Game-Changing Facilities Team Playbooks

“We practice till we can’t get it wrong, not till we get it right” – Nick Saban

Coaches use playbooks to organize and communicate their team’s strategies, tactics, and plays. Developed over time, with input from athletes and staff members, these guides are invaluable for training and practice, game planning, consistency and repeatability, development, and evolution. Sometimes players memorize key plays. NFL and NBA teams use sophisticated communications systems to call plays and adjust to constant changes, but still, there’s a degree of improvisation when things don’t go exactly to plan.

That same level of execution, precision and confidence are in play at facilities, all thanks to the use of Facility Playbooks. Playbooks for facilities can be game-changers -- just like in football and basketball.

Facilities Playbooks provide step-by-step instructions or procedures for specific situations. Their primary purpose is to guide action in predefined scenarios -- focusing on short- to medium-term activities which may be updated frequently to reflect changing conditions or lessons learned.

“Facilities related playbooks are key to successfully operating, maintaining and training new FMs at any location,” said Steven Stierstorfer, Facilities Management, J.S. Held.

“The key is how the actual playbook is properly maintained and updated,” said Stierstorfer. “It takes time and energy to keep them up to date. Equally important is creating a culture where new ideas are appreciated and tested,” he said.

New facilities team members have so much to learn, understand and track. The key to using a Facility Playbook is to narrow down the focus, keep it simple, and don’t expound too far on any single topic or it quickly becomes too large and daunting.

Ray Pezzuti, Global Director Facilities and Operations at Fried Frank has developed his own version of a Facility Playbook which he calls the Fact Pack.

“Leadership asks the same questions, which can usually be answered with numbers, including square feet, lease expiration dates, numbers of offices. There’s patterns and predictability,” said Pezzuti. “We’ve developed our version of Cliff Notes for department heads so frequently asked questions can easily be answered.”

“People walk into meetings with a pre-conceived notions of what’s going on,” said Ray. “This document gives leadership a clue into what’s actually going on.  This is a living document which is transparent, tactical and strategic, including upcoming milestones, events, and projects and how things operate vs. reality. It’s more operational than anything.”

Unfortunately, sometimes carving out the time to write a Facility Playbook can be tough given the realities of working short-staffed, dealing with daily maintenance, and emergencies that pop up.

“I’ve started them a few times, but never got the buy-in to give me the resources to complete one,” said Brent Ward from Left Coast Facilities Consulting. “In this day and age of staff retiring, finding and training skilled workers, a Facility Playbook would seem to be a necessity.”

One possible solution to the challenge of drafting, updating, storing and sharing a Facility Playbook is using a mobile device in the field to record observations, lessons, and best practices.

Here are ways to leverage mobile devices to get started creating a Facility Playbook:

• Take notes about what a playbook should include. Capture your observations on video.
• Take photos of teams at work, so others can learn by observation.
• Share playbook drafts, so teams can critique and add details.
• Be prepared to revise, rework, and reword for clarification.
• Store the playbook on the cloud, not on a hard drive, or in a binder, where it’ll sit unused.

The best coaches are constantly revising their playbooks based on team strengths and weaknesses, new information that becomes available, and the changing state of buildings and equipment at facilities.

If you think of yourself as your facility team coach and apply some of the best practices from the best facility playbooks, you and your team are likely to execute tasks more smoothly with examples from the past that continue to work, along with new ways to succeed with operational excellence.

For an up close and personal look at how sports, facilities and fans interact,  check out our blog, Inside the World of Sports Facility Management.