How do you determine the needs of your facility users?

1 Identify your facility users

Your facility users are the people who occupy, visit, or interact with your facility on a regular basis. They can be your employees, customers, clients, partners, vendors, or other stakeholders. To identify your facility users, you need to consider the purpose, function, and scope of your facility. For example, if you manage a hospital, your facility users may include patients, doctors, nurses, staff, visitors, suppliers, regulators, and so on. You can use different sources of information, such as organizational charts, contracts, surveys, interviews, or observations, to create a list of your facility users and their roles and responsibilities.

2 Assess your facility users' needs

Once you have identified your facility users, you need to assess their needs and expectations from your facility. This means understanding their requirements, preferences, problems, and satisfaction levels with your facility services and systems. You can use various methods and tools to collect and analyze data from your facility users, such as questionnaires, focus groups, feedback forms, service level agreements, performance indicators, or benchmarking. You should aim to gather both quantitative and qualitative data that can help you measure and evaluate your facility users' needs.

3 Prioritize your facility users' needs

After you have assessed your facility users' needs, you need to prioritize them according to their importance and urgency. This means ranking your facility users' needs based on their impact on your facility goals and objectives, as well as their feasibility and cost-effectiveness. You can use different criteria and techniques to prioritize your facility users' needs, such as the Pareto principle, the MoSCoW method, the Kano model, or the SMART criteria. You should also involve your facility users in the prioritization process, as they can provide valuable insights and feedback on their needs.

4 Communicate your facility users' needs

Once you have prioritized your facility users' needs, you need to communicate them to your facility team and stakeholders. This means sharing your findings and recommendations on how to address your facility users' needs and improve your facility services and systems. You can use different formats and channels to communicate your facility users' needs, such as reports, presentations, newsletters, emails, or meetings. You should also ensure that your communication is clear, concise, and consistent, and that you use appropriate language and terminology for your audience.

5 Implement your facility users' needs

Finally, you need to implement your facility users' needs in your facility planning and management. This means translating your facility users' needs into specific actions and projects that can enhance your facility performance and quality. You can use different tools and methods to implement your facility users' needs, such as project management, change management, risk management, or quality management. You should also monitor and evaluate the outcomes and impacts of your implementation, and seek feedback and input from your facility users on the results.

6 Review your facility users' needs

As a facilities engineer, you need to review your facility users' needs periodically and continuously. This means assessing whether your facility users' needs have changed, evolved, or been met, and whether your facility services and systems have adapted, improved, or declined. You can use the same methods and tools that you used to assess your facility users' needs initially, or you can use new ones that are more suitable for your current situation. You should also update and revise your facility users' needs based on your review, and repeat the cycle of determining, prioritizing, communicating, implementing, and reviewing your facility users' needs.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?