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Executive
NavCenter
Prototypes
see companion piece: Executive NavCenter Concept
link
JOSEKI
Offices 2002 [link] |
| A
prototype of the executive NavCenter has to involve
all 7 Domains [link] of
the Taylor System. It cannot be approached just as
a physical environment which is what most architecture
and interior
design
does today. There are four MG Taylor/SFIA-Master
Builders/AI projects that I will profile here as
“prototypes” of the Executive NavCenter: Bill Stead’s
office at the VCBH;
the VCH Executive Offices;
the WorkConservatory; and, the Master’s Collaboration
Studio. Each of these get at some facet
of the subject and, together, begin to make a comprehensive
statement regarding housing and augmenting the executive
routine [link]. |
click on pictures below to go
to these projects |
|
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| Bill
Stead’s Office is a deliberate effort at augmenting
an executive-knowledge-worker via his work environment,
the adjacent NavCenter how his support person functions
in concert with him. |
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| The
VCH Executive offices constitute our most comprehensive
statement: process, environment and tools, in support
of the executive routine. |
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| The
WorkConservatory is designed to provide home work
environments of great beauty while better integrating
work-life and life-style for the knowledge-era;
they also demonstrate Usonian [link] living principles. |
|
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| The
Master’s Collaboration Center is the environment
in which the Master’s NavCenter, new campus and
School-of-the-Future will be designed. |
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| The
purpose of prototypes is to push the state-of-the-art
in a project within a set of defined risks. In the
case of these four projects, there is no question
that
the
environments
will function more or less as planned. There are
two aspects that are being tested: first, certain
structural, mechanical and assembly aspects of the
physical structures; and second, certain work
routines that are
well established in the NavCenter/DesignShop experience
but far less so in the day-to-day
work environment. Both of these aspects will be covered
in this document, however, the emphasis will be on
the latter: the actual work processes and how they
can be successfully embedded into the daily work
habits of executive knowledge-workers in a wide variety
of circumstances. |
| These
four prototypes will constitute the
bulk of our R&D energies through 2004. The following
7 Domains Analysis will focus not only on what it
is we are building - and why - but also
on what it is we expect to get out of each
exercise. This analysis, of course will focus on
those aspects most relevant
to the executive NavCenter concept and functioning.
Each of the projects have their own web pages and
you can get additional information on each of them
by clicking on their picture/drawings above. |
|
7
Domains Analysis of the Prototypes
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| Each
of these projects are different in scale, scope and
their implications. Each address different client
needs and market opportunities. Each, however, are
the
same at their root which is how does the personal
executive routine work. Bill Stead’s
Office is the smallest project in scope (unless you
account
that
it is part of an existing 18,000 square foot NavCenter)
- and the most intimate. While not large, as far
as MG Taylor
environments generally go, the VCH Executive Office
is the most complex and integrated environment we
have
designed
to date. The way-of-working issue is central to this
project and involves an entire executive staff of
15 [link].
The WorkConservatory is unique for us in several
aspects:
first, it is a stand alone product to
be delivered through an entirely different channel
than
our traditional
work. Second, it our first serious step into the
home as a marketplace. Third, the process aspect
is not bundled with the market offering - it will
be an aftermarket opportunity that will be serviced
through the web. Finally, the WorkConservatory has
the potential of becoming a far greater number
of installations than our present practice experiences.
The Master’s
Collaboration Studio is a small NavCenter but one
with a specific
mission.
It will
be used to design and project manage three Master’s
projects and it will be home to a Center Master who
will be the main recipient, and transfer agent, of
the Taylor processes to the Master’s organization
and ValueWeb. This emphasis on project management
and on knowledge-transfer, through
a single
agent,
makes it unique from other NavCenters and a prototype
of an entirely new transfer process. |
| The
central theme that ties these diverse projects together
is embedding a way-of-working,
in addition to the formal processes associated
with a Taylor NavCenter and DesignShop expereinces, into the
personal work-life style of specific individuals.
This is the creating of new work-habits [link] and
involves the making of strong-memory [link] and
has been the goal of our work from the beginning.
It is with these projects, however, that the first
real opportunities, and the challenges associated
with them, have presented themselves. This is what
makes these four projects prototypes; it is because
they plow new ground and will
take extraordinary work and documentation
to accomplish. These projects focus on personal work
habitat first
- as a vantage point - with work-teams, Group
Genius,
networking and ValueWeb building as an extension of
this personal process. This line of approach is not
contradictory
to but the opposite direction from our work - other
than what we have done for ourselves personally - of
the last 25 years. |
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circumstances_of_knowledge |
BODY
OF KNOWLEDGE
All
knowledge is personal, of course.
What makes what we call social knowledge is
the merging of several circumstances: a system that
manages the artifacts and objects of knowledge
in a way that makes it accessible to a community;
the embedded memory, in a community
of individuals, of certain stories that illustrate
social origin, principles of behavior and important
lessons learned - this is called a culture;
curious humans who actively and systematically
engage in the discovery, use, documentation
and transfer of what they have learned -
today, we call these KnowledgeWorkers.
These conditions conspire [to breathe together]
to make a BODY of knowledge.
co |
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PROCESS
DESIGN and FACILITATION
An
indivi
co
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TRAINING,
EDUCATION and LEARNING
An
indivi
co
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PHYSICAL
ENVIRONMENT and TOOLING
An
indivi
co
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TECHNICAL
SYSTEMS
An
indivi
co
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PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
Almost
all knowledge-work is project management
or is guided by project management principles
and methods.
yet, the art of project management
remains obscure and backward. There are three
principle reasons for this: project management,
as a formal disciple, grew out of the control-dominated
and linear-thinking 1950s; project management
methods have often been used in a punitive
manner; and, the support tools necessary to
do project
management have remained cumbersome, obscure,
labor-intensive and boring. Consequently, most
people have a love-hate relationship with the
craft. There still, in this preCyberCon [link] era,
is not a single, integrated support system
for the project management of complex, emergent
phenomena. The off-the-shelf tool kit, however
is getting better and it possible to merge
processes and existing tools in a new and
powerful way.
co
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VENTURE
MANAGEMENT
One
of the goals of the Taylor Method, from the
beginning, was to facilitate individual people
to see themselves, and conduct their affairs,
as a venture; and, to also do with
harmony in teams and within the greater social
context.
This was one focus of our SolutionBox and AND workshops.
Our society seems to keep swinging between
The Organization Man, the The
Brand Called You, with the Network
Nation lost somewhere
in between. These are not intrinsic conflicts
- they are different levels of recursion of
the
same
thing.
co
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Matt
Taylor
Nashville
September 13, 2003
SolutionBox
voice of this document:
INSIGHT • POLICY • PROGRAM
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posted:
September 13, 2003
revised:
April 18, 2004
• 20030913.242280.mt • 20040417.547890.mt •
• 20040418.534221.mt •
(note:
this document is about 35% finished)
Matt
Taylor 615 525 7053
me@matttaylor.com
Copyright© Matt
Taylor 2002, 2003, 2004
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