Bob\'s whitepaper (IFMA World Workplace proceedings paper) that was published in conjunction with his World Workplace educational session: "Strategic Facility Planning; Get out of the weeds and align your workplace with your business\' needs".

1. IFMA World Workplace 2008 Presentation --
Strategic Facility Planning:
Get out of the weeds and align your workplace with your business’ needs
By: Bob Sawhill, CFM -- Director of Product Strategy, TRIRIGA
Increasingly complex global economic trends, dynamic business environments, and heightened pressure
to show shareholder value require that corporate real estate and facility management deliver financial
performance, enable enterprise business strategies, and quickly adapt to constantly shifting business
needs. In most organizations, real estate and facility assets rank among highest costs of business and
are typically 35% of most organizations’ balance sheet. Therefore, executive level visibility to portfolio
performance is increasing important to enable enterprise financial performance and strategic value.
To meet these demanding challenges, real estate and facility executives need to become strategic
partners to the C-suite, align solutions to business objectives, and effectively deliver workplace assets
and services. Attaining those feats and staying on course is not an easy task. Too often, organizations
loose focus and get “in the weeds” of overwhelming complexity, information overload, and disconnected
goals. Workplace executives seek the right path to get out of the weeds and back on track.
Strategic Facility Planning is the map and compass to stay on course, by aligning workplace strategies to
enable business objectives. With the right organizational model, holistic methodologies and enabling
technologies, facility executives align strategies, optimize plans, and deliver value. Best-in-class
performers deliver effective workplaces and drive significant reductions in costs and carbon emissions.
The learning objectives and take-aways of this presentation and proceedings paper are:
• Understand the value of an aligned Strategic Facility Planning framework to ensure business success.
• Discover how performance-based analytics balance and drive goals throughout the planning lifecycle.
• Realize how to utilize technologies to align, optimize, and achieve the right solutions.
Contents:
• Why Strategic Facility Planning (SFP)
• Background - Strategic Facility Planning Evolution
• Success Factors
o Principles, Success Criteria, Challenges, Barriers
• Process Integration + Technology Enablement
o SFP Framework
o SFP Integrated Methodologies & Processes
o SFP Process in Focus
Note: The World Workplace session presentation will complement this proceedings paper by expanding
upon Strategic Facility Planning technology enabled processes with examples, and will highlight key
points on background and success factors covered in more depth by this paper.
Contact the author for presentation copies of the PowerPoint presentation.
Bob Sawhill, CFM: Director of Product Strategy, TRIRIGA
With 30 years of experience, Bob Sawhill has a broad background in Workplace Management and Information Technology. He has attained deep-level expertise
through hands-on experience in Facility Planning and Integrated Workplace Management Systems. Bob is currently Director of Product Strategy at TRIRIGA for
their Integrated Workplace Management Systems and Strategic Facility Planning product. His career has included a variety of Facility Management positions with
Hewlett-Packard, USAA Insurance, Tektronix, and Lockheed-Martin. As well, Bob has contributed to Facility Management education as instructor and guest
lecturer for several terms at California State University, Sacramento. Bob Sawhill has been active in IFMA for 18 years, past Chapter President, Information
Technology Council leadership, and has earned IFMA’s Certified Facility Manager (CFM) designation. Contact Bob at: rsawhill@tririga.com

2. Why Strategic Facility Planning
Strategic Facilities Planning (SFP) delivers workplace value, which enables business organization’s
productivity, profit, and image. The potential to drive value is at its greatest during the planning phase,
and is further accelerated when aligned and optimized to business strategy. Additionally, it’s good for the
environment, since improved portfolio utilization reduces buildings and carbon emissions impacts. Many
industry forums and benchmark studies validate the high importance of SFP as a top industry trend.
Attain Value:
Delivering value to corporate shareholders and stakeholders is the essential measure of successful
solutions. Strategic Facility Planning attains the highest value by effectively utilizing Real Estate portfolio
assets and investing resources on programs that best enable corporate objectives and strategies. In
many organizations the quick-wins are in the bag and the low-hanging fruit has been harvested. Thus,
finding the next series of opportunities with even higher expectations for results, requires the more
sophisticated techniques and tools of Strategic Facility Planning to attain higher value.
Strategic Alignment:
Focusing management attention and workplace resources on the right thing is crucial to organizational
effectiveness, workplace performance, and enabling business strategies. For a complex environment of
balancing trade-offs, competing needs, and seeking synergies, focus comes from aligning to business
strategies to optimize the critical few. However, over 60% of organizations report workplace assets and
operations are misaligned and not integrated with the overall business strategy.1 This large alignment
disparity is a huge opportunity in the strategic element of Strategic Facility Planning.
