GOOGLE on Creative Spaces and Design Thinking

Colleagues John Warburton and Melanie Gurney visited Google Sydney with me recently. Shane Nantasis our fabulous host took us on an informative, enlightening and very interesting tour of the two Google buildings.  We studied: the different work, kitchen and fun spaces; the suite of Google APPS; plus we were lucky to meet other Googlers and have a discussion on how Government could find new ways to be creative, reduce bureaucracy and engage with our constituents, especially youth. How can Council get over the stigma of 'not fast'.

Down under Room

Our host tells us Googlers believe that the space we work in is critical to the success of an organisation. They do a lot of investigation around spaces. It's important to have a range of different spaces for an organisations culture to thrive Shane says. Google has a “Real Estate and Workplace Services’officer in each country.

All offices around the world are different – there are no generic designs except that every campus/office has a Games Room.  They want working at Google to be an 'EXPERIENCE" - fun and quirky.  Spaces in Sydney have Australian themes such as the Eski Café, the Lodge, The Downunder Room, to name only a few.

Interestingly Kitchens/Cafes are very important to Google.  They believe their cafe's can be some of the best spaces for brainstorming. Eating and Whiteboards mix well, we are told.  Food and coffee are the attractors that bring people together, often those that might not normally mix.  In fact GMAIL was invented in a KITCHEN. 

Eski Cafe

People need TIME for innovation and SPACE to think.

When you work on different things, you need different spaces.

Googlers have dedicated spaces where they can store their own photos, painting and mess but then they can move around and work in different spaces. People are not sitting in silo'd spaces but talking and relating to each other in open plan with then a range of mixed spaces - tear drop break out spaces for meetings; informal kitchen bump spaces; of course the treadmill and we also found quiet spaces including a couple of meditation/sleep pods in the library. BOOTHS we are told are silly, for one reason, the acoustics.  

Viewing APPS in the CLOUD

 Google admit that measuring the importance of creative work spaces is difficult as it’s intangible however to some extent it is can be measured through productivity.  They do a mix of ‘observation study’s’ combined with staff interviews and meetings, prototypes, feedback ‘design surveys’, and experts intuition to finalise the design that will work best in different buildings. 'Design Thinking' in other words.

On Design Thinking

Shane agreed that Design Thinking can be difficult to explain.  He said it’s more an exercise for the brain – its about changing how we think and being comfortable in new thinking.  It’s about taking the blinkers off and getting rid of the tunnel vision.    It’s OK to think differently.  We need to be aware that people stop ideas straight up – it's easy to say ‘no that won’t work' without giving more time and thought into the idea. It’s Brain Training to shift thinking.  We can use Design Thinking to create an event, design a service differently or brainstorm a new idea. It also includes partnering with new company’s not thought of before.

Partnerships!!!

Why not create interesting and different partnerships.  Google and Council could be a great combination!

Lastly, we got a glimpse of Google's culture. The biggest barriers to collaboration are workplace culture and management structure. It's a very transparent organisation which is extremely important to Googlers.  They believe honesty, trust and confidentiality are of highest importance.  So I thought I'd finish this Blog with Google's values.

On Google Values

"Top 10 things we know to be true"

• Focus on the user and all else will follow.
• It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
• Fast is better than slow.
• Democracy on the web works
• You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
• You can make money without doing evil
• There’s always more information out there
• The need for information crosses all borders
• You can be serious without a suit
• Great just isn't good enough. We see being great at something as a starting point, not an endpoint

Innovative Characteristics of Company's I visited

What are the positive point’s government could take on and how? Discussion at Canberra ‘unconference’

	IDEO, DESIGN FIRMS, GOOGLE, FACEBOOK, APPLE’s OF THE WORLD	LOCAL GOVERNMENT equivalent	GAP	HOW CAN WE CLOSE THE GAP?
Creative Spaces / work spaces / lunch spaces	·         No booths – open plan - collaborative ·         Diverse range of spaces with plenty of options from open plan to quiet space for focused work to café-style ·         Cozy’s – smaller meeting rooms for 2 ·         Plants, benches, story boards ·         Personalised spaces ·         Creative communal kitchen spaces that spark creativity and collaboration when people bump into each other	·         Space not intelligently used – out of date designs ·         Booths which block creativity ·         Tired colours ·         Confined to the same space – 1 desk ·         Corporate hierarchies ·         Little time for  idea generation	Lack well designed, carefully considered, high-performance open plan offices that have a mix of facilities and a range of meeting spaces Need healthy interactive environments with a mixture of inspiring working spaces	Consider design and behavioural change management to assess right mix – how do we get take up for this?
Partnerships / relationships	·         Leaders	·         Traditional, Conservative ·         Leaders in some areas ·         Not a great deal of thinking outside the square regarding partnering with uni students or entrepreneurs or innovation companies ·         Keeping up instead of ‘leading the way’	Need to knock down old traditional walls	Connect with the private sector and involve them – how to promote this need though?
Collaboration	·         Cutting edge research ·         Collaborate up front with key segments/customers	·         No discipline or culture here. Internally councils don’t usually collaborate well and especially up front. ·         Varies – depends on individuals and business units in councils ·         Silo’s	Need to build some capacity here – what are the tools?
Tools	·         Design thinking – human centric approach ·         Agile – holds people accountable ·         HACK-A-TON	·         Data centric approach ·         Six sigma ·         Lean ·         Project Management ·         Don’t showcase great stuff that is done.	Warringah has great tools and sharing where we can – however many local councils way behind Still more creativity available – eg Prezzi, mapped stories, creative presentations etc
Speed	·         Work fast ·         Develop ideas fast ·         Rapid prototyping ·         Hack-a-thons	·         Slow ·         Lack innovation and skills to develop ideas fast ·         Lack of leadership ·         Unnecessary bureaucracy slows things down
Flexibility	·         Flexible work practises ·         “Fail fast, fail early’ approach	·         Red Tape ·         Probity checks ·         Very low tolerance for failure and learning from failing. Fear of failure can mean speed and flexibility is compromised
Accountability	Accountable to: ·         The organisation ·         Teams – highly accountable and rely on each other ·         Cross team work ·         Perform or perish	Accountable to: ·         the community ·         the organisation - but some confusion here ·         Teams – accountable to team members ·         Cross team work - No accountability, often struggle to understand who accountable to and what for ·         Protected	Local govt obviously is different to private sector – more transparent, have to justify existence and jobs  are often more secure There is still a  perception that public sector is slow, inefficient and staff unaccountable
Fun based interaction	·         Encouraged	·         Varies ·         Personality driven	How build into the workplace?
Senior Management /Leaders visible	·         Founders still run many of these companies ·         Q&A with CEO every Friday with a beer