Education Space Consultancy

Providing expert timetable and space management consultancy services within the education sector

Timetable Data Tool – From List to Grid!

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Rather than posting an article this week, I am going to do something a little bit different and share with you a new Microsoft Excel based tool that I have put together.

This tool is called “The Timetable Grid Tool” and turns a weeks timetable export into a timetable grid, with the class sizes displayed in the corresponding timeslots within the grid. The purpose of this tool is to display timetable data in a format that is familiar, easy to interpret and analyse, unlike that of a typical timetable software export.

To use the tool, you simply have to set up your data in the same format as displayed within the Timetable Data Spreadsheet (created from a Scientia Syllabus +/Enterprise export) and then via a couple of clicks, The Timetable Grid Tool will turn your timetable data from a list to a timetable grid!

[Read more…]

How Do You Make Sure Departments Have The Office Space They Need?

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This can be a tough question to answer, however by gathering key information you can put together an effective and accurate plan of an departments or and institutions office space requirements. Therefore, the first step to finding the answer to this question is gathering this key information.

I touched on this in a previous article Are My Office Spaces Being Well Utilised? and this is part of the consultancy services I and Education Space Consultancy offer – Office Space Utilisation Surveys and Consultancy and Space Modelling. However, to give you some insight into the processes behind calculating office space requirements, for this article I am going to look at the different staff and department information I look to gather and confirm in order to asses how much office space a department needs.

Staff Information

This is one of the core components and as with all  models, the results are only as good as the information you put in, therefore this staff data must [Read more…]

Office Space And The Importance Of Engaging With Users

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Last week, I focussed primarily on the methods for understanding how office space is being utilised however that alone will not enable you to get the most out of your institutions office space. What this data does do is provide you with a platform and a reliable data source that can be used for the next step – user engagement.

User engagement is critical to not only improving but also understanding how space is being used. The office space utilisation survey data alone, will often not paint the full picture rather just provide a snap shot in time that offers little back story or explanation. Only using this data to make decisions regarding the use of office space can end up causing more harm that good, hampering departments performance and growth as well severely impacting upon the relationship those effected have with “Estates”.

I see this final point as a critical element to managing space and it is often a point that is over looked.

The relationship between departments and those responsible for space management is typically a delicate one. This is understandable, departments are often competing for space and ultimately there is often not enough to fulfil everyone’s needs, therefore there is a lot of scope for staff feeling unsatisfied, ignored and marginalised by “Estates” decisions creating an attitude of us and “them”.

It doesn’t however need to be this way.

User engagement is the critical process that helps to prevent this [Read more…]

Are My Office Spaces Being Well Utilised?

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Office space is a core component of every institution and its availability is typically a very hot topic with demand often outstripping supply and departments very resistant to releasing any space that they know they aren’t using efficiently. This can create an environment where everyone wants more space but at the same time aren’t prepared to release space they aren’t utilising efficiently.

‘Build more space’, is something I have heard often as the ‘solution’ to this problem. Admittedly this would create more space……. but the huge investment and maintenance costs associated with creating additional office space would have to be found from somewhere and ultimately this would mean funds having to be moved away from other projects that would have also brought their benefits. The big pot of money typically doesn’t exist. Institutions can’t meet all their demands without running themselves into the ground and therefore have to decide which of the demands bring the greatest rewards.

As with any project, there is a need to assess whether there is truly a demand, what the demand is and what the solutions are. In this case, assess whether the institutional demand for more office space actually exist and if so, how much office space is required and what the potential options are for solving this shortage. This isn’t to say the demand doesn’t actually exist – but it must be tested, to not only indicate whether additional office space is required, but also determine how much, what type and who for.

In order to do this, an institution needs to know how each department is utilising the current office space they have assigned, what their current space requirements are (typically not the same thing!) and what the future demands on this space will be. This information [Read more…]

Node Chairs – Student Focussed Furniture – Updated

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The Node chair is a piece of furniture that I have had my eye on for a while. Not only does it look fantastic (surely no one can disagree with that!), but you can see just from looking at it, that a lot of thought and effort has been put into its design.

It seems to break the mould of typical furniture, or more specifically chairs, by not just addressing one problem but many. A chair that has a writing tablet, a seat with support, somewhere to store your bag, mobility and of course – looks great.

In case you hadn’t guessed teaching room furniture is something of a slight obsession of mine. I am particularly interested in those ideas and solutions that solve issues that I have come across within education and I believe this is exactly what the Steelcase strive to achieve with the Node chair. I have no links with furniture companies, therefore the only reason I write about a furniture solution via this blog is if I think it’s interesting and potentially very beneficial to educational institutions – which again, I think the Node chair is!

So, what’s so great about the Node chair?

  • Teaching Room Furniture vs Teaching Styles

I have found that teaching room furniture, or perhaps its use, has not kept up with the changing teaching [Read more…]