Understand your company's space and strategy needs first.Frequently we are asked to provide Fit Planning services for a tenant or building owner. Many believe that this is the first step to understanding how a company might occupy a leased or even a purchased space prior to understanding the deal. It is important to understand how a company might fit or grow into a space, but the first step is actually programming or needs assessment. We might even argue that the review and establishment of new workspace standards should even come before fit planning. Or that strategic planning might need to pre-date either of those.
Walking through one space with a client, the Landlord pointed to a drawing arrangement of offices and said to the potential tenant, "There's your new office." To which our client said, "No it isn't." The landlord was trying to sell the space by showing the tenant that there was a good arrangement of work stations. An admirable, but flawed approach. Our client was savvy enough to know that their needs assessment and strategic plan would drive the space, not an imaginary arrangement of offices for any company. We have found that some companies negotiate deals without fully understanding their needs. This includes strategy, growth, variety and relationship of spaces, and standards that define work areas or workstations. These are all important in terms of size, placement and relationship, and overall organization over time. Without this information, most Fit Plans are really just an exercise in selling space without quality information. As an example, imagine that you have the choice of two spaces. A 20' column gridded space or a 30' column gridded space. For this example we will only look at one two dimensional arrangement. If your current work space standards are a basic 10x10 office, then you could really only fit one office per 20' without compromise to other offices. In the 30' you could fit two. The reason is that the column takes up space and will make you modify the subsequent offices. This means changes to many offices which is an increase in cost and inefficiency across the floor plate as you try to make up the space used by the columns the best you can. Let's imagine the 20' column grid has 17' clear between columns. If you had 8.5x10 offices you could possibly get two full offices without compromise. In the 30' columns you could potentially get three. So the identification of optimum workstation size could affect a great deal of square footage in just this one area. There are other things to consider such as benching, hoteling, collaborative spaces, adjacencies, and priorities that all make a big difference in how square footage will be used. Yes, it is possible to us the Fit Planning process to explore those options, but then you would be doing needs assessment/programing a bit backwards and using the space as your driver instead of the way your company should work as the driver. Additionally, there are newer systems that can help a company optimize their spaces using micro measurement units improving the overall storage and layout of offices. These kinds of office systems can greatly help reduce the workstation footprint and provide incredible savings across an entire floor plate of a building. Ultimately there may be a compromise with availability and dollars, but it is still a good idea to understand and define your optimum requirements for your company before you begin any Fit Planning process
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