Workplace Strategy / Study 01
How should a hybrid organization use its office?
Connect the purpose of coming together with the places, practices, and team relationships that support the work.
Illustrative study · fictional scenario and sample data. This demonstrates a consulting approach. It is not a completed client engagement or an actual ITO result.
The brief
Give the office a clear purpose.
A hypothetical organization has adopted hybrid work but has not defined what its office should help people do together. Quiet work competes with conversation, enclosed rooms become substitutes for missing settings, and teams have a place to sit without a shared understanding of how to use it.
The question is which activities benefit from shared space, which need separation, and which settings should remain available across teams.
The decision to support
Define a workplace model that connects working patterns, team relationships, and setting choices before commissioning a new layout.
What this example assumes
Three different team profiles, a shared office, and flexibility to change how settings are used. No surveys, interviews, observed behavior, or attendance records are presented as evidence.
Executive readout
Organize around the work, then test the relationships.
Give teams recognizable neighborhoods and shared access to specialist settings. Separate concentrated work from active collaboration, establish clear room-use rules, and test one pilot area before extending the model.
Working assumptions
Different activities need different settings.
| Team profile | Assumed working rhythm | Planning implication |
|---|---|---|
| Product | Individual analysis alternating with extended project sessions. | Access to quiet settings and project rooms where work can stay visible. |
| Client services | Scheduled calls, confidential conversations, and internal coordination. | Enclosed call and meeting settings near the neighborhood; protect quiet work from call noise. |
| Operations | Dependable everyday work settings and frequent short exchanges. | A stable neighborhood with nearby coordination points and shared support. |
A useful strategy asks what each activity needs: concentration, privacy, technology, team proximity, or a place to leave work in progress. Those requirements inform the settings and their relationships.
Product
Quiet work ↔ project sessions
Near project roomsClient services
Calls ↔ team coordination
Near enclosed call settingsOperations
Concentration ↔ short exchanges
Near dependable quiet settingsA neighborhood is an identifiable cluster of everyday work settings, storage, and team information. It does not automatically mean permanently assigned desks.
The strategy framework
Six principles a project team can use.
| Work mode | Setting decision | Planning principle |
|---|---|---|
| Individual concentration | Quiet shared work area + enclosed focus rooms | Keep through-traffic and informal meetings away from concentrated work. |
| Brief coordination | Small exchange points | Place at neighborhood edges, with acoustic separation from quiet settings. |
| Extended collaboration | Enclosed project room | Support visible work between sessions and establish a clear release rule. |
| Hybrid meetings | Rooms with coordinated audio + video | Plan sightlines, audio, and participant positions together. |
| Confidential work | Bookable enclosed rooms | Address both private conversations and visible information. |
| Team continuity | Recognizable team neighborhoods | Provide a home base while keeping specialist settings available across teams. |
Operating rules belong in the strategy.
A project room needs a release rule when a team’s work finishes. A focus room needs an agreed purpose. Shared specialist settings need a clear way to access them. Those choices should be developed alongside the physical plan.
Walk through hypothetical working days to identify conflicts: a noisy session beside focus work, a confidential call without a suitable room, or visitors moving through a team’s work area.
The recommendation
Pilot the model before treating it as a standard.
Illustrative recommendation
Test one neighborhood and its shared settings.
Validate the team profiles, agree on room-use rules, and test the proposed relationships against an actual building. Begin with a bounded pilot that can be adjusted without committing the entire office to an untested model.
Assess whether people can find the settings they need, whether concentration and collaboration interfere with each other, and whether the operating rules are understood. No improvement has been measured in this fictional example.
- 01
Confirm the work patterns
Team leaders + employees
Review the assumed activities and observe representative working days. Check where privacy, technology, and coordination needs differ.
- 02
Translate the model into space
Workplace planning + project designers
Test room quantities, acoustics, circulation, accessibility, and the setting relationships within the actual floor plate.
- 03
Agree on a pilot
Facilities + HR + team representatives
Define access and release rules, a pilot area, and the questions the trial needs to answer.
- 04
Review before expanding
Leadership + workplace team
Use observed behavior and user feedback to revise the model before broader implementation.
What the engagement could provide
A practical package for the next decision.
- Work-mode and team requirements brief
- Workplace vision and six planning principles
- Neighborhood and adjacency framework
- Setting-use and operating-rule recommendations
- Pilot scope and review questions
Your question. Your context.
Put this thinking to work for your team.
Start with the decision you need to make. Michael can help define the right scope, information, and deliverables.
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