Strategic_Workplace

Ideabook 2: Maps and Myths Stories and Scenarios Finding Your Way in a "Wicked" World

Leaving a trail of breadcrumbs won't work, because seemingly random events (think fractals) drive organizations off-course. A word about our background

What is Strategic Planning?
What it's not
Why is it important?
How do you do it?
Summary and opinions

A word about our background:

Fractals are symbolic of "wicked" problems of chaos and roughness, which are commonly understood to be random phenomena. Indeed, Chaos, or the science of non-linear systems, derives its name from the Greek word for disorder.

This is perhaps misleading, as in recent years, scientists have been discovering the subtlety and complexity of structure that lies beneath the surface of turbulence and other unpredictable behaviour. Chaos can appear even in the simplest dynamical systems. The smallest change in initial conditions can lead to the evolution of dramatically different behaviour.

from http://online.anu.edu.au/ITA/ACAT/contours/docs/fractal-history.html

Strategic Workplace Planning:

Many within an organization have an opinion about its direction...

but it can be difficult to know which way to go. from http://home.earthlink.net/~mrkateb/sna.html

Strategic Workplace Planning is more than space forecasting. Ideally, a reciprocal relationship develops between enterprise strategies and real estate decisions. Facilities Managers can play a key role in achieving corporate goals.

"An organization's real estate decisions will be effective to the extent such decisions support the enterprise's overall business objectives." p. 488 Linking Real Estate Decisions to Corporate Strategy, Nourse, H.O. and S.E. Roulac in Journal of Real Estate Research vol. 8 #4, Fall 1993.

Strategic Planning requires an evaluation of current resources:

People
Facilities
Knowledge
Skills
Equipment
Budget

Strategic Planning is a process which:

determines what data should be collected
sets up procedures for interpreting the data
transforms the data into risk parameters
suggests various courses of action

p. 69 Planning Strategically The Total Workplace, Becker, F. 1990 New York, Van Nostrand Rheinhold.
3 different types of Strategic Planning:

	Rationalistic	Evolutionary	Processual
Characteristics/Philosophies	Mechanistic, assumes that strategic planning can be done logically	Deterministic, assumes that planning will have very little influence on events	Optimistic, assumes that people feel better with maps
Tools	Defining utility Defining strategic objectives SWOT analysis Internal Analysis Environmental prediction Identifying strategic options Selecting maximum utility option Implementation Appraisal and control	Feedback loop: Random experimentation and filtering out the unsuccessful	Draws on management of change literature. A map orients strategy team toward their environment, which provides them with feedback. The feedback is conceptualized, and then tested, which generates new feed back. This completes a learning loop.
Goals	Find the one best answer	Let the solution evolve from the environment. Decisions based on consensus.	Generate an iterative solution
Possible Results	Stockholders satisfied: concrete measurable steps generated.	Management pain avoidance.	Scant signposts for future action

from p.29 Three Competing Paradigms in Strategic Management. Van der Heijden, K. (1996) Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

What it's not

Published in The Cornell Daily Sun, February 25, 1999 What does this situation lead to? mission statement generator

This is what happens when cartoons write mission statements: Our mission is to authoritatively facilitate quality paradigms as well as to assertively foster low-risk high-yield materials in order to solve business problems. Now you try it: http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/career/bin/ms2.cgi

Strategic Workplace Planning is not:

Blind Reorganization done for "Show and Tell"

Gobbledygook mission statements

Just Space Planning

Why does it matter?

Facilities are often the second biggest expense for organizations, yet they are often left as an afterthought in the strategic planning process.

Potential space cost savings and other efficiencies can be enormous. If done correctly, significant increases in employee satisfaction may result.

How do you do it?

How can the planning, design and management of the workplace help organizations meet their unique business challenges?

Agree on and set your criteria
Set up a template for evaluating all decisions against your criteria
Be "downboard" in your thinking regarding the consequences of decisions
Clearly define participation. Ideally , meaningful, actionable input from end users is solicited throughout the process.

What's another way?

I. Scenarios are storytelling for organizations, perhaps controlled by corporate and/or cultural myths:

"Scenarios are a set of reasonably plausible, but structurally different futures. these are conceived through a process of causal, rather than probabilistic thinking, reflecting different interpretations of the phenomena that drive the underlying structure of the business environment.

"Scenarios are used as a means of thinking through strategy against a number of structurally quite different, but plausible future models of the world. Once the set of scenarios has been decided upon they will be treated as equally likely. All must be given equal weight whenever strategic decisions are being made.

p.29 Three Competing Paradigms in Strategic Management. Van der Heijden, K. (1996) Scenarios: The Art of Strategic Conversation. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

How To Generate Scenarios:

1.     Identify Focal Issues or Decisions.
2.     Identify Key Forces in the Local Environment.
3.     Identify Driving Forces.
4.     Rank by Importance and Uncertainty.
5.     Select Scenario Logics.
6.     Flesh out the Scenarios.
7.     Review Implications.

II. SAST:

Strategic Assumption Surfacing Technique:

SAST is a four quadrant decision matrix which sorts assumptions by importance and likelihood.
SAST is useful for identifying what questions to ask about key assumpions and for building consensus on what the nature of the problem is before corporate resources are spent to solve it. It reveals whether the right question is being asked or not.
It may not lead to predicting success, but that's not its goal. Defining the real problems that need to be solved is its goal.

Summary Opinion
Steve:

The basic concept of Workplace Strategic Planning should force managers to link and incorporate real estate and its functions into the corporation's overall business plan. Real estate is not just space to be occupied but another strategic business tool or asset to be used in furthering the overall corporate goals.

Space needs, design, and layout should be derived based on how well they will function as enablers of maximizing the business plan.

Frost:

Success can make you go blind. It's difficult to argue with success, because obviously the organization is doing something right. And yet many organizations take a cookie cutter approach to strategic planning. Even if an organization takes the extra step of hiring a consultant, many of these "strategic experts" do their plans by rote.

The PEOPLE within an organization may have the most informed perspective for making thoughtful decisions about the future direction of the organization and for deciding how that direction will manifest within the organizational workplace.