developing better leaders, but with designing better systems for developing expertise itself?<h2>Guest</h2><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kent-jonasen-0167221/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Ken Jonasen, CEO</a>, <a href="https://leadershippipelineinstitute.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Leadership Pipeline Institute</a>Kent is CEO of the Leadership Pipeline Institute. He is author of the book “Specialist Pipeline – how to winning the war for specialist talent” and he is co-author of the 3rd edition of the book “Leadership Pipeline – Developing leaders in the digital age”. Before becoming CEO of Leadership Pipeline Institute, Kent Jonasen was Deputy Head of Group Human Resources in A.P. Moller – Maersk since 2003 up to 2008 responsible for talent management, leadership development, executive development and executive compensation. Previously to his deputy position, Kent was Regional HR Manager for Europe Region from 2000 to 2003. In Maersk Kent led the implementation of a companywide integrated leadership development initiative based on the Leadership Pipeline concept to impact more than 10,000 leaders in more than 100 countries. The project secured reliable executive succession plans and a 90% hit ratio on talents in the executive talent pool. During his time in A.P. Moller - Maersk he was member of the US Conference Board Council on Development, Education and Training. Since founding the Leadership Pipeline Institute Kent has led the implementation of the Leadership Pipeline and Specialist Pipeline concept with regards to development, selection, and assessment in more than 25 different large international organizations. <h2>Credits</h2>Host: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The Parents<h2>Resources</h2>Leadership Pipeline Book: https://a.co/d/01HXBNCTThe Performance Pipeline: https://a.co/d/0bJgSp0qLeadership Pipeline Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipPipelineInstitute<h2>Chapters</h2>(00:00) Welcome and Episode Intro(02:47) Origins of the Leadership Pipeline(12:12) Development of the Specialist Pipeline(37:36) Why Specialists Leave and How to Keep Them(46:23) The Three Steps Up the Specialist Pipeline(01:11:11) Applying the Pipelines in AEC and Professional Services(01:21:44) Strategic Implementation and Looking Ahead

May 20, 2026

Leading a Learning Organization: Lessons from Angela Watson | Shepley Bulfinch

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I'm joined by Angela Watson, President and CEO of Shepley Bulfinch, a nationally recognized architecture firm whose work spans healthcare, higher education, and civic design. Angela leads with a conviction she traces back to her time teaching at MIT: that real learning doesn't happen through lecture — it happens through doing, through struggle, and through the kind of exploration that only comes when people are given room to fail safely and try again. That belief didn't stay in the classroom. It became the foundation for how she thinks about leading a firm.Learning by doing is the foundation of how AEC professionals and firms develop. The problem is that great ideas stay trapped in pockets — one team figures something out, another team struggles with the same thing, and the knowledge never travels. Angela saw that dynamic playing out at Shepley Bulfinch as the firm grew into a national practice, work-sharing across five offices with project cycles too long and feedback loops too slow to rely on informal transfer alone. Becoming a learning organization became an operational necessity, but it turned out to be much harder than it looked.The conversation traces the full arc of what that effort has looked like in practice and what Angela has learned leading it. Why it's so hard for subject matter experts to codify and teach what they know. Why the traditional apprenticeship model is breaking down as plates get fuller and mentorship gets crowded out. What Shepley Bulfinch learned from building Birdfeeder, their internal peer-to-peer learning platform — what worked, what was too ambitious, and what the firm is rethinking now. And why the harder problem isn't building a course catalog — it's connecting learning to where someone actually wants to go in their career.The thread running underneath all of it is psychological safety. Angela talks about "Back to the Future," Shepley Bulfinch's reframe on lessons learned — a format designed to celebrate the imperfect and make it safe to share what went wrong. She reflects on what it took for her, as CEO, to model that vulnerability publicly, and why she believes culture is the soil in which any learning organization either takes root or doesn't.If you lead an AEC firm, manage a team, or are thinking seriously about how your organization develops its people, this episode is for you. Angela offers deep insight into what's worked, what hasn't, and what is still to be figured out on Shepley Bulfinch's journey to becoming a learning organization.<h2>Guest</h2><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelawatson/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Angela Watson, FAIA, LEED AP,</a> President and CEO, <a href="https://shepleybulfinch.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shepley Bulfinch</a>Angela Watson is the second consecutive female President and CEO in the 152-year history of Shepley Bulfinch, a national architecture and design firm with studios across the United States. She is a strong advocate for communication as the foundation of understanding clients, communities, and stakeholders, and she integrates research and practice to create spaces that positively impact people and their environments. Angela's post-occupancy research and co-authored studies on the impact of light on occupant well-being reflect her dedication to understanding the relationship between space and behavior. Her design process bridges teaching and practice through a collaborative design process that inspires innovation adaptable to a changing world. Beyond Shepley Bulfinch, Angela serves on the University of Arizona’s CAPLA Futures Council and the Texas A&M College of Architecture Dean’s Advisory Board. She also serves on the Board of the Design Futures Council, and as Chair of the Board for Shepley Bulfinch. Born in Germany, she studied at Universität Karlsruhe and earned an MArch from MIT, where she later taught Design.<h2>Credits</h2>Host: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The Parents<h2>Episode Resources</h2><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-your-new-engineers-look-lost-six-months-nick-heim-pe-df4bc/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Why Your New Engineers Look Lost for Six Months</a>: LinkedIn article by Nick HeimAmy Edmondson: A Harvard Business School professor and author whose research on psychological safety demonstrates how creating environments where people feel safe to take interpersonal risks—admitting mistakes, asking questions, and challenging ideas—is foundational to organizational learning and innovation.Desirable Difficulty: Robert Bjork's learning framework showing that challenges that slow initial performance—like spacing practice over time, mixing related concepts together, and retrieving information from memory through testing—produce superior long-term retention and transfer compared to easier, more familiar learning methods.<h2>Chapters</h2>(0:00:00) Welcome and Guest Introduction(0:02:41) Why Focus on Learning Now(0:04:23) Learning to Teach at MIT(0:08:09) Delegating and Letting Go(0:10:05) Why Pockets of Learning Aren't Enough(0:12:32) Balancing Standardization and Flexibility(0:17:03) National Practice and Work Sharing(0:19:11) Codifying Knowledge to Scale Learning(0:25:19) Helping Experts Learn to Teach(0:26:51) Just-in-Time Learning and AI(0:28:11) Core Curriculum vs. Enrichment(0:32:53) Apprenticeship Is Evolving(0:38:07) Stop or Slow: Rethinking Capacity(0:45:26) Strategic Plan and Birdfeeder Origins(0:52:58) Connecting Learning to Career Goals(0:57:40) Communication as a Foundational Skill(1:00:35) Birdfeeder 2.0: What Changes?(1:06:08) Learner Motivation and Fulfillment(1:14:06) Psychological Safety and Back to the Future(1:17:43) Modeling Vulnerability

11 total episodes available

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What is Smarter by Design?: The Smarter by Design podcast explores how leading architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms are reimagining knowledge management, learning, and AI to build smarter, more adaptive practices.

Hosted by Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO of Knowledge Architecture, the show dives into the real stories behind how firms are scaling expertise, transforming culture, and creating modern learning organizations.

At the heart of the show is a simple belief: AEC firms should spend as much time designing their businesses as they do designing buildings, bridges, and infrastructure. The systems we design for capturing, sharing, and distributing knowledge shape everything else we create.

Through thoughtful conversations with AEC leaders, knowledge managers, and innovators, we explore how design, leadership, and technology intersect to shape the future of practice.

If you’re curious about how AEC firms are learning faster, working smarter, and designing better ways to grow—this is your show.
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates daily.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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