Who owns the coordination schedule, and what happens to the project if they miss it?
Most capital projects are advised by people who each protect one thing. The architect protects design intent. The GC protects budget. The CM protects schedule. None of them protect the coordination window — the period before installation when changes are still cheap to make.
If your GC or CM can't answer that question in one sentence, the window is already closing.
Published thinking.
Running a solo practice through a book about removing yourself from your business.
A portfolio run as disconnected projects is a system that cannot improve.
Building data expires after handover. The organizations that avoid it answer one question early.
The governance layer above coordination.
Everist Consulting is an independent VDC operating model consultancy and AI advisory practice founded by Christopher Everist in San Diego. The work designs the structure that determines whether VDC investment produces the outcomes the owner contracted for — operating model design for organizations rebuilding internal capability, and AI advisory for leaders deciding what to absorb and what to defer. Not a vendor of software, modeling, or staffing. The deliverable is structural clarity.
Three groups get the most from this work: general contractors rebuilding VDC capability into something durable; hospital systems and university capital programs where coordination governance affects accreditation and opening dates; and CM and Owner's Rep principals advising owners before GC selection.
Engagements in practice.
The first engagement is documented. Six weeks of overhead MEP coordination on an active hotel renovation — five conditions that would have failed at installation, converted into engineering decisions before the window closed.
Read the first engagement →Twenty years inside the problem.
Chris Everist has spent over twenty years inside the construction technology layer of buildings — five years at Turner Construction with international VDC and lean instruction work, then an extended tenure leading VDC practice at a West Coast general contractor. Co-author, BIM with the End in Mind (USIBD, 2021).
Full background →New notes when they publish.
Notes on VDC operating model design, governance, and the structural layer most construction firms skip.
A confident answer means coordination is governed. The absence of one is the signal.