Planning Pay-off:
Significantly greater value-add potential lies in the planning phase, as compared to implementation
phases or ongoing operations. The big pay-offs of cost reduction, revenue generation, and speed to
market can be influenced and realized with improved planning. For example, incremental improvements
in building operating efficiently are commendable; however, avoiding the building altogether through
improved space utilization delivers cost reduction breakthroughs. Reducing move churn has greater
impact than lowering the cost per move. Business productivity and talent retention enabled by the right
workplace generates profit.
On the flip side, consequences of planning errors are costly losses. A late building delivery can cause a
business to loose significant revenue or market share. In an economic down-turn, empty buildings without
an exit strategy are a huge financial drain.
Environmental Sustainability:
Although environmental sustainability concerns have been planning considerations for decades, the
recent increasing awareness has brought it into the forefront as a key driver in corporate objectives. The
green movement limelight is not a trend that comes and goes; it is here to stay and will certainly increase
in importance. Environmental Sustainability’s role in Corporate Social Responsibility and corporate image
is often driven top-down from the CEO and shareholders, which brightens the spotlight and increased
visibility on facilities. Strategic Facility Planning needs to embrace the synergy of the triple bottom-line
benefits of people, profit, and planet, which naturally aligns with core business goals of a productive
workforce, cost effectiveness, and with the added benefit of protecting the planet.
For example, Hewlett-Packard’s Real Estate and Workplace Services team has demonstrated success
through mobility solutions and improved space utilization which reduced facility costs per person 37%,
reduced carbon footprint 65%, and had no negative impacts to “employee engagement”.2
The non-building is far greener than the LEED Platinum building.

3. Importance to the Facility Management Industry:
What is the collective voice of facility management professionals?
What are the industry experts saying?
International Facility Management Association (IFMA):
IFMA Research findings on current trends and future outlooks concluded that the number one trend is:
“Linking facility management to (business) strategy”.3 Based on that top facility management trend
finding, IFMA Chair - Gary Broersma declared it as an important effort for the FM profession and IFMA at
the World Workplace 2007 opening session. He went on to publish articles in IFMA’s Facility
Management Journal (FMJ) emphasizing the importance of Strategic Facility Planning (SFP). IFMA
created a new session track dedicated to SFP for World Workplace 2008. In Gary Broersma’s
presentation and FMJ Chair’s message, he defined Strategic Facility Planning as:
“Strategic facility planning represents long-range plans that include facility-specific goals,
focused on providing the right capacity in the right place and at the right time to enable
the enterprise to achieve its strategy.” 4
Other industry studies and benchmark research support these findings:
• 71% Workplace Management organizations have become more strategic,
from “Real Estate and Facilities Lifecycle Management” by Aberdeen Group5
• 77% Ratings of Very Important to Extremely Important for “Understanding the business-unit
organization, strategies & objectives”, from “Decision Support for Client Relationship
Management in Corporate Real Estate” by CoreNet Global6
• “Demonstrating value and getting respect”, “changing market”, “portfolio rationalization”, “aligning
to business units” are among the top future challenges noted in “Align by Design CRE
Benchmarking Study”7
• “Value is created as a result of this (workplace strategy) linkage, …”, from report findings of
“Strategic Planning: Aligning Workplace Services Creates Value” by U.S. General Services
Administration (GSA)
The list of supporting articles, studies, and benchmarks is endless. There are many case studies and
proof-points to validate the importance and value-add of Strategic Facility Planning.
Background - Strategic Facility Planning Evolution
Over the years, various facility planning mantras have been echoed similar to:
the right space, at the right place, at the right time, and at the right cost,
that meets the business’ objectives.
This simple phrase still holds true. However, the determination of what is “right” for each enterprise is
increasingly complex as business drivers are more dynamic and changing at a faster rate. Right-cost
facilities has always been an essential outcome of Strategic Facility Planning. The right space is key to
delivering productive workplaces that fit the work and workers of the business. The right place and time
deliver a RE Portfolio in the best business locations, just-in-time, to meet business goals and maximize
space utilization across time.
Strategic Facility Planning has been around for decades; however, it has evolved into a richer set of
capabilities. Improved methodologies, organizational maturity, and advancing technologies have

4. improved over the years to meet increasing needs of business enterprises and evolving workplace
management. Thus, new opportunities exist to extend traditional space planning and RE portfolio
planning to a more comprehensive cross-functional process to seek new levels in value-add and
increased performance. To reflect this evolution and transformation, many have coined new terms; such
as, Strategic Facilities Master Planning, Strategic Workplace Planning, Holistic Workplace Planning, and
Real Estate and Facilities Lifecycle Management. For the sake of terminology standardization and
minimizing buzz-word proliferation, this paper and presentation will use the common term used by IFMA
‘Strategic Facility Planning’ with the implied sophistication of: Holistic Integrated Strategic Workplace-
Infrastructure-Enterprise Optimal Master Planning Lifecycle ☺.
