agile strategic facilities plan
TRANSCRIPT
Presented byRobert Lambe, CFMPresident, RAL Location Strategies
Preparing An Agile Strategic Facilities Plan
StrategicFacilityGuide.comInsight From Your Facility Data
StrategicFacilityGuide.comInsight From Your Facility Data
Abstract
Given the rate of change and budget pressures today, many organizations do not invest the time or resources to develop a traditional strategic facility plan. This makes it difficult for executives and facility staff to be confident that they have the right facilities in place and they are making the best investments in these assets.
However, an agile management approach can be used to leverage available information and quickly create or revise a draft strategic facility plan. Once developed, this draft strategic facility plan can be used to guide decisions as well as to identify important information gaps.
Why Consider an Agile [Strategic] Facility Plan?
You want some type of directional facility plan and don’t have one.
(Because of funding, time, buy-in, etc. etc.)
An agile facility approach may not
be right for your organization.
Draft Facility Plan “Placeholder”– Established direction for near future– Based on documented baseline & forecast– Used to engage stakeholder input
Prioritized Action Plan / List
– Provides framework for decisions on asset investments and operational priorities
Ongoing Assessment & Refinement Cycles– Agile project management used for action items– Reassess Draft Facility Plan based on measured
progress after completion of action items
What is an Agile Facility Plan?
PERSPECTIVES OF FACILITIES
What are the different dimensions of facilities?
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Architectural Perspective
“The Facility as Sculpture”
• Size & Configuration
• Form is important
• Image matters(inside and out)
• Physical Context
• Asset Cost
Engineering / Building System Perspective
“The Facility as Machine”
• System Efficiency & Reliability
• Facility Condition
• Supporting Technology
• Asset Cost
• Sustainability
Business Operations Perspective
“The Facility as Workplace”
• Operational Efficiency
• Productivity• Service Levels• Occupant
Satisfaction• Supporting
Technology
Real Estate Perspective
“The Facility as Property Asset”
• Location
• Market – Asset Value
• Image - Curb Appeal
Business Executive/Finance Perspective
“The Facility as Business Asset”
• Business Value
• Operating Cost
• Workforce Recruitment & Retention
• Sustainability
Different Perspectives Often Emphasize Different Dimensions of Facilities
The perspectives may
use different criteria
to evaluate a facility.
A plan helps alignment
or prioritization of
potentially conflicting
perspectives.
Size & Configuration
Occupant Satisfaction
System Efficiency/Reliability
Asset Value
Location
Sustainability
Image & Quality
Business Value
Facility Condition
Operating Cost
Operational Service Levels
Supporting Technology
Arc
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COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
How can our facilities best support the organization’s mission?
StrategicFacilityGuide.comInsight From Your Facility Data
Why Have Facilities?
• Facilities provide physical space for a business purpose– Size and location – Suitable image & environment– Budget and duration
• Increasingly displaced by virtual space – Where physical presence not required, and– Where technology can effectively support
remote-ness
How Can Your Facilities Provide a Competitive Advantage?• Location
– Market position– Labor/recruiting– Logistics
• Design– Image– Productivity: efficiency &
effectiveness by type of space
• Operation– Service levels– Risk management
• Cost effectiveness– Capital (investment & asset)– Operating costs
• Specific business value– Sustainability
Understand Your Current Facility
Assets
Understand Your Organization’s Competitive
Position
Capitalize on the Value Each Facility Asset Contributes
STRATEGIC FACILITY THINKING
What is the value of a strategic facility plan?
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Strategic Thinking is Always Important for Facility Assets
• Facilities are expensive, and often take a long time to put in place or change.
• A strategic facility plan helps to identify the highest value facility actions and their appropriate sequence.
A strategic facility plan helps properly
align your facilities with your needs.
Strategic Facility Plan
A strategic facility plan (SFP) is defined as a two-to-five year facilities plan encompassing an entire portfolio of owned and/or leased space that sets strategic facility goals based on the organization’s strategic (business) objectives. The strategic facilities goals, in turn, determine short-term tactical plans, including prioritization of, and funding for, annual facility related projects.
- IFMA (International Facilities Management Association)
Simple Illustration
Office for Business Admin
Business Plan
WHY?Facility Plan
WHAT, WHEN?Action Plan
HOW?
Retail for Local Sales & Service
25,000 SF, Baltimore, 2016
Refresh existing,Per approved, $$
Data/Call Center for Virtual/Online
Remote work sites, 2018
Define roles and touchdown space
Replace xx SF,TBD, 2019
Capital plan approval
Close...
Complete scoping study by ABC
Rebrand...
Extend lease...
Find site...
8,000 SF,North site, 2016
4,500 SF,North site, 2016
5,000 SF,North site, 2016
6,100 SF,North site, 2016
5,000 SF,North site, 2017
Why You Need a Plan
Better Cost/Investment Management• Facilities typically are a large part of most organization’s budget/assets so
a plan is just good business.• Provide guidance (not commitment) on investments and activities to fund.• Minimize “mistimed” investments.
Better Asset Management• Facilities cross all organization lines so a plan helps “visibly” coordinate
sometimes competing needs.• Minimize waste (underutilized facilities).• Maintain asset values.
Better Facility Operations• Respond to changing business environment more easily.• Improved alignment of SLA with organizational priorities.• Improved awareness of facility criticality.
THE AGILE FACILITY PLAN
What to do when you don’t have a plan...
What is Agile?
Agile methodology is an alternative to traditional project management, typically used in software development. It helps teams respond to unpredictability through incremental, iterative work cadences, known as sprints. Agile methodologies are an alternative to waterfall, or traditional sequential development.
