Managing The Built Environment

I was pleasantly surprised at how many people attended my seminar on Benchmarking at IFMA’s World Workplace in Orlando earlier this month. As usual, I brought some take-home material for the audience, but I ran out. In fact, a number of people had to stand at the back of the room.

I think it’s because the topic wasn’t just about traditional benchmarking. I emphasized the ‘Beyond’ part of benchmarking where traditional benchmarking, compare published results with yours – is only the first step in a process.

Here is a quote that pretty well sums it up for traditional benchmarking:

“what gets copied is the symptom of success, not the cause” – Dr. Ed. Baker, Ford Motor Company

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I frequently promote the management related skills of facility and property managers to complement their technical knowledge. I’m finally delivering my workshop on Strategic Writing to the public through Conestoga College’s School of Business continuing education. The workshop is running twice this fall. If you are in the area (Kitchener or Guelph, Ontario, Canada), join us for the day. Continue reading »

FM is a complex, issues based role. I’ve learned along the way that nobody in the industry knows it all, and the best way to be successful is to leverage the knowledge and great ideas of others, including your staff, colleagues and suppliers.

Recently, I delivered a 3 day workshop on Strategic Facilities Management in Dubai. The location was spectacular, naturally, and the audience was diverse, interesting and most importantly, keenly interested in enhancing their skills and knowedge in the profession, which is quickly emerging in the Middle East.

While the 3 day workshop had many individual modules, the last session was on developing FM skills. This  included an example from my past, dating over 15 years ago from a teamwork exercise while working in the Facility Management department of a major company.

It was so compelling about the the value of teamwork, I still had the exercise booklet. Continue reading »

Some time ago, I encountered a great case study about a proxy for office productivity. A colleague had an interesting example that points to the link between the office layout, furniture, finishes and productivity. No he doesn’t have a magic formula to measuring productivity - this example uses ‘employee satisfaction’ as a proxy.  Continue reading »

Some recent discussions with senior facility managers at an IFMA networking event really hit home.

In my latest article, which appears in the September issue of Canadian Facility Management and Design, I talk about implementing leading practices used by the largest and most successful professional FM companies. Continue reading »

The list was put forward by APPA, the North American association for educational facilities in their ‘2007 Thought Leaders Series’ report: Continue reading »

There is a growing trend to implement effective performance measurement systems and frameworks (KPI’s and SLA’s) for subcontracted and outsourced functions, but very few organizations measure their internal services with the same tools. Continue reading »