How to Engage Occupants to Create Better Space
By Lynn Brotman and Robynne Orr

As work is changing, so must workplace planning. Here's how facility managers should use the creative engagement process to understand occupant needs for their space.

Work methods for building owners and facility managers have changed in recent years to ensure more effective workplace planning and programming. Among the latest breakthroughs have been rigorous, collaborative engagement processes that join project teams, client stakeholders, and end-users in a quest for creative solutions to workplace interior needs. While all companies conduct interviews and distribute questionnaires to assess end-user needs, recent best practices include visioning sessions to draw out the occupants’ hopes and aspirations. The new trend to conduct creative engagement workshops, however, takes it a step deeper. It’s an extra step, but one that experienced facility managers have said can pay off handsomely.

All facility managers and project teams can adopt these new tactics that focus on cultivating a collective sense of purpose, with specific results in improved planning and programming outcomes for offices, labs, and other workplaces. This article will describe a working template for successful team creative engagement that can be used to optimize any project, including how to recruit and involve stakeholders, gather their input, help solve challenges, and make the best possible choices for renovating or building new facilities. 

Read the full article here in Facilities Net.