The table below, summarizes the emerging thinking and the evolution of Strategic Facility Planning
objectives, methodologies and practices, which are contrasted in their transitional stages.
Strategic Facility Planning Evolution
Traditional - Evolving - Visionary -
Space Planning Strategic Facility Planning Strategic Workplace Planning
Cost focus Productivity focus Value focus
Efficient operations Effective balance Optimal solutions
Reactive Proactive Predictive
Service fulfillment targets Linked strategic initiatives, tactics Strategic Workplace Framework
Status Reports Key Performance Indicators Performance Management
Responsive Adaptive, flexible Agile
‘Survey says’ Continuous process improvement Break-through strategies
Space Plan Workplace Solutions Integrated Infrastructure
Departmental Floor Plan Regional Division/Business Units Global Enterprise
Place-centric People-centric Optimize: work/worker/workplace
building, space, asset anywhere, anytime, anyplace collaboration, teams, environment
Project-based Program-based Project Portfolio Management
Space allocation, current situation Future plans and assignments Leading indicators
Time-based utilization
Point Solutions Integrated Workplace Integrated Infrastructure,
CAFM, RE, CMMS, PM, AEC, … Management Systems (IWMS) Enterprise Knowledge
The next sections define Strategic Facility Planning and how these newer concepts provide further value.
Success Factors
The implementation success of Strategic Facility Planning depends on several key factors, such as
addressing business needs, managing challenges, and overcoming barriers to success. A few core
principles help guide SFP implementation rationale, understand implications, and drive critical actions.
Other success factors are important SFP considerations to understand business alignment drivers, turn
problems into solutions, avoid potential pitfalls, and attain value-based solutions.
Guiding Principles:
These principles steer SFP goals rationale, design implications, and drive key implementation actions.

5. • Organization Excellence + Process Integration + Technology Enablement
the overarching integration approach…
• Rationale: Synergies are gained by integrating: people and process and technology. A culture
and leadership based on operational excellence is fundamental to fostering value. Process is
enabled by technology, and technology leaps process integration forward.
• Implications: All three need focus and drive each other to attain full potential. Over
emphasizing one and loosing focus on another undermines full success potential. All work
together; not a sequence, where one leads and the others to follow.
• Action imperatives: Elevate organizational capabilities and align structures to drive value.
Integrate, consolidate, and standardize performance-based processes. Implement and
leverage integrated workplace management systems.
• Align Strategies + Optimize Solutions + Achieve Delivery
taking processes to the next level to increase value…
• Rationale: Excelling in value creation is fostered by focused goals and objectives that best
align to business strategy. Taking planning to the next level means elevating plans to
complete solutions and analysis of balancing tradeoffs to optimization. Of course, plans are
worthless unless acted upon to achieve results and attain value.
• Implications: A richer set of holistic methodologies and tools are needed. Integration is
essential. Delivering on solutions necessitates agility to change, adapt, and execute.
• Action imperatives: process improvement/transformation, flexible and efficient processes and
tools, and organizational capabilities.
• Triple Bottom Line: People + Planet + Profit
Naturally, Environmental Sustainability makes cents, as well as being a corporate social responsibility
• Rationale: Regardless of personal beliefs on global warming, environmental stewardship, or
protecting the planet. From a business sense, cost savings and revenue generation from
efficient buildings, productive workforces, and a positive corporate image, produces profit and
shareholder value.
• Implications: Environmental Sustainability must be a key strategic objective, planning
consideration, and program management.
• Action imperatives: Integrate Environmental Sustainability into SFP processes, and leverage
the synergy of people, planet, and profit.
Address Challenges and Overcome Barriers:
Success factors in implementing SFP also include addressing key business/workplace challenges, while
avoiding, overcoming or mitigating barriers to success.
Prevail Over Value Misconceptions:
Focus on value, create value, show value-add
Too often workplace assets and site services are looked upon as cost of doing business or a necessary
evil, instead of seen for their strategic potential and contribution to the bottom line. Thus, assets and
services may be viewed as costs to minimize rather than optimize, and organizations can loose sight of
the vital link of workplace resources to the enterprise mission or objectives. Workplace executives
(CRE+FM) must strive to overcome this misconception by promoting and demonstrating shareholder
value and becoming a trusted advisor and strategic partner.

6. Enablers include: Visibility of results through Workplace Performance Management, Relationship building
with Client Relationship Management, and SFP to create and deliver value.
