This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Friday, June 20, 2003
(Serious) Friday Fun - The Bathroom Effect -- More on my recent theme of communication and collaboration -- from The Salt Lake Tribune. It's an article about Pixar (of Toy Story and Nemo fame) that, in part, discusses the design of the workplace...
""Every guy had an office, and the [wings] were separated so every office could have natural light. But what happened was that everybody became isolated, and no one knew what was going on." So the multiple-building idea was scrapped, in favor of the single unit.
"That wasn't enough for Pixar's CEO, Steve Jobs. "He thought it was really important that there only be one bathroom in the building, for all 700 people who work here," Greenberg says.
"Here's the "bathroom effect" theory, as Greenberg explains it: "If you have bathrooms that are scattered throughout the building, you use the bathroom nearest to where you're sitting. If there was one bathroom, all kinds of people would come together and talk with one another all the time -- you'd meet different people if you were waiting in line. It would enhance communication, and you'd be talking about things outside of work.""
Yep. That would keep the communication flowing. Think of all the real connection that happened in Ally McBeal's fictional uni-loo.
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