What you need to Master Space Management. BY James McDonald

Planning and mastering how your organization utilizes its office space is a challenging, yet rewarding experience. It is a multi-step process that requires data gathering, analysis, forecasting, and strategizing. It requires a deep analysis and understanding of the company’s critical values and goals moving forward. In the early stages, management must develop planning principles for the company that will serve as criteria by which alternative processes will be assessed. These guidelines will serve the company for years to come, as issues occur that could not be anticipated during initial planning. So, how do you make the most of your company’s spatial (and tangible) assets, ensuring the budget is maximized both now and moving forward? Let’s take a look at a few necessities to make sure you stay on track.

Organizational Goals

Your critical first step is to identify organizational goals and plans, both short and long-term. Establishing clear-cut plans will help ensure your space management module is designed around both current demands, as well as future space needs, and that the proper metrics are being analyzed once new strategies are launched.

A few things to consider:

• What are your institution’s strategic business goals?
• Relate space analysis specifically to those goals
• What do you need to really manage your space?
• What data do you need to collect for consistent, ongoing analysis?
• What utilization metrics do you currently collect? How relevant is this data and what changes should be made for a more clear visual of where you are currently, where you have been, and where you are going?

Think of the workspace in terms of your workforce, as these are your two most valuable tools. Proper alignment of the two is one of the most critical components to the company’s survival and growth. Where do the two fit into your master plan and what changes must be made to get there?

“Space utilization in the course of our master planning work revealed opportunities to better align functions and their assigned space. The resulting realignment freed up 10% of our space for clinical expansion, meeting our projected growth needs for the next five years.” – Steven Wright, Vice President, Facilities – Roswell Park Cancer Institute