Foster Core Business Drivers:
Success factor: Always place a high importance on core business drivers and solve business pain-points.
Financial: Overall business drivers may vary from company to company and from time to time;
however, the core financial goals of growing profit and revenue are essential to shareholder value are
always critical. Thus, the constant need to right-cost the workplace through cost reduction, enabling
increased business productivity, while providing facilities needed to support revenue growth, will
remain core business drivers and a challenging balancing act.
Growth: Company growth is the number one challenge in many organizations (closely followed by a
combination of financial challenges). Findings in Aberdeen Group’s 2007 study on Real Estate and
Facilities Lifecycle Management (REFLM) determined that the top driver for REFLM action was
company growth for 57% 8. Mergers and acquisitions are often in the growth equation and present
further challenges of rationalizing portfolios and consolidating workplace practices.
Global economy: Worldwide business markets, global economies, intense competitiveness, and
emerging global workforces demand new business models and dynamic RE portfolio planning.
Other common drivers and considerations: There are a myriad of business drivers that vary
company to company from time to time. Some additional business driver changes include: increasing
rate of change, speed to market, market fluctuations, emerging markets, brand recognition, business
outsourcing, off-shoring, workforce talent attraction/retention, worker demographic shifts, emerging
work/workstyle needs, mobile workforce, anywhere virtual workplace, next-gen workplace
innovations, and technology advances.
Overcome Lack of Performance Visibility:
“Three Keys to Success: Visibility, Visibility, Visibility” 9
Workplace (RE + Facilities) costs are typically over 30% of the total enterprise spend. “Yet, nearly 40% of
the enterprises report poor or no visibility” into this large spend, according to Aberdeen Group’s REFLM
research10. Visibility at all levels of the business organization and workplace management on financial
spend, strategic contribution, and performance metrics are essential to indentifying key opportunities,
achieving performance, and demonstrating value.
Address Risk and Uncertainty:
Have a Plan B.
Risk and uncertainty are critical in analysis, evaluation criteria, planning, decisions, and execution.
Business environments are up and down and sideways. Forecasts are seldom accurate. Yet, businesses
need to make long-term multi-million dollar decisions on uncertain short-term information. Disasters give
no warning. With certainty you can count on the unexpected and the need to plan for the unplanned.
Business Environment and Forecast Accuracy: Ironically, for many dynamic businesses, long-
range space forecasts only have short range validity (a few months to a couple years) and few
planners and managers trust the long range numbers (2 to 5+ years). Based on this short-term
uncertain information, workplace and business executives are making large financial decisions on
long-term RE portfolio commitments. With two year lead times on new building construction, the
planning data will certainly change by move-in. Added to this, the unexpected merger, acquisition or
divestiture that has become a routine planning expectation. Indeed a risk, with high stakes. Thus,

7. SFP needs capabilities to manage risk mitigation, analyze sensitivity, and determine exit strategy
scenarios.
Emergency preparedness, response and recovery: Disasters are in the news every week; they
are unfortunate, disruptive, and sometimes catastrophic to a business organization. Workplace
managers must be prepared and capable to respond to emergencies. Disaster recovery usually
demands a swift response to protect the viability of the enterprise. Readiness and agility are needed
to meet the challenge of minimizing business risk of an uncertain event. Agile planning is a must.
Bridge Organizational Silos, Process Stovepipes, and Information Islands:
Integrate, Integrate, Integrate
Functional silos still exist with disconnected processes, inconsistent delivery, and disparate information
systems despite progress to centralize, standardize and adopt technology. Lack of integrating
organizations, processes and technology are impediments to success. Strategic Facility Planning success
hinges on aligning cross-functional organizations, unified processes, and integrated systems.
Master Information Complexity:
Sophisticate, Simplify, and Focus on what matters
Although, simplicity and focus are keys to success, taming information complexity with more sophisticated
techniques can yield improved solutions, timely decisions, and value-based results. The excessive
complexity of disparate information systems is further compounded by overwhelming processes and
information overload. Indentifying opportunities, operating efficiently, and focusing on what matters are
difficult at best, and can easily lead to getting “lost in the weeds”.
Overcoming the data complexity hurdle to “get out of the weeds” is not enough for best-in-class
workplace organizations. Getting on the right path and staying on course requires decision support
systems that embrace more complex data-driven decision processes.
