Physical interfacing of teams

This is really simple but works. Think about the processes involved in going from innovation to product/feature delivery. If they are supposed to work closely together then put them close together. Is that it? Okay not quite.

To maximise the interactions between different groups, try to increase the size of the physical interface between them. I'd say that in English if I could.

Maybe an example will help - doubt it but worth a try.

If you have a development team and an industrialisation team say - then don't design the office so they are separated. See if you can set it up so that as many people as possible are next to someone from the other department. I don't mean mixing them up completely as you want each group to still function well on their own. I just mean think about how you can create long borders between groups where colleagues from the different groups can talk.

© Copyright Richard A D Jones 2005