Abstract Every basis of design and the required configuration of the rig, drilling equipment, and services undergo a series of iterations to balance requirements and resolve conflicting approaches. Effective design and subsequent optimization of a drilling plan requires the interaction of many different technical specializations in different organizations to meet the overall well objectives. To achieve maximum operational and economic performance, these diverse and specialized disciplines must interact effectively and efficiently in the fewest number of iterations. An essential requirement for this interaction is a clearly defined process that allows everyone involved in design and execution to be aware of both the requirements and objectives for the well and also those of other team members. Most importantly, knowledge of where the connections or touch points exist between the different domains is essential so that the implications of a change to the system can be rapidly assessed by the entire engineering team and service providers to help ensure the overall goals are met. The approach is novel within the industry because of the scope of the workflow, which encompasses all engineering relationships while drilling the well; whereas previous work tended to focus more on optimizing real-time behavior to respond to conditions encountered, using reservoir simulators to plan developments, or has been limited to collaboration between only two or three disciplines (Brett et al. 1986; Adeleye et al. 2004).