How does two-way workplace design briefing improve workspace design?

Two-way workplace design briefing can enhance the quality of any modern workspace design, but what does it comprise and how does it achieve this?

The quality of information designers can draw on as a brief can directly determine the success of any project.

Typically, however, such briefs result from a one-way process, delivered top-down by clients.

They are often property-centric, overlooking the higher strategic needs of a business and its workplace.

Yet, the nature of building occupation and expectations of the workplace are shifting fast.

Buildings are no longer inert but dynamic contributors in the delivery of business strategy.

This necessarily means the nature of briefing must also change.

So, against this, what is two-way workplace design briefing?

Why must workplace strategy change the workplace design briefing process?

Purposeful workplace strategy introduces increasing complexity into the briefing process.

It likely introduces new technologies that address new ways of working, alongside steadily evolving workplace design concepts.

As no healthy workplace in the modern era can afford to exist without encouraging diversity within its ranks, this must too be encouraged.

When engaged, the collective enthusiasm and collaborative energy of such workforces can assist greatly in creating a space worth turning up to every day.

And in the war for talent, not to present its configuration as an opportunity for end users to participate may be to miss the goal entirely.

What does the two-way briefing process comprise?

This creates, at a minimal, simple level, the need for a two-way, or iterative, briefing process.

As simple insurance, managers need also to incorporate within their briefing instructions feedback from those who will inhabit the space after it is built.

This iterative development process will greatly diminish costs down the track, both avoiding costly mistakes and enhancing the quality of ideas.

Just as in software development, the aim is to iron out bugs before putting a product into production.

It is also highly economical to implement, if you follow the thinking of investigative workplace briefing.

For budget-conscious clients, it can circumvent without risk certain of the more time-consuming and excessive briefing stages of focus groups, workplace piloting and prototyping.

A common-sense definition of briefing

It is possible to deduce from dictionary definitions and the example sentences they offer that “briefing” must be “brief”.

A brief must comprise a set of instructions providing a recipient sufficient gist to act.

Two-way briefing makes its case by iterating for detail

When the future effectiveness of the workplace is at stake, mastering a professional briefing process is something worth investing in.

But, when inviting feedback through iterative processes, clearly not everyone in the workplace is going to be interviewed and then reinterviewed when change is suggested.

If a briefing process is to be truly thorough and economical, it must be documented in writing, and it demands a process that can deal with variability in people’s will and abilities to contribute.

Yet, this is precisely the challenge: the more information you have, and the more you ask for, and the greater the diversity of your workplace, the harder compressing detail becomes, and the more skill and publishing discipline it takes for it to retain sense.

Not to do this, however, is to risk failing at potentially the most important workplace design challenge of all.

But, ensuring that richness of contribution is not forfeited in making two-way design briefing work requires a strategy.

And, if written feedback is required, a diligent, committed and professional editorial process is needed to keep briefs brief.

This is the work we love, and we celebrate the fact that in any workplace there is more intelligence and capacity for contribution than ever gets put to work.

For the purposes of exercising such insights in the creation of smarter workplaces, this expertise and discipline we are building into Shiro Architects’ work.

This post was first published at briefing.shiroarchitects.com