In a CoreNet Global research for corporate real estate (CRE) decision-support systems, the survey
responses indicated that all CRE organizations had some form of decision support tools, and 0%
responded that a more sophisticated tool was NOT required. In other words, all CRE respondents need
decision-support tools and all believe they need to progress to more sophisticated systems. The study
went on to conclude that the complexity (full spectrum of skills, activities, and information) of strategic
decision-support systems coupled with the collaboration of Customer Relationship Management results in
a positive impact on financial performance.11
The Strategic Facility Planning Solution:
These guiding principles and success factors are the design criteria for the Strategic Facility Planning
solution and the differentiators needed to excel. The following sections will expand on SFP solutions and
interrelated dependencies.
The solution at a high-level is organized in three main sections:
• Organizational Excellence
• Process Integration
• Technology Enablement

8. Organization Excellence
Operational Excellence is enabled by Strategic Facility Planning, and more importantly driven by visionary
organizations. Without accountable leadership and aligned teams, SFP will be mediocre at best.
Realizing the full potential of Strategic Facility Planning relies on organizational excellence with team
values, and organization capabilities of:
• Culture of value creation, performance driven, and operational excellence goals
• Customer commitment to business-unit managers, and services consumers
• Process ownership, performance accountability, and results oriented
• Capability maturity in leadership, staff, and service providers
• Organizational structures that centralize and integrate:
o Workplace functions, processes, strategy, standards, and governance
o Global span with localization flexibility and business organization alignment
Customer/Client Relationship Management (CRM)
Connecting with the workplace customer, at all levels, is the vital link to aligning workplace strategy,
planning, and delivery to business needs and expectations. The personal relationships and collaborative
knowledge of people can only be enhanced, not replaced, by automated processes. SFP is both an art
and a science, so human knowledge and collaboration is essential to the successful process. Best in
class workplace organizations have adopted the Customer/Client Relationship model to assure customer
intimacy, effective communications, and aligned objectives. Proactive management of change and
expectation setting is crucial to achieving SFP success.
Emerging Roles and New Competencies:
To achieve SFP value and attain CRM success, planners are becoming consultants and advisors. As
processes become more sophisticated, new skills are needed. As advisors interact more with business
executives and consult divisional controllers, new roles and competencies are required.
Traditional Roles Emerging Roles
Manage, Request Process >>>>> Consult/Advise >>>>> Strategic Collaboration
• Facility Executive • Strategic Business Partner
• Facility Manager • Customer Relationship Manager
• Space Planner • Strategic Space Planner
• Workplace Consultant, Workplace Strategist
• Business Manager/Executive • Stakeholder (strategy collaborator)
• Financial Controller/Analyst • Economic Buyer (service levels, space agreement)
• Employee, Occupant • Workplace Product & Services Consumer
Additionally, best-in-class organizations attain operational excellence through integrated processes and
enabling technologies.
Process Integration + Technology Enablement
As noted previously, the Strategic Facility Planning solution aligns and integrates the workplace
organization, processes, and technologies. Although the process integration section of this paper appears
to be the primary emphasis on the total solution, it is not possible without either the right organization to
drive it or leveraging technology to transform processes and enable integration. Thus, process integration
assumes capable organizations and technology enablement as a foundation.
The World Workplace presentation will expand on this section with examples to illustrate process
integration, technology enablement, and stakeholder oriented processes.

9. Process Integration Overview:
To view an integrated process, it needs to be looked at from various perspectives to better understand
integration points and organize concepts into a framework.
The key process perspectives and considerations:
• SFP Process Lifecycle
• Common Integrated Methodologies
• Functional Integration and Specialization
SFP Process Lifecycle:
The SFP process lifecycle is the primary view of the integrated process that has common integrated
methodologies embedded in the process. It is both an ongoing cycle and a linear process that merges
strategic planning, performance management, and program solution lifecycle concepts.
• Ongoing Cyclical Processes
o Cyclical strategic and business planning
o Fiscal budgeting
o Performance Management
o Continuous improvement with feedback cycles
• Linear End-to-End Lifecycles
o Planning, Design and Implementation Processes
o Project/Program Lifecycle
o Building/Asset Lifecycle
o Site Services Management
The primary phases are: Strategy, Planning, and Delivery which Align, Optimize, and Manage to achieve
value-add workplace solutions. The high-level phases are as follows:
• Align Strategies
o Access value creation opportunities
o Adapt strategies
o Define solution performance goals
• Optimize Planning
o Analyze and optimize scenarios
o Align, design, and refine plans
o Evaluate and decide on the plan
• Manage Delivery
o Implement workplace plans
o Manage service delivery
o Monitor and evaluate performance
These processes often have iterative planning and ongoing plan changes and adaption, as well as
feedback loop mechanisms and continuous improvement cycles.
