The future of housing cooperatives
How we’re helping OBOS simplify management of their housing cooperatives, and make every day better for the people that live there.
As the largest cooperative building association in the Nordics, OBOS wants to make it simpler for homeowners to get involved in the management of their housing cooperatives. That’s why we’ve helped them build a completely new digital management tool, called Styrerommet.no. It takes the effort out of meetings, routines and administrative tasks, leaving more time for property development, upgrades and social initiatives.
Understanding the users
We started out by getting a thorough understanding of our diverse range of users and the various tasks they needed to get done. From elderly board members with limited technical experience, to 25 year old homeowners, expecting the simplicity of Dropbox or Spotify. And for cooperatives with everything from 20 to 500 housing units.
The only way to make sure we covered all the different needs of our users, was to involve and listen to them through every step of the development process. We conducted group interviews, joined in on board meetings, and followed the janitor around on his health and safety inspection. We developed simple prototypes for specific tasks, and continuously tested them to get feedback that would inform our solutions.
Board meetings made simple
The initial product feature we developed was the planning and carrying out of board meetings. This is an essential task for the homeowners that are involved in managing a housing cooperative, and usually requires hours of preparation, organization and paper work.
We’ve now made it simple for them to send out invites, process suggestions, make decisions, and keep everyone else informed about what’s happening in these meetings. By redesigning the tools that are being used, we’ve also completely transformed the whole workflow and process of the meetings to become a lot more efficient.
Digital general assemblies
Each year, the housing cooperatives organize a general assembly where all the homeowners get to participate in making important decisions. However, only 10 % of them actually choose to do so, because it requires physically meeting up on a specific day and location to attend an assembly that will usually go on for hours.
To increase participation and engagement, we’ve developed a digital platform for carrying out general assemblies. It makes it simple for homeowners to come up with suggestions, vote over decisions and stay updated from the comfort of their own devices.
Hassle-free health and safety
Making sure that health and safety standards are met throughout the cooperative property is an important, but tedious task. We’ve completely redesigned the way this was traditionally done, by making it less about rigid rules and regulations, and more about providing accessible and relevant advice.
The results so far
We launched the first version of Styrerommet.no in September 2018, and multiple housing cooperatives have already starting using the management tool. By the time we’ve completed the rollout, it will be used by 4600 cooperatives, servicing more than 20 000 board members, and 500 000 residents.
Our job, however, has only just started, as the backlog of ideas and functions we want to add into the tool seems to be never-ending. Everything we do is about encouraging homeowners to get involved in the development of their own housing cooperative, because that’s how OBOS will continue to stay relevant in the future.
About Unfold
With a strong entrepreneurial mindset we partner with businesses and new ventures to help them become relevant, efficient and more profitable. Through strategic planning, design thinking and suited technology we create immersive brand experiences and digital products with a clear purpose — to make every day better for its audience.
If you want to get to know us better, visit unfold.no or follow us on Instagram!
