All of these things relate to a design process. Some projects require a more in depth process than others – but generally similar issues and design problems occur that you need to consider.
One aspect of the design process is the development of your concept. This is not an area that was covered all too well on my degree course. Of course we learnt how to develop our design, solve design problems and so on. But I have found for some students there is a heavy emphasis on CONCEPTS, and during crits there seems to be many questions of “what is your concept??”