Common Integrated Methodologies:
Some key methodologies and approaches are worth highlighting as a part of the process. Emerging
methodologies have become accepted best practices and success factors in elevating cross-functional
process integration. A few common integrated methodologies to note:
• Strategic Planning
• Workplace Performance Management (WPM)
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Project/Program & Service Portfolio Management (PPM)
• Decision Support Systems (DSS)

10. Strategic Planning: An overall strategic planning methodology must drive business strategy and
workplace strategy alignment throughout the entire Strategic Facility Planning process. Strategy definition
utilizes the inputs from multiple programs and activities to identify future opportunities for new initiatives or
strategy adjustments. The strategic alignment phase sets and defines planning and operational goals that
cascade top-down through organization hierarchy and disseminate metric goals, plan criteria, and
program tactics. Strategic Planning methodologies such as Hoshin Kanri have been utilized by Hewlett-
Packard, Xerox, Intel, Procter & Gamble to develop break-through strategies to transform the business,
as well as, “business fundamentals” to continuously improve core activities.
Workplace Performance Management (WPM): A value focus is attained through performance-driven
alignment, analysis, and actions. WPM consists of a balanced scorecard, performance metrics
dashboard, business intelligence analysis and reporting oriented by role for accountable executives,
process owners, and workplace team contributors. Additionally, the notion of performance goals and
alignment is leveraged in planning analytics to guide scenarios and plans toward value-based solutions
that balance many performance tradeoffs and seek aligned opportunities.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM): The CRM process is instrumental in key touch points with
internal customers and business organizations for planning inputs, feedback, reviews, communications,
and value visibility.
Project/Program Portfolio Management (PPM): An enterprise process of managing a portfolio of
projects and programs to optimize the investment prioritization, resource planning, risk analysis, and
project execution. PPM concepts and methodologies extend into services management as Service
Portfolio Management, and the enterprise-integrated PPM is often referred to as Enterprise Portfolio
Management. This methodology has many success stories in Information Technology domain that are
beginning to translate into Workplace Management arena as well. PPM integrates and aligns strategic
top-down goal setting, and evaluates bottoms-up programs and project plans against many key criteria
and performance goals. In the implementation phase, project and program management assures goals
and objectives achievement.
Decision Support Systems (DSS): Utilizes tools and evaluation approaches to detect issues, reveal
gaps, identify opportunities, surface solutions, evaluate risk, explore what-ifs and aid decision making
evaluations. Various techniques are deployed throughout all phases to aid in agility and accuracy of plans
and decisions.
Functional Integration:
Process integration and organizational alignment require overarching strategies, planning, and delivery
coordination. SFP integrates workplace functions and strives toward linking corporate functions and
processes:
• Workplace Management • Corporate Enterprise
o Corporate Real Estate o Corporate Services and Infrastructure:
o Capital Projects & Construction IT, HR, Finance, Procurement, Legal
o Facility Management (Space Management) o Business Groups/Units
o Maintenance & Operations
Strategic Workplace Planning Framework:
The Strategic Workplace Planning Framework overview organizes high-level concepts, processes, and
methodologies. As the next levels of detail unfold, the overall framework aids in aligning, linking, and
understanding processes, functions, and information structure. This high-level Strategic Workplace
Planning framework is represented in the following table:

11. Integrated Methodologies Across the Process Lifecycle
Process Group > Align Strategies Optimize Planning Manage Delivery
- Access opportunities - Analyze & optimize scenarios -Implement workplace plans
- Adapt strategies - Align, design, and refine plans -Manage service delivery
- Define solution goals - Evaluate & decide on the plan -Monitor & evaluate performance
Methodology:
Strategic - Assess Situation, Opportunity - Assess Plan of Record Gaps - Performance Management
Planning - Set Objectives, Strategies - Establish Programs & Tactics (see below)
- Tops-down Initiatives, Goals - Bottoms-up Prioritization
Workplace Performance - Access Opportunities - Planning Metrics & Indicators - Monitor & Evaluate
Management - Align Goals to Strategy - Embedded Planning Analytics - Scorecard, Metrics
- Set Metrics, Thresholds - Performance-based Evaluation - Analysis, Corrective Action
Project/Program Portfolio Portfolio Management/Planning: Program Management: Project Management:
Management, - Portfolio Balancing - Prioritization - manage scope, time, cost
Service Portfolio Mgmt. - Analyze/Set Resource Mix - Plan Projects, Resources - manage plan execution
- Investment Analysis - ROI, Risk Analysis - evaluate spend
Decision Support Analyze/ Define/ Set: Evaluate Scenarios, Options: - Business Intelligence
Systems - Funding, Financial targets - Strategic Fit Rating / Compare - Ad-hoc Reporting
- Resource Investment - Financial Evaluation / Compare
- Qualitative Rate / Comparison
- Risk, Sensitivity Analysis
Customer Relationship - Strategic Needs Assessment - Requirements Forecast - Customer Surveys
Management - Workplace Solution Fit/Gap - Iterative feedback - Change Management
- Interview, Survey, Evaluate - Account Management
Function Specific Space Planning & Analysis: - Move Services
Processes - Forecasting, requirements - On-boarding, Provisioning
- Supply vs. Demand - Site Services
- Stacking, Blocking - Maintenance & Operations
- Move Sequencing, Planning - Lease Administration
- RE Transaction Management
- Bldg System Capacity Analysis
Primary Roles, - Executive, Partner, Advisor - Manager, Planner, Consultant - Manager, Technician, Specialist
Stakeholders - CEO, CFO, COO, … - Business Unit Manager - Workplace Consumer
- Strategic Business Partners - Third-Party Suppliers/Partners - Remote worker
Strategic Facility Planning Process in Focus
To recap overview concepts, the primary phases are: Strategy, Planning, Delivery, which Align, Optimize,
and Manage to achieve value-add workplace solutions. These high-level phases include feedback loop
mechanisms and continuous improvement cycles. Since the topic is Strategic Facility Planning, this
section will focus on strategy and planning phases with end-to-end integrated processes in mind.
