Workspace Renovation: How to Approach it Strategically and Cost-Effectively
It might have come to your ears that your workplace needs an upgrade, a renovation even. Is that necessary? Before jumping into conclusions too quickly, it might be necessary to do a little bit more research on this topic. Do we need an upgrade, do we need a renovation, how severe (read: how much will it cost) will this renovation be?
In a former blogpost I shared a first exercise you want to do before jumping into the next exercises I’m about to explain. When noticing that the workspace needs an upgrade, it’s important to just not jump in head first. Take a step back, and look at it from a perspective.
The first exericse you’ll do is a variation on the sailboat.When you’ve collected all the things that go well and don’t go well in your building, like I’ve explained in this post, you’ll now have a big messy overview. If all went well the negative sticky notes (probably a pinkish variant of the sticky note) have been voted on. If not, totally fine! Give your participants the time to vote with voting dots on the features that they personally think should be upgraded the soonest.
Reorganize and put the top 3 voted issues to the side. For these top 3 issues the participants will generate solutions for. Firstly, turn this issue in a HMW (How Might We) question. HMW questions area great to turn an issue into an opportunity.
Give your participants X amount of time to brainstorm around ideas for one certain issue. Stick the ideas on the wall. Vote for the 3 best ones. Do this cycle for the other two issues.
You will now have:
Three issues reformulated in three how might we questions
Every issue will have three top voted possible solutions
You’ll have 9 possible solutions in total
Next, you will add pricetags to your possible solutions: no numbers just $, $$ or $$$. This might get tricky but you’ll have to come to a consensus for the whole ideas. It could be possible that one issue has three cheap solutions.
When each possible solution has a pricetag we can now put them on a matrix. We’ll have to find out how durable the possible solution is and how well it solves the issue. Firstly, start with the y-axis. How well does it solve the current issue? Does this possible solution create other problems?
For example: the issue is that there are not enough sockets. How might we create more sockets? A possible solution might be to have more power strips. It has a low cost ($) and it solves the problem fairly well. You will create tripping hazards though, so it doesn’t solve the problem superbly.
Secondly, look at the x-axis. This axis represents the Durability. “How long will the solution last?” For example: power strips will last long, but not as long as redoing the whole electricity with a electrician ($$$).
Lastly, based on this article, I readjusted the effort/impact matrix as some people may know it as. Take a closer look at the scheme and see where your solutions fall into. If they fall into the “Projects you want to consider”, always test it out. Especially when some solutions might be expensive. Test before you make the investment.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks for reading!