Wendy and I were on a recent getaway to the Hunter Valley when we found our way to the boutique Piggs Peake Winery. Over an enjoyable morning of conversation and wine tasting, we asked Steven (the wine maker) if they have tour groups come through and he said that they actively discouraged tour groups. We were surprised and asked why. He said that over the years he had developed a theory called “Primary Focus”.
Most tour groups that come through the Hunter Valley are reunions or buck’s/hen’s parties or birthday groups etc. These groups are coming through the Hunter Valley for a good day out – that is their “Primary Focus”. They haven’t found their way to Piggs Peake because of the wine, or to learn about wine making. They are after a quick drink before they jump onto the bus to go to the next winery. Steven would much rather sit down with a couple or a small group who have sought out the winery.
His theory of “Primary Focus” started me thinking about how this could apply to architecture and to developments and to homeowners. Ultimately your primary focus is the driving force that dictates all of your decision making, even if you haven’t thought about what your primary focus is.
So if you are looking at building a new house, what is your primary focus. Not the collection of all the things that you aspire to; such as a place for your family to grow up into, a project that is going to have maximum re-sale value, to be the best house in the street, fastest approval process, sustainability, to meet the budget….the list could go on and on.
You can never achieve all these goals. You need to decide what is the “Primary Focus”, because ultimately it is that that controls your decision making. If you have two identical projects and one is focused on delivering the best possible outcome and the other is focused on budget, you will wind up with two very different buildings.
The same logic applies to developments, what is your “Primary Focus”.
It doesn’t mean that you can’t have or won’t have multiple goals - because you will. However, there will be many times throughout a project where decisions are required. If you want to maximise development potential and that requires breaking planning codes, then you probably won’t be able to minimize the approval process time.
If you know what your project’s “Primary Focus” is, then the decision making is streamlined and everyone knows which direction to go in. So stop and think about your current projects, can you clearly define what the “Primary Focus” is.
Oh..... we also walked away from Piggs Peake with several very nice reds!