Scenario Planning Provides Responsive Outcomes Beyond Ideology

Customer Discovery Lessons Learned Part 2

We recently completed a rigorous customer discovery program. In four weeks we interviewed 50 industry leaders and corporate insiders, all of whom were generous with their time and passionate about the development of contemporary office environments.

We heard many stories and gained useful insights. This post will consider the influence of ideologies in the workplace development process.

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Ideology

Everyone we’ve spoken to agrees that businesses benefit from efficient and productive office environments. For example, the obvious advantage of efficiency is leasing only the exact amount of space needed, perhaps with some room for expansion. But having enough of the right kind of space is equally important. Office environments that meet operational and cultural requirements mobilize staff to work effectively, which directly impacts financial performance of the business. Tina, a design strategist said it best, “Unhappy people make less money for you.”  The challenge becomes gathering those requirements.

One approach we heard across multiple conversations was applying ideology to workplace strategy. The sole requirement becomes: develop workspaces that reflect the business owners’ goals, embodying past success, and positioning the company to continue on a similar trajectory.  Benefits of this approach include 

  1. Expedited requirements gathering 

  2. Clearly identified stakeholders

  3. Definition of project completion.

“Unhappy people make less money for you.”

We asked one business owner, Dan, what the most important consideration was during the workplace strategy process for his company’s open plan office. Dan replied, “collaboration, serendipitous encounters.”  He wanted his open area to be noisy; i.e., everyone should be able to hear what’s going on and filter out what they don’t need to know. The goal of Dan’s space was to provide a platform to allow people to do good work. The process was complete when he had the right number of seats, adequate storage, and the right aesthetics. 

Workplace strategy, especially within fast growing companies that are scaling quickly, can be a complex problem. In his blog post, Jorge Arango describes design as the opposite of ideology; specifically, “Ideology is an attempt to reduce chaos — to narrow choices — through a predefined, abstract, rigid view of how to best achieve particular outcomes. Design, on the other hand, is about reducing chaos through an emergent, responsive, tangible view of how to achieve particular outcomes.”  Workplace strategy should be responsive too, producing several outcomes for stakeholders to consider, reducing all potential complexities associated with defining requirements for a productive office environment. 

Jack, the principal of a Brooklyn based architecture firm, occasionally takes jobs to renovate a space where the budget is constrained by the landlord’s tenant improvement allowance.  Jack will get a basic work order, know nothing about the tenant, and get paid directly by the landlord. As a result, architects provide only one option. Jack admitted this is not an ideal situation for clients. Tenants want more involvement. When asked if the situation could be improved by proposing a range of four or five options instead of just one, Jack suggested that from the landlord’s perspective it’s a good idea.

“Design, on the other hand, is about reducing chaos through an emergent, responsive, tangible view of how to achieve particular outcomes.”
— Jorge Arango

The finished product in the form of an office environment that maximizes productivity requires a clear understanding of the staff’s culture. A managing partner in a law firm, Bob, told us how he planned his current workplace. When they moved in the firm was subleasing 25,000 square feet. This more than satisfied their needs at the time accommodating the entire staff, consolidating a satellite location, and allowing room for growth. Within a year the business exceeded their expectations and lead them to add 6,000 more square feet.

With respect to workplace design, decision making was driven by an intimate knowledge of how Bob’s business operates. Prior to moving, he interviewed every employee to make sure their concerns were addressed. He went on to add that if he had to do it all over he would have made the offices smaller and, “gotten 9 to 10 more offices, easy.”

When the lease expires in two years, Bob may have to "do it all over" as the tenant they sublet from is downsizing and Bob’s firm will have to move once again.  Among the considerations going to a new space:

  • Increased density (smaller offices)

  • Telecommuting (working from home in the afternoon after a morning in court)

  • Hoteling (currently each lawyer has a dedicated workspace, regardless of how much time they physically occupy it).