- agilemethodology.org
See core agile principles at: http://agilemanifesto.org/ (2001)
Agile Principles Applicableto Facilities Management
• Customer satisfaction
• Early and continuous delivery of useful facilities (shorter schedules/cycles)
• Harness change for competitive advantage (be nimble and adaptable to changing requirements)
• Collaboration between business and facilities
• Technical excellence, Simplicity
• Continuous improvement – regular review & adjustment
When to Use an Agile Approach
• When you have no choice
– Do not have a “sanctioned” Strategic Facility Plan
– Need affordable plan or update
– Have to plan from “bottom up”
• When it is a better fit for you
– In a dynamically changing environment
– Need quick plan or update to current plan
Need a collaborative environment with the
business and some latitude for the team!
Agile/Strategic Facility Process
• ROI
• Risk
• Goals
• Consensus
• Skills
• Scope
• Budget
• Schedule
• Steady State
• Linear Projection
• Evolution
• Wild CardFuture
• Facts
• Informed /Professional Opinion
• Opinion
Assess Forecast
PrioritizeExecute
STATUS QUO FUTURE NEEDS
DELIVERY ACTION PLAN
This is just a conceptual framework used to organize the presentation – free for unrestricted use (c) RAL Location Strategies 2016
Assess
• Opinion
• Informed Opinion
• Professional Opinion
STATUS QUO
Assess
Start with your current facilities (& operations) and how well they support the current business situation.
Tip: Consider the different
perspectives of facilities.
Assess
• What do you know?
– Facts: Size, type, cost
– Across the multiple dimensions of facilities
– Documented requirements, operations & SLA
• What do you believe?
– Assessments: condition, utilization... (performance!)
– Complete missing info with best available opinions
• Tabletop review / assessment can be quick, efficient, and probably effective enough
Suggestions
• Have a comprehensive, complete, and available facility inventory.– Define the facilities as intuitively as possible, based on
their functional purpose.– Use an appropriate granularity for your quantity of
facilities.
• Draw on various data sources for economy of effort and consistency; use meta-data to understand data quality– Define categories to quantify “soft” assessment
ratings.
• Start benchmarking/metrics immediately.
Forecast
• Steady State
• Linear Projection
• Evolution
• Wild CardFuture
FUTURE NEEDS
Forecast
Project how well the current facilities are expected to support the likely future business situation.
Tip: Consider how your facilities can
provide a competitive advantage.
Forecast
• What will the world look like in near future?– How is this likely to effect your industry?
• Estimate the likely short-term business needs– How can your facilities help provide a competitive
advantage?
• Estimate the likely short-term implications for your current facilities:– Continue status quo
– Need more information
– Ready for defined investments (projects)
– Need major changes
The Future is not Linear
• Ask What If?– Much of the value of a
plan comes from being ready when things don’t go as expected
• Many forks in the road can be forecast – Define trigger points and
criteria for decisions
• Only do as much as time allows
Image source: "Manual decision tree" by User:Gokul Jadhav - Own work. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons -https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manual_decision_tree.jpg#/media/File:Manual_decision_tree.jpg
Prioritize
ACTION PLAN
• ROI
• Risk
• Goals
• Consensus
Prioritize
List the “actions” that logically follow from the Assess and Forecast.
Prioritize which are most important or valuable to do first.
Tip: Apply strategic thinking
about value and sequence.
Prioritize
• Create a list of potential actions: – Study: Need more information or better assessment
– Projects: Make change to physical plant
– Initiative: Make change to operational practices (i.e.. facility commissioning or occupant education)
• Classify each action by the reason and urgency. – Reason/justification:
• Financially justified investments (payback)
• Risk reduction, regulatory
• Business value, improvement in operations or other goal
– Urgency can be simple: immediate - later
• Put placeholder budgets and schedules on each.
Who Should Be Involved?
• Key Executives– Resource levels
– Organizational priorities
• Stakeholders (Business & facility occupants)– Business priorities
– Impacts to the business
• Facility staff and service providers– Resource requirements
– Project logic
• Decision making may need to be iterative for all groups to understand implications
Decisions should be
based on consensus
Execute
DELIVERY
• Skills
• Scope
• Budget
• Schedule
Execute
Use good project management to implement the selected actions
Tip: Use an Agile Project
Management approach.
Execute
• Reasonable but timely status reporting
• Use established organizational systems for execution of selected actions
– Team structure is the biggest challenge for most organizations in adopting agile approaches
– Follow agile principles for short cycles with ongoing adjustments and evaluation
• Track and evaluate results
– Use to update assessments
– Use for frequent course corrections in plan *
RINSE, LATHER, REPEATBuild better data and better plan each year...
Conclusion
• Different perspectives of our facilities both help identify how they provide value and complicate how we evaluate them.
• A strategic approach helps prioritize facility investments and initiatives to realize their competitive value for our organization.
• The “Agile Methodology” is an incremental, iterative management approach that can be useful for Facility Planning in a rapidly changing environment as long as there is a good relationship between the business and facilities groups.
StrategicFacilityGuide.comInsight From Your Facility Data
About the Presenter
StrategicFacilityGuide.comInsight From Your Facility Data
Robert Lambe is the Principal & Founder of RAL Location Strategies. He helps companies use available information to better understand their facilities assets and facilities management operations, in order to target investments that align with business requirements.
His practice areas are agile/strategic facility planning, facility benchmarking, location analysis, and facilities software implementation. Bob also serves as the Planning and Economic Development Coordinator for his home town of Marcy NY.
www.linkedin.com/in/lambe
Connect with me!
Blog: http://strategicfacilityguide.com/resources/articles/