Why EVERY Architecture firm needs a Digital HQ - even if you are not fully remote.

Last week I posted the following question :

Does your architecture firm have a digital HQ?

It didn't get much traction (which is OK). Still, those who responded were companies that have gone entirely remote (or at least operate remote-first), which, if I'm being honest, were not the answers that I was trying to attract, but I also wonder if I was asking the right question.

As architecture firms, like every other industry, struggle with return-to-office policies and balancing the demands of the current workload with the desire for added flexibility, the Digital HQ has become more necessary than ever.

Why?

Because if your firm does or is interested in any of the following:

• Allowing individuals to work at least one day a week from home
• Providing extra flexibility around when people work (i.e., allowing for greater flexibility of their hours within the office)
• Have at least one person that works entirely remotely the majority of the time
• Work on projects that are geographically distributed that involve any amount of traveling by individuals in the firm
• Spending more time in the field or with clients, out of the office, for relationship and business development can'tses
• Wants to have the infrastructure in place that allows employees to work from anywhere when they can’t get into the can't (especially, for instance, following national disasters)

Then it would help if you had a Digital HQ to enable your teams to do their best work.

What is a Digital HQ?

Slack (the company where I work) has what I believe is the BEST definition of the Digital HQ:

A digital headquarters, or HQ, is a digital place that is connected, flexible, and inclusive for everyone to be a part of and contribute to, regardless of location. A true diisn't workplace isn't defined by where people gather but by how they feel included in the collectively shared mission of a company.

We consider ourselves Digital-First, but we also strongly believe that Digital-First doesn’t mean never in person. Our Digital HQ is where collaboration, connection, and work happen and everyone can engage, collaborate, and get work done together, no matter where they are working from.

Consider the following:

When looking at the various ways a company can work, whether all in-person, all remote, or hybrid.

A Hybrid workplace is THE MOST DIFFICULT workplace to implement well.

That’s because everyone in the company essentially has to act if the organization is entirely remote so that:

• everyone has access to all the resources they need to successfully do their work no matter where and when this happens
• someone who missed a meeting (maybe they were double booked) can catch-up
• when you add a new team member to a project or the office, you can onboard them intentionally and get them up to speed quickly
• if there’s an emergency where you have to bring in a firm leader (who has otherwise been tangential to the project but not involved in the day-to-day) to solve the crisis, they have access to all the decisions and conversations made up to the point

I think I have a Digital HQ?!?

While I wish I could say that one tool a Digital HQ makes, one tool a Digital HQ does not make.

When designing a Digital HQ, you have to understand the needs of your firm’s needs, workflows, and processes and figure out the best way to give everyone access to those tools.

Second, and most important to the success of the Digital HQ, you have to ensure that EVERYONE in that firm is working on the same set of tools internally (it’s even better if you are in a position to bring your clients on to your tools too, but I realize that everyone doesn’t have that ability).

So, for instance, if your firm:

• is using email, text, slack, teams, google meet, phone calls, etc., all internally to communicate with one another
• has documents stored across multiple different cloud servers including but not limited to DropBox, Box, Google Drive, and more
• does not have a central knowledge database as well as the ability to record and respond to frequently asked questions for everything related to HR, Business Operations, and Project management

Then you have the start of a Digital HQ, but it could be more productive for getting work done. I would argue that most companies have the beginning of what can make a successful Digital HQ - but they have not fully adopted operations, processes, and policies that make it productive.

Through the pandemic, many firms may have adopted these tools as bandaids, but what needs to happen is a redesign of the way we work and a willingness to question how effective we were working the old way so we can design a better way of working and collaborating as we advance.

What makes a successful Digital HQ?

Ultimately a well-designed Digital HQ will do the following:

• Break down silos: Not only departmental silos but team silos. The digital HQ should be a space where everyone can share knowledge, lessons, tips, tricks, cultural insights, etc., and still have their unique identity as an individual come through.
• Embrace flexibility: The Digital HQ makes it easier for individuals to get work done faster because they have access to everything they need to get work done, which helps facilitate quicker decision-making processes.
• Automate work: We haven’t gone into this in this particular article (stay tuned for more), but the best Digital HQs help firms automate tasks that take away from meaningful work.

Designing a productive Digital HQ

So are you ready to take the Digital HQ you probably have and make it work for you? Here are five tips to get you started.

1. Ask everyone about their preferred method of communication and why they prefer to use it, so you can decide what platform you want to use internally. (Keep in mind that tools like Slack make it easier for individuals to get added to project channels and see a history of all the decisions that have happened historically, this is harder to do if all of your internal communications are in email.)
2. Take stock of all your employees' tools to get their work done. This includes encouraging them to write down some tools where they may have started their account to create something for work - like Canva, Figma, or even where they may be pulling REVIT scripts from. And design your Digital HQ by giving access to all the tools everyone needs. (Remember that the Digital HQ is not a single tool but a set of tools everyone needs to get their work done no matter where they are working from.)
3. Figure out what your tool stack looks like for your Digital HQ, and ensure that everyone has access to everything they need to get their work done, build working relationships with one another, and give feedback to leaders within the firm. (Besides moving all team and project interactions to your Digital HQ, don’t forget the fun interactive conversations you have with co-workers regularly. Create channels and projects around ERGs (employee resource groups like those supporting EDI) and social interests (binge-worthy TV shows, cooking and baking, sports, etc.).
4. Look at all your processes and determine which ones you need to keep or redesign to fit a hybrid workflow better. (For instance, get in the habit of recording all of your meetings so that if someone misses a meeting, they can go back and listen to it in their own time. Meeting notes are great, but I find (especially for client meetings) that sometimes one person interprets what the client is trying to say differently from others. So while meeting notes are great, sometimes they only truly reflect a part of the conversation, and a recording lets individuals who were not there revisit the conversation.)
5. Finally, get everyone in the firm to commit to using the Digital HQ! (As with any digital tool, including the Digital HQ - bad data in = bad data out; also, no data in = no data out. For your Digital HQ to be helpful, everyone needs to be using it! This includes finding ways to capture impromptu meetings (especially decisions) in the office (or on the road) for those who were not there in the moment.)

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