This document discusses how to set up workspaces that encourage creativity and productivity. It summarizes the experiences of MYOB in creating Australasia's largest Agile workspace. MYOB experimented with different workspace configurations and gathered employee feedback to identify four key themes: encourage innovation, enable connection, remind employees of customers, and amplify culture and values. The final workspace included spaces for collaboration, concentration, and socializing as well as technology to facilitate distributed collaboration.

1. Hacking a shopping centre
Creating Australasia's largest Agile workspace
Ben Ross

2. How do creative people set
up their workspace for
productivity and creativity?

4. What works for the most creative people?
Space to collaborate
1. To work
2. To chill …. and work
and
3. Space to work on your own

6. “If a building doesn’t encourage collaboration,
you’ll lose a lot of innovation and the magic
that’s sparked by serendipity”
Steve Jobs (on Pixar’s office)

8. 1. Space to collaborate - work

9. 2. Space to collaborate – more relaxed

10. 3. Space to work on your own

12. 1. Space to collaborate - work

14. 2. Spaces to work on your own

21. Developed hypotheses and experimented in our existing
premises
• Agile walls – how big, how many… what type
• Standup desks – how many, how fit with other desks
• Technology – what works (lync, jira, rally, hangouts…)
• Meeting rooms – how many, how used, by whom
• Team area layouts – Optimum composition, self contained vs
shared areas..

22. Deep customer discovery:
Feedback from our existing customers (our staff!) = Four
themes for the new environment
1. Encourage Innovation
2. Enable Connection
3. Remind us of our Customers
4. Amplify our Culture & Values

24. Individuals and interactions (over process and tools)
Where can 500+ people coalesce in a single space
to enable collaboration and self organization?

27. Slide 27

32. What worked well for MYOB?

33. Local teams - big physical local walls

34. Distributed teams - technology for virtual walls & meetings
Standup VC
camera is here

35. Collaboration & chill out spaces

36. Collaboration & chill out spaces

37. Collaboration & chill out spaces - Campsite

38. Collaboration & chill out spaces

39. Collaboration & chill out spaces - Library

40. Collaboration & chill out spaces - Sport

41. Allow teams to ‘own’ their space

42. Think carefully about technology
Tablets enable staff to
book rooms and see
whether the room is
booked (from afar)

43. What we learned along the way…

45. Customer collaboration (over contract negotiation)
Requirements cannot be fully collected at the beginning of the
software development cycle, therefore continuous customer or
stakeholder involvement is very important.
As soon as we moved in, we made changes on the fly:
• Noise dampening
• Extra showers
• More walls
• More standup desks
• Bike storage,…..

46. Social experiment (noise vs customer connection)
Phone-based support teams
Development team

47. Plan a break-out workspace here….

48. ….. but teams choose to
gather here…

49. Enabled self organisation …..

50. If we could do it again….
Self contained areas
Work
Collaborate
Standup

51. Think carefully about technology
• Staff are unforgiving
– it’s got to be plug
& play
Integrated cabling & connectivity (USB, video
camera, VGA/DVI/HDMI, power, phone…)

52. Think carefully about technology
• A technology cocktail is often needed
• Voice, video and content across multiple locations
including private home offices

53. Try this at your work
1. Learn from the rockstars
2. Listen to your customers (staff)
3. Run experiments
– Take a lean & agile approach to the project (test & learn)
– Don’t bolt anything down
4. Carefully consider how technology is embedded into
your office environment

54. Keen to know more, want to see it first hand?
Drop in, visitors are welcome - ben.ross@myob.com

55. Thanks for listening…
Ben Ross
Follow me @benross50