Part 2- AV Standards: Stakeholder Advantage

Part 2 of the 3-part series on AV Standards

A friend in the industry asked me "Jon, what are standards" when I shared part 1 of this mini-series and I replied with:

A well-crafted set of documents that define company-wide Audio Visual Systems Standards.

It's an art and a science.

The goal is to get >80% of the design needs met with standards

We will peel the onion back a bit more to look at stakeholder benefits.

Improving Budgets: How It Cuts Costs

Design is a complex and time-consuming task - From discovery to understanding a culture, and talking to this person and that person. If they are really trying to understand the landscape of your company, user surveys, and customer feedback, etc. (in our opinion, these are must-haves in the process)

If this happens every time, it's a waste of resources. The financial burden of starting a new project each time has a phrase - "The inertia of initiation". This phrase captures the resistance and burden of the effort, resources, and uncertainty involved with starting a new project.

Standards in return, create predictable pricing all around. A few points:

• Consolidated Costs of design
• The majority of design costs are once per design cycle, not per project
• Standardized hardware choices allow for negotiating with manufacturers on pricing
• Locked designs reduce variance in cost introduced by AV vendors

Less Risk, More reward (Risk Management)

"Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing." - Warren Buffett.

Risk management in our world is a bit ambiguous depending on the perspective you're looking at it from - As design consultants, our best interest is the client's best interest; It's what keeps us valuable at the end of the day. We are on no one else's payroll.

Do you have a playbook of your Audio Visual Systems, how they are to be installed, what requirements they need, and how the entire video conference experience comes together for your employees and clients?

Or do you simply get everyone together, start from scratch, and look up that mountain every time?

There are inherent risks.

That's why standards are important, there's no wiggle room when you've baked a complete and well-thought-out design.?Standardized systems are configured to meet a defined set of performance criteria, ensuring consistent quality and reliability across all installations.

Reducing the variability for others to make choices will ultimately keep a focused outcome.

Let's read that again (because it's important)

Reducing the variability for others to make choices will ultimately keep a focused outcome.

Dealing with Changes (Change Management)

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future." - John F. Kennedy

Change is constant. The pain of change management - How can standards help?

Standardized systems often have more clear pathways for change management - Procedures for upgrades and changes become more predictable.

The financial stake of investing in standardized systems pays off when you begin to “version” your systems - This is where we have put much thought. It's like the version of iOS or Windows on your device.

We aim to foster an agile process to respond to change: Standardized systems, supported by comprehensive documentation, facilitate quicker adaptations to change, whether due to technological advancements or evolving business needs.

Modifications, changes, and complete redesigns, all historically cataloged. Dramatically reduce the effort of searching through emails and chat messages about what they did at the XYZ office that worked well.

Accelerating outcomes: Efficiency

This concept funnels into all of the above but it needs its own segment.

Well-crafted documentation provides clear guidelines, installation protocols, and troubleshooting procedures. This clarity accelerates deployment, reduces errors, and ensures quick resolution of issues.

From above, "reducing the variability for others to make choices will ultimately keep a focused outcome"

Coordinating with architectural teams, general contractors, and other disciplines and engineers becomes simplified. It's already been thought out and documented; I will be transparent it does require some massaging with the design team but the pain is removed.

For new projects, you can issue bids to multiple vendors faster with standard bid templates; Truly "Apples to Apples" (and we know AV vendors are notorious for bloating and complicating proposals)

Faster deployment with install and configuration requirements upfront with vendors, not decided on the job or last minute. Reducing the variability removes the guesswork.

Standardizing AV technology systems across an organization ensures that equipment and procedures are uniform. This uniformity reduces the time needed for planning, implementation, training, and troubleshooting. I'll dive more into this in part 3: The ripple effect.

Consistent, uniform spaces and systems created a better User Experience. (check out my article on AV is UX)

Question:

How should we budget for this?

I was reluctant to include this but it does come up often. From the surface, we account for how many systems, types, and more importantly complexity of systems. Then we can get into how much detail that organization wants in their standards - Down to the cabling diagram & zip ties in the table.

Happy to chat on how to plan and budget your AV standards initiatives.

TL:DR

• Standards can provide predictable budgets
• Standards help with Risk Management
• Standards help with Change Management
• Standards help with time & efficiency
• It's the "cookbook" to your AV program - Just follow the instructions.

The next part of the series - Part 3: Building the Catalog and The Ripple Effect

Let me know what you like or dislike about this, we are continuing to cultivate collaboration and interaction with the community.