What if the Facilities Program is Wrong? Part I

If you want to know the truth, ask Why five times

The key best practice issue: If the program is wrong you’ve built the wrong building.

Tim Lerdahl, Gary Miciunas, Steve Raasch, Susan Dineen, Derrick Van Mell

How can you program when the Owner doesn’t have a plan or projections?
How do you show an Owner the problem of short-term thinking?
How do help the FM and CFO justify a “flexibility premium” for the building and site?

Don’t start the project until there’s a rich, clear and deep understanding of purpose
Very long-term decisions can only be made by the very top managers
Face the risks squarely—and deal with them

Probing for purpose

Look backwards: graph the trends of business and staff growth
Look forward: consider how buildings are in and support the circular economy
Visualize the outcome: not for design solutions, but for management implications
Tour with the CEOs: see how others have reshaped their businesses
Ask Why five times: to get at the root causes (and the truths) behind needs
Emphasize the building is a catalyst, not a reaction
Feed back programming insights as management insights
Models: link the design and the financial models. Illustrate a very large ROI
It’s all about the questions

I keep six honest working men

They taught me all I knew:
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who. – Kipling

Who’s included

A leadership opportunity

Looking at risk is looking at return: reputation, performance, employee engagement
Take an “engineering mindset:” know where it’s going to break and prepare
Mitigate risks with flexibility concepts
Keep sharing stories of managerial success
Create peer connections
Face it: it’s a big decision that requires the same faith as other big decisions