Five Days in a Navigation Center
Environment
Employing the Environment in Support of the Creative Process
by Bryan S. Coffman
Prologue
The first prototype DesignShop® Event, held in the early 1980's employed
a refrigerator door as a WorkWall
for use with dry erase markers. That way people could add, modify and
eliminate ideas in rapid succession as they moved through the creative
process. The ideas could be expressed in color on a white background,
much like using paper, and unlike the inverted contrast scheme presented
by traditional blackboards. The technology rapidly improved and the first
Radiant Wall was introduced
using sheets of porcelain steel laminated onto hollow core doors which
were mounted onto an existing structural wall. It measured roughly sixteen
feet long and stood nearly seven feet high including the baseboard.
The Radiant Wall allowed a group of people to diagram and
annotate large scale, complex problems in a single display that was visible
to all at once and easily editable. No other system to date has provided
these three features: large scale, simultaneous visual and physical access
by a large group, and editability. Flip charts are too small. Rolls of
butcher paper are uneditable and won't allow information to keep pace
with the rate of change inherent in the creative process. Traditional
blackboards are usually too small or the wrong aspect ratio--they're wide
and short, making it difficult to make connections between sets of information
(not to mention the whole screeching fingernail phenomenon. . .). The
WorkWall was a radical invention, and most people who used one became
dependent upon it as a support to their individual and collective creativity
and productivity.
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A state-of-the-art
Radiant Wall located at MG Taylor Corporation's Cambridge knOwhere
store. The wall is composed of ten curved four-foot panels with
six vertical feet of working surface, or 240 square feet of work
surface for the entire wall. A video and teleconferencing bay
occupies the center of the wall. The wall includes a technology
chase built into the base and rolls on wheels for flexible positioning.
(photograph by Cole Bellamy) |
The first Management Center, built in Boulder, Colorado, provided WorkWalls
not only for use by large groups, but in break-out areas as well. Virtually
every wall in the facility could accept markers or magnets to aid individuals,
teams, and large groups in expressing and sharing ideas. Yet, it wasn't
enough to merely supply expanses of writable wall space. The configuration
of the walls in the space must support a flexible group process. And the
furniture that the Crew and participants use must serve the process as
well.
If MG Taylor could systematize an approach to creating group genius,
it would require a synthesis between architecture and furniture with the
WorkWalls forming the link between the two. The Boulder Management Center
accomplished precisely this in 2,300 square feet that could accommodate
30 participants and a Crew of 12. A three or five day DesignShop event
could lead a group to innovative outcomes that would have normally consumed
months of elapsed time back in the traditional organizational environment.
The radical results were made possible through diligent management of
the 7 Domains. DesignShop events
coordinated group process, environment, education, knowledge, technology,
projects and the venture itself as an interdependent whole.
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Floor plan of the Taylor Associates,
Inc. Management Center in Boulder, Colorado, 1984. Orange lines
indicate location of WorkWalls.
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It's possible to generate innovative results in any environment, from
the waiting area in an airport to a traditional, cluttered conference
room complete with the huge table that keeps everyone seated and apart
from one another. After all, resilience and adaptability define the human
spirit. But if simply any environment will do, then why engage in lengthy
planning processes and spend untold millions on the design and construction
of environments for people to transact business within? Why? Because environment
matters. The structure of a space creates and enforces certain behaviors.
The structure of a space promotes or assaults individual health. The structure
of a space allows or inhibits interaction. Most of the spaces in which
we work require the expenditure of tremendous energy to make them in the
least part supportive of the collaborative process: we are productive
in spite of our environments.
MG Taylor has devoted twenty years to the problem of designing environments
that release group genius. The expression of this work may be seen in
our Management Centers, knOwhere stores, and NavCenter environments. It's
a combination of furniture and architecture that yields results in health,
productivity and innovation unattainable by any other method we know.
By way of illustration, I present on the following links a story of Sam,
a fictional Transition Manager working
in an equally fictional Navigation Center. Like most Transition Managers
in the MG Taylor network, he maintains a personal
Journal--an illustrated and annotated record of designs, plans, ideas,
and learning. I track five entries in his Journal that refer in particular
to how Sam employs the environment and WorkFurniture in the course of
his work.
Click Here to View
the First Journal Entry
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