You don’t often hear Lean specialists existing in the real estate world. A lean real estate environment has not yet made its way into common thinking. However, I’d like to throw a couple of starting points of thinking lean about real estate:
- Better alignment of real estate against business goals.
- Use technology to enable more flexible work environments.
- Align lease terms with business objectives – not with market characteristics.
- Focus on doing more with less – reduce on-site space that doesn’t add value to the business (storage, print/copy)
- Reevaluate the function and layout every 2 years to ensure alignment with the above four objectives.
Being lean doesn’t necessarily mean have a 100 sf per person real estate portfolio. Lean is a mindset of having your locations in alignment with their use and eliminating unnecessary waste.