Skip to main content

Let's Go!

By
Let’s go!  We are towards the end of three master plans (Two K-12 Districts and one County) at the moment and I always find it interesting to see how the final decision process plays out.  For what feels like years to some stakeholders involved with the process, we have been collecting data from all sources and completing assessments, a demographic study and many discussions and meetings. Now  we are here *deep breath* at implementation and let's go!  But wait…..

Sometimes the ones who are so anxious to get the ball rolling are also the ones who first put the brakes on.  Wait a minute; we don’t know our exact funding stream or timeline or….yikes! The panic ensues.  A master plan, when completed with transparency, involvement from all stakeholders and formed through interactive work sessions will challenge the status quo. As with all “future telling” activities, a master plan will pull on both ends of our logical thinking. On one hand, we are making plans and choosing options for years and years from now and on the other we have to accept that things change and the data we use holds many assumptions, which, for the most part, are out of anyone’s control.  In this dichotomy, the human reaction runs the range from “wait, we can’t choose to move ahead until we KNOW” and to “why does this matter if it is all going to change anyway.”  These are normal reactions that we all face when presented with a choice for the future.  It happens when one decides to plan on any life change like pursuing a new job, buying a house, having a child or getting married.  Accepting variability can be hard.  So, what do we do?

Now is a good time to review why we do master plans.  Master planning is about understanding a larger vision of where an organization wishes to go and creating a path to get there. It is, in our world, a review of distinct data determinants, the facts, combined with the desires of the organization into a comprehensive plan that has end goals, timing and budgets. We enjoy it all and we certainly appreciate learning about the various communities and meeting and creating lifelong friends through the process.   During implementation it would be nice if time lines held true, but for various reasons most are modified, but does that destroy the soul of the master plan?  Of course not. The implementation plan, a vital part of the master plan, is a tool that says we want to tackle this project, then this project and finally this project to attain the final goal.  Shifting time does not change the goal. There are many factors that could change the course. Funding opportunities might pop up or go away but if you know where you are trying to go, than an organization can move quickly and adjust to take advantage of an opportunity. 

This process reminds me so much of my childhood road trips.  We would have a general idea of what states we wanted to see and might even have a couple of tickets to baseball games, which means we needed to hit a certain city on a certain day, but that was it.  The hotel or restaurant was determined closer to the time of when it was needed.  With the framework in place, we let the trip evolve and the detail defined closer to the time in which the activity was required. In the end, we never missed the flight home or a ball game.  

Don’t be afraid, the end of a master plan is a start to a great adventure in becoming what you have carefully decided that you wanted to be.  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Changing an Icon

By
Changing an Icon I draw. Little doddles cover cards and note pads at large and small gatherings. It was a note taking technique I was taught and gratefully adopted early in my career. The reason, beyond my lack of spelling talent, is really to distill the spoken word into the most basic pictorial concept because when gathering information from so many, it needs to be contained and expressed in the most condensed form. The smallness allows all input to be displayed at once. Most of the drawings are well accepted icons to today’s texters, our culture’s emogies. These symbols hold strong association. A “house” is often drawn with gable roof and two symmetrical windows on either side of the door in the middle. We faithfully hold that image in our head even though very few, if any, have ever lived in a house that looks like the icon. We have many of these connections imprinted on our brains. Think of trains, building types, flowers and genders, which all have the easy mental imag...
Post a Comment
Read more

Expecting the Worst

By
I recently listened to “ This American Life ” radio episode on expectations.  The episode focused on the visually impaired and how societies’ expectation of what they can do is holding them back from what is really possible and it got me thinking how are our expectations of students holding us back from designing and implementing schools? I remember a programing meeting in particular, which one of the more common debates of classroom design was debated: visual connection.  I have always been fascinated by how this discussion goes because our standard structure for programming goes as follows: Meeting 1: Discuss overarching goals of the facility Meeting 2: Define in general each space needed and the size and quantity of those spaces Meeting 3: Prioritized the spaces to fit budget and arrange the “pieces” functionally to meet the adjacency needs of the facility Meeting 4:Define the specifics of each space such as the cabinetry, need for sinks, accessories and amen...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why is it designed that way?

By
Why is it designed that way?  It can be a common question when touring facilities on assessment or in a recent case during an interview. Still I wonder why more people do not ask that question on a day to day basis.  I do.  It is common fascination when touring facilities.  Looking a strange cabinetry and realizing the room was originally for a sewing class or once in Mexico, showing a whole group of guys that you need to pull a pin out to release the spare tire from under our stuck vehicle.  Designers normally do not place things willy nilly yet understanding the function of a design can be elusive.  No matter the effort in programing and design, new users are always present for when the building opens, who don’t know why decisions were made on the placement of switches and amenities or arrangement of spaces.  On the operational side, including servicing heating and air conditioning and cleaning finishes, there are manuals that are created, but,...
Post a Comment
Read more