Design-Build Process: From Brief to Handover

What are the phases of the design-build process?

Use brief and feasibility, design development and pricing, construction release, construction, and handover as practical groups for tracking owner decisions. Team selection belongs before or within design development according to the procurement route; investigations and design reviews may repeat.

DBIA’s public guidance distinguishes best-value and progressive delivery. Its best-practices framework addresses procurement, contracting and execution. The table below translates those broad activities into an owner worksheet rather than claiming an official five-phase standard.

Owner decision table — adapt each row to the actual package and agreement. “Owner decision-maker” means the person with the relevant delegated authority, supported by the appropriate advisors. It does not assign professional design or regulatory approval to the owner.

What should the owner settle during brief and feasibility?

Record what the project must achieve and what is still unknown before asking a team to advance an option. Treat feasibility as a decision about the next defined investment in information or design, rather than a declaration that every site risk has disappeared.

We recommend separating the brief into three parts:

• Required outcomes: intended use, essential spaces or functions, operating needs and constraints the owner cannot trade away.
• Working assumptions: site or existing-building information, access, utilities, budget scope and schedule assumptions that still need confirmation.
• Next authorization: the investigation, option study or design work being commissioned, its deliverables and who decides what follows.

If an option depends on information that is missing, give that dependency a person and a decision date. The preconstruction risk checklist helps organize the investigations; the process record should show how their findings change the decision to proceed.

When are the team and construction price selected?

They are separate decisions in progressive delivery, while best-value procurement evaluates design and price before award. DBIA’s comparison of the two approaches explains that difference: best-value selection establishes the proposed scope and price through competition; progressive selection brings the team aboard primarily for qualifications, then develops design and commercial terms toward a later price commitment.

For either route, our recommendation is to keep design acceptance, estimate review and authorization to spend as separate entries. A meeting can address all three while leaving one undecided. Record exactly which commitment was made.

Use progressive design-build’s price decision for that later commitment, and early budget alignment to reconcile a changing design with the owner’s budget. Neither an early estimate nor a budget ceiling alone identifies the work the parties have agreed to deliver.

What must be clear before construction starts?

Name the work package being released and the documents and approvals on which that release depends. “Start construction” is too broad if only a particular area or package is ready.

As an owner planning check, ask the team to read back:

1. Scope: the location and work included in this release, plus what remains outside it.
2. Document basis: the drawing, specification and instruction revisions the package uses.
3. Readiness: applicable permissions, site access, prerequisite work and interfaces requiring confirmation.
4. Authority: who can issue the release under the agreement and where that authorization is recorded.
5. Remaining conditions: unresolved items, affected work and the person responsible for closing each item.

If design and construction are proposed to overlap, apply these questions to each proposed release. The owner’s willingness to proceed does not establish that a permit, professional review or contractual prerequisite has been satisfied. Verify those requirements with the responsible project parties and authorities.

Use the preconstruction meeting agenda and action log to organize the discussion. The agenda records questions and decisions; the release itself must come through the procedure that applies to the work.

How should a change move through the process?

Keep the proposed change connected to the accepted baseline, the review needed and the authorization eventually issued. The following is our recommended record sequence; follow the agreement’s actual notice, instruction and change procedures.

For example, in a hypothetical material substitution, a sample selection is only one entry. The team would still need to identify the specified baseline, arrange the relevant technical review and record any scope, cost or time decision through the applicable procedure. A photograph of the preferred sample cannot carry all those decisions.

The design-build contract review guide helps locate the authority and document provisions to check. This worksheet does not decide entitlement to payment or extra time.

What should be recorded at handover?

Check the completion evidence and operating information against the project’s requirements, and assign every remaining item. A key handover, receipt of documents, completion decision and permission to occupy may involve different records and decision-makers; identify those separately for the project.

For commissioned building systems, WBDG’s commissioning-documentation guide describes project-specific records including test results, issues logs, systems information and training documentation. It also explains that seasonal testing may continue into initial operation. These are useful planning topics for the applicable systems, rather than a universal closeout requirement for every project.

Our suggested owner receipt check is:

• Can the operating team find the manuals, record information and training material required for its systems?
• Are required inspection, testing and commissioning records available to the assigned reviewers?
• Does each outstanding correction, missing document or deferred test have a responsible person and due date?
• Has the team identified the relevant completion, acceptance and occupancy decisions without treating one as proof of another?

Where an item is deferred, record why, what remains to be done and who will confirm closure. Keep the current record accessible to the people operating the building.

How can you use the decision record today?

Copy or print the table below for the next decision on your project. Leave unknown fields blank and assign someone to confirm them. One record should describe one defined authorization; link other decisions when they depend on it.

Field	Your project entry
Current phase and work package
Decision requested and next activity
Input files, dates and revisions
Required reviewers and their responses
Authorized decision-maker
Scope, price and schedule basis being accepted
Approval record, date and conditions
Unresolved matters, responsible person and due date
Conditions to meet before the next activity starts
Where the decision and updated documents are shared

Begin with the next commitment the team is asking the owner to make. If the inputs or authority are unclear, use the record to identify the missing answer before treating the next activity as released.

Method and sources

This independent editorial guide organizes public guidance into a decision worksheet. The tables, release questions and change-record sequence are our planning recommendations, not a standard contract procedure or an account of a project we delivered. The applicable agreements, professional appointments, procurement rules and authorities determine project-specific duties and permissions. No standard project duration, price or savings is assumed.

Sources checked October 16, 2026:

• DBIA, What Is Design-Build? — combined delivery and procurement variations.
• DBIA, Design-Build Best Practices — procurement, contracting and execution framework.
• DBIA, Taking a Closer Look: Progressive Design-Build and Best Value Design-Build — selection and price timing; published June 23, 2023.
• WBDG Commissioning Committee, Commissioning Documents: Process, Contents, and Acceptance — project-specific documentation across delivery and initial operation, within the scope of commissioning.