Align Strategies Optimize Planning Manage Delivery
- Access opportunities - Analyze & optimize scenarios - Implement workplace plans
- Adapt strategies - Align, design, and refine plans - Manage service delivery
- Define solution goals - Evaluate & decide on the plan - Monitor & evaluate performance
Emphasis on strategy and planning phases … with end-to-end process in mind
Align Strategies:
Overall corporate strategic planning and workplace strategic planning are the beginning activities that
start from the top of the organization. These processes are the crucial linkage to business objectives, and
the critical stage where the workplace executive is regarded as a collaborative partner, strategic advisor,
or a recipient of handed down goals.

12. Assess and evaluate opportunities:
Proactively determining opportunities for potential strategies provides essential inputs to the strategy
phase. The strategic inputs come from many sources and ongoing improvement cycles.
• Workplace Performance Management - Detecting, revealing, and identifying issues, gaps, and best
practices. Subsequent performance analysis assess the current situation and potential opportunities.
• Facility Assessments – Comprehensive facility assessments go beyond traditional facility condition
assessment for capital renewal planning. Assessments can further include environmental
sustainability opportunity assessments, program assessments and regulatory compliance
assessments. These are key inputs to planning processes.
• Stakeholder Surveys, Interviews, and Evaluation - In conjunction with Customer Relationship
Management practices various online surveys, customer interviews, and subsequent evaluations can
reveal important understandings in workplace solution issues, service-level discrepancies, customer
satisfaction levels, or strategic alignment gaps.
Set objectives and adapt strategies:
This important activity is at the heart of strategic alignment and the outcome is objective setting, new
initiatives, and adapting strategies to business shifts. Strategic Planning methodologies are the primary
processes in this stage. As well, Project/Program Portfolio Management (PPM) is instrumental in
evaluating strategic priorities, evaluating the resource investment mix, and setting funding allocations.
Define solution goals and plan criteria:
As an outcome of the strategy phase, aligned objectives and performance goals cascade down
throughout the organization to drive top-down alignment. These key goals and associated planning
criteria seed the start of the planning phase. Workplace Performance Management metrics are defined,
target thresholds set, balanced scorecards propagated, and accountability established. These same
goals and evaluation criteria are leveraged in Project/Program Portfolio Management (PPM) to align
program planning and project funding. Standards are refined and adjusted to fit new directions.
This figure illustrates how real estate decisions align with strategies to drive performance and value.12

13. Optimize Planning
The vital planning phase of Strategic Facility Planning develops plans that best align with strategies
established in the preceding phase. Planning analysis evaluates multiple planning criteria and balances
many performance trade-offs to design an optimal plan that formulates a complete solution. The output or
deliverable of this phase is a Plan of Record to drive the implementation phase, operations and site
services. The Plan of Record consists of Space Master Plans, RE Portfolio transaction plans, capital
improvement and renewal projects, move projects, and program plans. Additionally, resource plans,
service-level and operational-level plans may be included in planning phase deliverables.
Scenario Planning:
Analyzing alternative plans or what-if scenarios is a common planning process and essential in exploring
potential solutions, comparing improvement alternatives, or analyzing risk and uncertainty. Additionally,
scenarios can be useful in simulating what-if analysis of exit strategies, emergency response, or
sensitivity analysis.
