into practice however, it needs milestones and a more concrete plan of how and when to tackle and implement it. Therefore we have put together a rough sketch of how the next month may look. We have divided the time into 4 phases:
Renovation Phase:
June 2011 – August 2011
As of today, we are entering a phase in which the ground floor of H10 will undergo quite some changes. A design team closely related to the community will plan out how to set up the whole interior as well as exterior. Eventually the community will renovate the entire interior of the space up to a point where it is ready to be furnished. The renovation may drag a bit into the next phase, however the major works should be done by September.
Renovating the place themselves, the community will draw of its network wherever it is possible. Not only to save money but also to start the space in the right culture, they will co-create what will become a co-creation space.
Finishing off phase:
September 2011 -December 2011
In this period most construction-work should be done. While there is still some minor building to be done, the space can slowly be
rules and opening times can be discussed.
How will the social business fund be set up? Who will be part of the board? How shall it be operated? These are questions that could be tackled with the help of GCL.
Further expanding of the network, partners, supplies and resources could additionally be a good focus point of this phase.
Testing Phase:
January 2012- March 2012
Now that the space is renovated and furnished, it is time for the community to actively start using it. What works? What doesn’t? How should the furniture be rearranged? What could be changed? How does the citizen wall work?
This phase should be seen as a testing and experimenting phase for the community in an informal setting. It can be done through working from the space and just using it frequently.
Weekly gathering of the community, but especially the core team could be used as a forum to evaluate and reflect upon these
questions and the present events. Both failures and success’ should be recorded in an early phase and there should be a way to evaluate in a later stage if learnings have been implemented. It is a good idea to build up a methodology around this that will not only make it easier for the community members to communicate from, but also set a certain tone for the culture that will be imbedded in H10.
Moreover this phase should be used to actively start thinking about who to invite as initial citizens. Consciously building up a bigger network, the kick-off can be promoted towards individuals. This can also be done through a series of regular events such as concerts or
When leaving this phase the community already has a detailed plan for what to do and when to do it. This plan includes a schedule covering all repetitive and all major events.
And then at some point in late March, early April it is time to finally kick it off properly. The party has been carefully planned in the previous weeks by a party committee. What is it H10 wants to
communicate with the event? Who do you want to communicate it to? And how? The right people have been invited, all preperations have been made, and the weather shows itself form its best side, then it’s time to celebrate big time!
We recommend the community to schedule it so that the Kaos Pilots can join the party of the year before they leave for Bogotá ;)
Operating the co-working Space: April 2012 and on
The fundament is set, things have been prototyped, tried over and over again. Now it is time to get into business. With its member base constantly growing, the core team can slowly estimate the turnover after a couple of month. Are there too few users? Do they need to make more promotion? Or is it actually too full? Opening hours and rules can be adjusted.
The core members should still use a weekly meeting for reflections and decisions. But as time goes by this could be made into a monthly routine.
After some months the core team will review the budgets together with GCL. How much profit is the place making? What is needed to be reinvested into the space and is it realistc to put 500€ into the social business fund every month? If all goes well, after about a year the first social businesses can be supported.
And then after a year or two the co-working is running so well that the space gets limited. Now there is the possibility to expand the co-working to a bigger location. This will be done by Dominik and Albrecht. They will search for a new location, possibly with the help of the municipality. They will revise their existing co-working space and set up a new business plan to fit the needs.
Some important points to keep in mind
First of all it is of crucial importance that the community will use the existing positive energy as a momentum to get things done.
A key element of making the working process as positive as possible is communication. Easily said, but very difficultly implemented it is worth trying to build up a common language around H10. This should from the beginning be supported by visualizations such as a well- designed Gantt diagram placed in the hallway to have a very clear and visual plan of the construction process. Defining very clear ends and beginnings and further responsibilities and required resources could ease up the communication within the group.
We are emphazising this as an unclear communication at the beginning of long-term processes often leads to confusion and disagreements within groups. Due to all the new implementations things will propably still be very messy. Therefore, everything that ease up the communication within the community and towards potential users, neighbours and residents would be positive.
Preparations to protect the privacy, both for neighbours and residents, must be executed as the first priority. The whole rennovation of the workspaces and the use of the yard should be done regarding this priority.
Sharpening up of the physical frames and hosting the events should be seen in a team building perspective. Using a DIY (do it yourself) approach to this phase can both be cheap and also establish ownership for future users.
The trial and error process should be highly valued. The community can test things off and see what they approve as elements of success. According to Stein1 it is in this primal stage that cultures are created.
What later will have an important role in the further life of the project.
1 Stein: ”Organizational Culture and Leadership”chapter 3
This applies to the working method, as well as working language, efficiency and energy. It will define the culture of H10. Also the initial steps for creating formal an informal structure can be created here. Besides the actual renewal, an important element is to have a more or less continues flow of events after the renovation is done. This will first of all keep the place running and maintain or even expand the network.
Before the actual launch of the co-working space very detailed preparations for daily business must be made. Responsibilities, timeplaning and formal roles must be obvious for everybody already involved in the project. All learning’s and experiences gathered from this and the previous phase should be taken into consideration for the preparations of the coming phase.
The reason why we recommend postponing the official opening until the spring, is to be able to use the exterior space for events during the start up phase as well as the chance of using the months prior to prototype.
Description of risk factors
While we are painting an ideal picture in the implementation plan we are aware of the fact that things can and mostlikely will go wrong. To reduce the cosequences we have tried to reduce the risk factors in the concept. These are the remaining risk factors we have determined throughout the different phases:
1. Privacy of residents and neighbors is not protected 2.Not being able to maintain a positive energy level 3.Not implementing learnings
4.Unclear agreements on organisational structure 5.Not enough users
6.Budgets are not adding up once running 7.Mixing up community events with co-working
In the following graph you can see a risk map of how likely we see the risks to happen and how consequential we rate them. The rating is based on all the research and work we have done.
Not having enough users and the risk that the budgets are not working out is quite low, both in probability based on the research we have done and consequence, since the running costs are quite low and there are already community members who want to use the space.
Though we rate the chance that the energy level will drop is low, the consequences would be high as it is the community and the soft skills that keep the whole project together. Therefore this is a risk to be aware of but not worry too much about.
A factor to keep an eye on already during the early renovation phase is how to maintain the privacy for both neighbors and core members. What rules should be put up? How should violations be handled? How to integrate the direct neighbors and how to deal with complains? An openness is required towards the residents – both in the communication as well as towards critique.
3 and 4 are both more or less addressing the organisational structure. It is important to be concious of how the decision-making process is put up. Who is in charge of putting things into practice? How to handle disagreements within the community, and within the core team?2
The last important point is to make sure that the community activities, especially the church activities but also concerts and potential political gatherings, are not mixed up with the daily co-working business. This doesn’t mean that the community should hide their faith to anyone. But in order to display a professional image there must be drawn some kind of line. This can be important to citizens working from the space as they professionally cannot take a stand – be it religiously or politically- if this could alienate clients and partners. That said, the community can of course host gatherings and events in H10 after