At times, business owners consult experts outside of their organization to guarantee outcomes. Tina calls workplace strategy a soft science. She is project based and uses several templates to guide clients through the development process. Her clients often know about the workspaces of their peers and competitors. The tone of the project is set entirely during client discovery where topics discussed include

  • Collaboration ratios

  • Target area

  • Head count

  • Density.

To avoid churn, Tina does a “design reality check” for any issues that might prevent the design from fitting into a proposed space. One of her key templates is an automated spreadsheet, but it doesn’t always identify problems and requires manual oversight.  Tina only submits projects that a designer can realize. When asked how she knows when her portion of the project is complete, Tina confidently replied, “When all discovery targets have been reached.”

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Hired consultants typically use ideologies for their workplace strategy process.  This works effectively for well established corporations with stable head counts and a clear sense of internal culture or a reliable model they want to replicate.  The projects succeed because of clear, honest communication. When communication breaks down or there is no clear consensus, timely, on-budget project completion is at risk.

We spoke with Pam, director of operations for a small construction company, while she was actively engaged in the process of transitioning the office to a new building. Pam believes she has a good understanding of the local staff. She described her struggle with the company president, Nathan, who works remotely out of a co-working space more than 2,000 miles away and prefers a more open environment. Pam considers this process a burden. For example, she asked the architects to come up with a few suggestions to review with Nathan. They submitted floor plans for approval but Nathan marked them up, indicating the plans weren't what he has in mind.  Her response to how long she anticipated the development process to take was simply, “The lease expires in 10 months.”


Responsive Outcome Design

Can small and medium sized businesses, especially at early growth stages, achieve benefits beyond applying ideologies to workplace strategy decision making without hiring costly consultants? The answer is “yes,” if they understand how the business works, who the key contributors are, and the direction the business is headed. 

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Understanding business culture is the first step in developing responsive outcomes that support company growth and change. Whether you take the lead or assign a point person as the de-facto workplace strategist, the mistake to avoid is simply planning for the moment. Leverage forecast data during the workplace strategy phase and have the option to select from a handful of responsive outcomes that satisfy your company culture.  Each outcome represents an efficient and productive office environment capable of absorbing business process change control and avoiding costly workspace renovations or a move.

Consider that over the course of a typical 3 to 5 year commercial lease term your business environment will have to account for changes to:

  • The market

  • Talent location

  • How much talent you need

  • Talent work styles.

All of these factors affect how capital is deployed. Responsive outcomes allow safeguards to be considered to avoid building out or leasing the wrong space.  

Responsive outcomes aren’t restricted to business transformation. They can also take into account cultural factors that might account for conflicts of interest among stakeholders. If we look back at the earlier encounter with Pam and her remote-based president Nathan, they could have benefitted from more different outcomes to review.  One could depict a complete open plan that resembled Nathan’s current co-working space. A second could replicate the office features Pam and the local team had been used to for years before the move. Lastly, the company could have been presented an outcome with a high rank of openness that maintained the levels of privacy, social space, and collaboration the local staff expected.

“Responsive outcomes allow safeguards to be considered to avoid building out or leasing the wrong space.”

Scenario Planning

Aenvision has learned that data-driven responsive outcomes can approximate a process that takes years for in-house personnel or workplace strategy consultants to master in the absence of technology, at a fraction of the cost. Aenvision provides small and medium-sized businesses tools to craft customized scenario plans from readily available organizational data gathered from a variety of familiar sources. Each of those scenarios represent outcomes based on “what if” questions asked throughout the evolution of your business from data you provide or forecast.

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Aenvision replaces ideologies by aggregating qualitative and quantitative data, presenting scenario planning for present day, here and now concerns, alongside a wide range of future possibilities.  Now business owners can view office space as a flexible resource and simplify workplace transformations as business requirements evolve. Scenario planning offers responsive outcomes that can resolve conflicts, account for growth, and support business evolution. 

Is your business currently redefining a workplace or planning to soon? Contact us today! Do you have experiences of your own to add? Please leave a comment or get in touch.

Henry Villadiegoworkplace strategy, Business Culture ModelComment