User Involvement Improves Planning

Including the users

User involvement is a great way to get information first-hand and to give the individual user a strong sense of ownership in the plan. Executive review by the long-range planning com- mittee of all such information is essential to separate wants from needs. For instance, it is likely that several sizes of faculty offices and a wide range of classroom capacities will have been proposed; often each department will want a conference room. The committee should filter these requests, standardize faculty office and classroom sizes and direct adjacent departments to share conference room space. This refining process, while it may be guided by the planning consultant, must be an institutional effort.

A further round of user meetings obtains consensus adjacency information defining the ideal relationships among all the departments and functions of the institution. It’s a good idea to separate these group meetings so that faculty, students and administrators can express their opinions without perceived pressure from other groups. Surprisingly, the adjacency data is fairly consistent among the groups, so an overall consensus is rarely difficult to achieve.

Once the data gathering and programming phases are completed, occasional meetings between the planner and various user groups are necessary to resolve conflicts between the ideal conditions programmed and the reality of an existing campus, and to review the space layouts for each function. Interim design presentations to these requests, standardize faculty office and classroom sizes and direct adjacent departments to share conference room space. This refining process, while it may be guided by the planning consultant, must be an institutional effort.

A further round of user meetings obtains consensus adjacency information defining the ideal relationships among all the departments and functions of the institution. It’s a good idea to separate these group meetings so that faculty, students and administrators can express their opinions without perceived pressure from other groups. Surprisingly, the adjacency data is fairly consistent among the groups, so an overall consensus is rarely difficult to achieve.

Once the data gathering and programming phases are completed, occasional meetings between the planner and various user groups are necessary to resolve conflicts between the ideal conditions programmed and the reality of an existing campus, and to review the space layouts for each function. Interim design presentations to the entire group of user participants assures essential input during the physical planning process and builds additional user ownership in the resulting plan.

Getting a plan that works

The goal of this entire effort is a planning document that works, is enthusiastically accepted by the entire institution, and will effectively guide long-range campus development. Facilities planning is time consuming and expensive. The risk of “garbage in-garbage out” is increased if users are not involved and essential preplanning homework is not carefully completed and reviewed.

This article originally appeared in American School & University, May 1991.