Workplace Planning:
Space Planning is too often considered the entire process. A Holistic and integrated SFP approach also
includes all workplace functions and planning needs:
• RE Portfolio Rationalization • Service Portfolio Management
• Space Planning and Capacity Analysis • Environmental Sustainability
• Building Systems Capacity Analysis • Integrated Corporate Services and Infrastructure:
• Program Planning and Project Initiation IT, HR, Finance, Procurement
Space Planning and Capacity Analysis – a key planning process that optimizes space utilization and
determines workplace needs that drive RE Portfolio right-sizing, reduce environmental impact, and set
budget needs for operational functions and workplace programs. Performance-based analytics are visible
at every planning stage to guide solutions toward strategic goals and balanced metrics.
Key activities, analysis, and functionality include:
• Scenario Planning and Evaluation • Move Sequencing and Phasing
• Business Requirements and Space Forecasting • Project Plan Estimating
• Supply vs. Demand Analysis (across time) • Scenario Evaluations and Comparison
• Stacking and Block Planning • Decision Support
• Building Capacity Planning • Plan Change Management
Evaluate Alternatives and Decide on the Plan:
Decisions Support Systems and Project-Program Portfolio Management come into play in the evaluation
stage to compare alternatives and determine the right plan going forward. Advanced SFP evaluations
utilize comparison evaluations that include both quantitative metrics and qualitative ratings. Scorecard
roll-ups provide balanced high-level views, while drill-down into hierarchical details is essential for
analysis. Ratings and comparisons can include:
• Portfolio Total Occupancy Cost Changes
• Implementation Cost Estimates
• Performance Metrics (forward-looking) – Occupancy Rates, Utilization Rates, Churn, CO2 intensity,…
• Strategic alignment rating, risk rating, and qualitative attribute ratings
The output of the planning phase is a decision and a Master Plan of Record that includes:
• Space master plans • Move projects
• RE Portfolio transaction plans • Program resource plans
• Capital improvement and renewal projects • Service-level &/or operational-level agreements

14. Manage Delivery:
Plans are worthless and value is never realized without execution of the implementation phase and
ongoing operations of service delivery. At this phase Strategic Facility Planning concludes and its outputs
are the implementation management inputs. This end-to-end process integration needs to be a transition
and not a disconnected process or an over-the-wall hand-off. Methodologies such as Workplace
Performance Management and Project Portfolio Management continue into the implementation phase
and aid in integrating the full lifecycle. Key information transitions occur in RE Transaction Management,
Move Planning, Move Project Management, Capital Projects and Service Management.
These implementation phase processes are managed, monitored, and evaluated through the project
lifecycle and performance management cycle. Then, the cycle repeats ….
Conclusions
How does your organization measure up? Are you viewed as a trusted advisor or an order taker? Is the
workplace regarded as a strategic enabler or a necessary evil? Are you a sustainable solution or an
environmental impact? Are you lost in the weeds, … again ?
Align, optimize, and mange your workplace to your business’ needs to achieve greater value creation.
Adopt Strategic Facility Planning’s advancing methodologies and integrated technologies to enable your
workplace organization to extend its capabilities to drive visible workplace performance.
Links, Resources, Whitepapers:
• Why Implement Workplace Performance Management (WPM)?, by Michael Bell
• The Green Building Imperative: Understanding the Impact of Workplace on the Environment? , by Dr. Joseph J. Romm,
Endnotes - Sources
1
USI Corp., “CFO Perspective on Real Estate”, 2003.
2
Chris Hood and Gervais Tompkin, “The Mobility Mandate” (a Hewlett-Packard case study), IFMA World Workplace session, 2007.
3
IFMA Research, “Facility Management Forecast 2007, Exploring the Current Trends and Future Outlooks for Facility Management
Professionals”, 2007.
4
Gary Broersma, “Chair’s Column: Strategic Planning 2008”, IFMA Facility Management Journal, Jan/Feb 2008
5
Aberdeen Group, “Real Estate and Facilities Lifecycle Management”, June 2007
6
CoreNet Global Research; “Decision Support for Client Relationship Management in CRE”, 2006-2007
7
Alverez & Marsal RE Advisory Services, “Align by Design, CRE Benchmarking Survey”, 2006
8
Aberdeen Group, “Real Estate and Facilities Lifecycle Management”, June 2007
9
Aberdeen Group, “Real Estate and Facilities Lifecycle Management”, June 2007
10
Aberdeen Group, “Real Estate and Facilities Lifecycle Management”, June 2007
11
CoreNet Global, Applied Research Center, “Decision Support for Client Relationship Management in Corporate Real Estate”,
Report 1- 2005, Report 2- 2006.
12
Anna-Liisa Lindholm et al., “A Framework for Identifying and Measuring Value Added by Corporate Real Estate”, FMLink, 2006.