We have spoken before about the importance of speed and rapid decision making in real estate development. But in practice, it's obviously a little more complicated than just being good at making quick and high-quality decisions. And that's because building a building is complicated and it requires teams of people, all working toward the same goal. Some of these people will be internal to your organization, but many will be external, which is a feature that further complicates matters. Because it means that, to varying degrees, there are critical path items -- items that control your overall project schedule -- that are not fully in your immediate control. This is one of the things makes development and construction so challenging.

Now, ordinarily, when a team is being assembled people will talk about their project experience, their systems and fancy tech, and perhaps some of the awards they've won because of their extreme talent. But what doesn't often get talked about is the simplest and most basic of things: You want people who will do what they said they would do, when they said they would do it. In other words, you want responsive and reliable people. This sounds pretty banal, which is maybe why it so often goes unspoken, but it's fundamental to the success of a project. The other nuance to this is that, most of the time, it's less about the company itself and more about the individual human who will be working on the project. Is that person good?

Just being responsive, reliable, and on top of things goes a long way. These are the kinds of people you want on your team and it's how you move fast.

Development is tough. Among a long list of other things, it requires making a lot, and I mean a lot, of decisions. Oftentimes you won't have all the information. And sometimes they will be uncomfortable ones to make. But you need to decide on something. It is, arguably, almost always the case that any decision is better than no decision.

In situations like these, I often like to think back to something that my first boss in development used to drill into me. She would simply ask: What's best for the project? Now, this is not to say that you should ever do bad things simply for the betterment of a project. That is clearly the wrong thing to do. What I am instead saying is that it can be helpful to keep this guiding light in mind.

Developers have a fiduciary duty to their investors and partners. But they also have a responsibility to the people who will ultimately occupy the spaces that they're building and to the communities that they're building in. And at the highest level, all of these groups should be aligned in wanting the best possible project.

So if you're ever struggling with a development decision or you just need a goal reminder, try asking yourself this basic question. It may not work or apply in all scenarios, but I have found it to be helpful in situations where I'm wrestling with something and I need to take emotion out of the equation. What's best for the project? That's what it's all about.

Rapid and high-volume decision making are fundamental to real estate development.

In fact, it's hard to think of anything being more important when it comes to executing on a project. This is not to say that being thoughtful and doing remarkable work aren't important. You, of course, need to do those things as well. But it is to say that the benefits of moving as fast as you possibly can usually outweigh all else.

What this means is that any decision is often far better than no decision. Because no decision can grind everything to a halt. You need to maintain momentum and the way to do that is to make a lot of high-quality decisions.

As someone who was originally trained as an architect, this is something that I had to learn in the workplace. Because in architecture school, you're basically taught to work on your projects for as long as humanly possible and then, when you're done, you work on them some more. They'll never be good enough and you certainly haven't spent enough time "working in studio".

But in practice, you need to go. I would like to once again reiterate that this is not a license to do crappy work. I think the way to think about this is that speed and excellence reinforce each other. Our team always strives to do exceptional and remarkable work. And one of the ways to actually do that is by focusing on speed.