Why the Right Team Determines the Success of Workplace Projects
Creating a world-class workspace for your organization is one of the most important initiatives companies can make today to differentiate, facilitate engagement, and create the conditions for people to want to actually get to the office on a regular basis. It’s also key for ensuring your team has the environment to do their best work, both alone and together.
Historically the path to planning, designing and constructing tenant space has not exactly been a straight line. In simplest terms, it is a complex, multi-disciplined exercise that involves a diverse group of players including brokers, designers, architects, engineers, construction, furniture, IT and security professionals. It’s easy to see that the connection between participants can, and often is, fragmented. If the program lacks a cohesive vision, management and execution, the results will show in lower levels of quality control, higher costs, delays, and ultimately, less desirable outcomes. The process is too often treated as a sequence of handoffs rather than what it truly should be, a tightly connected, cohesive team-based approach.
Complexity Demands Collaboration
Complexity is not necessarily a function of the size of a project, but more a reality of the intended use of the workspace. Highly technical space such as labs, health care, and manufacturing requires a more diverse set of capabilities. With that increased complexity the requirements and importance of collaboration increase.
Key design decisions affect every aspect of construction cost and schedule. The coordination of design, engineering and construction teams is imperative at every stage of the process. When these disciplines operate in silos, risk compounds quietly, until it surfaces as cost overruns, delays, or compromised outcomes.
Why Talent Matters as Much as Process
Process, frameworks, and methodologies are important. But in practice, people apply process, they apply their experience, insight, talent and capability. They also apply their ability to work together, interpret and integrate their expertise with the other members of the project team. The ability to play well together and support each other’s efforts cannot be underestimated.
Over the last number of years we have worked on numerous projects, for organizations of all sizes, from all different asset classes and industries including office, health care technology and retail. We’ve had the pleasure of working with some outstanding professionals in brokerage, design, construction, furniture and IT. Through this experience we have forged partnerships and deep, trusting relationships with people and companies including designers, architects, general contractors, and engineers.
What I have come to understand very clearly is that the silver thread that runs through every single successful project is the quality, commitment, and expertise of the entire project team we have curated and their willingness to give us their best, directly aligns with a successful outcome.
· Strong teams anticipate issues rather than react to them
· They communicate with clearly across disciplines
· They solve problems collaboratively instead of defensively
· They share a common goal grounded in quality service delivery
A-Players Change the Outcome
In Good to Great, Jim Collins highlights this principle in clear and concise terms: “First Who, then What.”
Great people, working together can figure out the right path, but the wrong people will fail regardless of the strategy. Great project teams build a culture of discipline with self-motivated "A-players" who are deeply committed and capable, making management less about motivation and more about aligning their talents with the projects core purpose.
In a tenant fit up or construction project, this means:
Selecting partners for capability, not just availability
Prioritizing experience over lowest fee
Ensuring advisors, designers, and construction teams are aligned around outcomes, not just scope
Curating a project team that will operate with the right chemistry and willingness to support each other
A-players elevate the entire team. They reduce friction, improve decision quality, and create momentum when complexity increases, which inevitably it always does.
The Role of Integrated Leadership
Even strong individual professionals require coordination. Without clear leadership and accountability, even talented teams can drift.
An integrated approach where brokerage, advisory, planning, design, construction and project management are aligned from the outset creates:
Better early decisions
Fewer downstream surprises
Greater cost and schedule certainty
Less conflict
This is not about control. It is about orchestration.
The Core Principle
Workplace projects succeed when:
The right professionals are involved early
The team operates with trust and transparency
Collaboration is intentional, not accidental
Experience is valued as risk mitigation and,
You have the best talent around the table
Experience has taught us that understanding and applying these principles is key to starting and finishing a project successfully. It is a fundamental part of our delivery platform. Our standard is made clear to the entire project team upfront and this customer-centric, quality and success-based approach form the foundation of how we serve our clients and partners.
The business we are in is a team sport.
Interested in learning more? Contact us: info@spacewerx.ca