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.
Participants
- Tim Lerdahl
- Gary Miciunas
- Steve Raasch
- Susan Dineen
- Derrick Van Mell
Topic question: How do you “future proof” a program?
Discussion questions
- How can you program when the Owner doesn’t have a plan or projections?
- How do you showan Owner the problem of short-term thinking?
- How do help the FM and CFO justify a “flexibility premium” for the building and site?
Top 3 Ideas
- 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
Discussion
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
- Use very small groups: for highest-level projections and decisions
- Use very large groups: for input and engagement
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
