SD to CD: What Owners Should Expect During Design

SD, DD and CD aren’t just design phases. Each one should move the owner closer to decisions the project can actually build.

Originally published July 2023. Updated September 2026 to reflect current owner-side design and project practices.

A project team starts talking about SDs, DDs and CDs.

Everyone around the table seems to know what the acronyms mean.

But knowing that SD means Schematic Design, DD means Design Development and CD means Construction Documents doesn’t tell an owner the most important thing:

“What should be decided by the end of each phase?”

The drawings become progressively more detailed as design advances.

The owner’s decisions need to advance with them.

If they don’t, unresolved issues don’t disappear.

They simply become more expensive to resolve later.

SD — Schematic Design: Are We Designing the Right Project?

Schematic Design begins translating the owner’s requirements into a physical solution.

The team may evaluate layouts, adjacencies, circulation, major building systems, overall project character and other fundamental design concepts.

At this stage, I would want the owner focused less on individual details and more on whether the project is solving the right problem.

Questions might include:

• Does the proposed layout support the operation?
• Are the major space requirements represented?
• Are important adjacencies working?
• Have significant infrastructure requirements been identified?
• Are there building or site constraints affecting the concept?
• Does the proposed solution still align with the business objective?
• Is the developing scope consistent with the available budget and schedule?

SD is still early enough to explore alternatives.

That’s precisely why fundamental owner decisions belong here.

Moving forward with an unresolved operating requirement because “we’ll figure it out during DD” doesn’t eliminate the decision.

It moves it downstream.

DD — Design Development: Does the Project Actually Work?

During Design Development, the project becomes considerably more specific.

Architectural layouts advance. Engineering systems develop. Materials and equipment are evaluated. Furniture, technology, security, audiovisual and other requirements begin affecting the design in greater detail.

This is where coordination becomes increasingly important.

A room can look complete on an architectural drawing while still missing the infrastructure required to operate it.

A piece of equipment can fit dimensionally but lack adequate service access.

A conference room can have furniture but no coordinated power, data or audiovisual requirements.

The owner should be testing more than appearance.

Will this design actually support the way the organization intends to use the space?

DD is also an important point for reconciling the developing design with cost.

If estimates are moving away from the approved budget, the team should understand why and make deliberate decisions.

Waiting until the CDs are nearly complete to confront a major budget problem can turn value management into redesign.

CD — Construction Documents: Can Someone Build What We Decided?

Construction Documents translate the developed design into the drawings and specifications used for permitting, bidding and construction.

By this stage, the project should not still be debating fundamental owner requirements.

The design team is documenting the decisions necessary to build the project.

That includes coordination among architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection and other disciplines, together with applicable details, schedules and specifications.

The owner’s role changes here.

Instead of continually introducing new requirements, the focus should increasingly be on confirming that the documents reflect the decisions already made.

That doesn’t mean nothing can change.

It means changes now have consequences.

A decision that was inexpensive to make during SD may require redesign during DD.

The same decision made after CDs are complete may affect drawings, permits, procurement, construction cost and schedule.

The Percent Complete Can Be Misleading

Design submissions are often described as percentages: 50% DD, 90% CDs, 100% CDs.

Those percentages can create a sense of precision that the project may not actually have.

A drawing package can be extensive while important owner decisions remain unresolved.

So rather than asking only:

“What percentage complete are the drawings?”

I would also ask:

“What decisions are still open?”

That answer may tell the owner considerably more about design progress.

Owner Decisions Need Their Own Schedule

The architect has a design schedule.

The project should also have a decision schedule.

Some owner decisions require input from Operations, IT, Security, Finance, Human Resources, business leadership or other stakeholders.

Those decisions need dates and owners just like design deliverables do.

Otherwise, the design team may advance based on assumptions simply to maintain its schedule.

An assumption can be perfectly reasonable.

It can also become embedded in the project before the actual stakeholder realizes a decision was made.

Cost Should Develop With the Design

The project budget should not disappear between the initial approval and the construction bid.

As design develops, the owner should understand whether the project remains aligned with the approved financial plan.

The level of estimating will vary by project and delivery strategy, but the principle is straightforward:

Design maturity and cost understanding should advance together.

If the project becomes more defined while the cost picture remains vague, the owner is accumulating risk.

Don’t Treat Phase Approval as a Formality

Moving from SD to DD or DD to CDs should mean something.

Before approving the next phase, the owner should understand:

• what has been decided;
• what remains unresolved;
• what assumptions are being carried;
• whether major stakeholder requirements have been incorporated;
• whether the design remains aligned with budget;
• whether schedule risks have emerged; and
• what decisions will be required in the next phase.

The objective isn’t to prevent design from progressing until every minor issue is resolved.

It is to make sure major unresolved owner decisions are visible rather than buried inside the drawings.

From Acronyms to Decisions

SD, DD and CD are useful ways to organize the design process.

But owners don’t manage projects by acronyms.

They manage them through decisions.

At SD, the owner should be increasingly confident that the team is designing the right project.

At DD, the owner should be increasingly confident that the project works and can be coordinated within its constraints.

At CD, the owner should be increasingly confident that the team has documented what was decided well enough to permit, procure and build it.

The drawings should become more complete.

So should the owner’s decisions.

Leadership takeaway: Don’t measure design progress only by the percentage of drawings completed. Measure it by whether the owner decisions required to support those drawings have actually been made.