The notion of a council of experts made up of senior members of a practice, as a resource that contributes to a learning environment through mentoring, supporting teams and individuals with new ideas, and sharing best practices, is a powerful cultural attribute.
IDEO - brainstorming many ideas, what the client doesnt know it wants, story culture
http://catherinefredman.com/pages/mag16.html brainstorming guide at the end
NEW STRATEGIC PLAN
· Quality of work - Nothing leaves the office without a second pair of eyes
· Clarity of purpose -Pre-schematic design concept document – envisioning process
· Sustainability - must be part of design approach from the beginning
· Innovation – every project is special, ask "what makes this project unique?"
· Free thinking - "no judgment" culture – no fear of "stupid" ideas
· Experiment - Build models, have accidents
· Educate – operate a mentoring program
· Have fun
HOLT favors a collaborative, bottom-up approach to design to deliver innovative solutions to our clients organizational and spatial problems with an eye toward future needs. Towards a clear design vision, we strive to: hear and respect all voices, encourage differing opinions and pursue cross-disciplinary solutions.
Office of Collaboration
Office of Growth and Learninghow to encourage interactionLuke Hohmann’s Innovation Games: Creating Breakthrough Products Through Collaborative Play.Try googlingbrainstorming and ice-breakers.
- Personal work zones
(private places for individual focus time)- Interactive zones (empty tables or spaces for people to use and share)
- Creative zones (like interactive zones, but actually have tools to use for collaboration–whiteboards, projector screens, phones, etc.)
- Amenity and relaxation zones (where to find the refreshments and just chill out)
how to collect and distribute institutional knowledge, lessons learned, technical knowledge, code, LEED knowledge = Knowledge Management (KM)• Tipping point: People will use the system if they find it useful. In order to beuseful, it has to be populated with usable content up front. Once they get acertain success rate, they will use the system faithfully.• Reward behaviors: To change behaviors and create a “culture of contribution”, besure to publicly recognize contributors and provide social and financialincentives.• Bite sized information: Large research papers are too complex and costly toprepare. Create bite‐sized wiki‐articles that people can quickly digest and use.• Information on Demand: Information that is available at any time is critical. Makeit easy to find what people want on days, nights and weekends.• Ownership: Give “ownership” to individuals for specific “domains” of knowledge.Identify Community of Practice leaders (e.g. stormwater experts, urban designexperts, or planning experts and have them lead a community of practice. Thesewill be the people who will be able to identify and capture domain informationas it flows through the project cycle.• Capture Information in the Project Process: Train Project Managers to identifyand reward capturing information that is gathered during the research phase ofevery project vs. researching information for the portal that you “may needsome day.”• Communicate updates: Let people know what has been added to the KM system.If they know you have the latest Green Roof data, then they will look to your KMsystem first.• Measurement of results: Who is inputting data, how much, how often? Who isusing the KM successfully on projects. Use the data to reinforce behavior, sharesuccess stories and continually adjust your processes.
