Encouraging a culture of collaboration through an agile methodology
Pivotal,
London
Businesses across every sector are asking themselves how they can become more collaborative. Pivotal built its culture to encourage collaboration, and our goal is to help them create a workplace that enables it.
At Pivotal, every day starts at 09:06 sharp, one of the many quirks making this company unique, that helps us understand its culture and the development of the project in The Bower Building at Old Street.
Collaborative culture
At 09:06, the team gathers to briefly discuss the challenges they face or help they may require in the coming day.
This experience permeates throughout every element of Pivotal’s culture, starting with the large reception desk-cum-collaboration space. Welcoming people into the space, it also quickly immerses staff and visitors in the buzz of the organisation.
The reception extends into a large dining and social space used throughout the day for meals, social activities and informal meetings.
“When you walk in you see people working, you see people collaborating. Even if this is the first time you’ve walked into a Pivotal space, you can immediately see the buzz of people working together and building great products.”
Robbie Clutton, Director
Pivotal
Semi-private project spaces punctuate the open plan, allowing teams to get away from their desks to tackle a problem. Reflecting Pivotal’s open culture, collaboration doesn’t happen behind closed doors.
New ways of working
Pivotal are firm advocates of co-working, and team members are paired off with clients to work in the same collaborative way they work with each other. Not only does this mean our teams are close to their clients; they are essentially viewed as “partners”.
We considered how to make access to space equal for everyone. Every project team is serviced by informal meeting spaces in its vicinity, equipped with its own whiteboards for diagramming and the technology needed to support their specific requirements.
It became clear early in the process that more flexibility would be required to keep up with Pivotal’s rapid growth in Europe, so plans were made for the densification and future expansion within the space, without compromising the integrity of the design.
“We came to think of the project as units of space, that would shift and adapt to our needs as they evolved.”
Robbie Clutton, Director
Pivotal
“The office feels very much like it has been designed with a purpose, with little touches everywhere that make it pleasurable to use.”
Diego Iaconelli, IT EMEA Lead
Pivotal Labs
Communicating design
As part of the launch, we built an interactive tour of the space. This enabled employees to understand the upcoming change, and to build excitement about their new workplace.
- Status Completed
- Area 35,000 sq-f
- Completion date 2016
- Location London
- Photographer Alex Kendrick
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