Business Needs Interviews

Leadership interviews capture direction; business needs interviews capture operation. Spatial demand is created at the level of work processes — which teams must sit near which, what requires confidentiality, where focus is non-negotiable, how customers enter the building, what the management rhythm physically requires. These facts do not live in HR systems or surveys. They live in the heads of the people who run the work, and they are the difference between a workplace concept and a workplace that functions on a Tuesday.

• In parallel with or immediately after Leadership Interviews
• Before Taxonomy Spatial Benchmarking, so supply is assessed against articulated demand
• Whenever a function claims 'unique needs' — test the claim at the source
• Before Stacking and Blocking, which is unbuildable without adjacency evidence

• Heads of function or their operational deputies — the people who run the work, not represent it
• Typically 15–30 interviews depending on organisational complexity; group interviews of 2–3 acceptable for closely related teams
• Operational roles often missed: facilities, reception, security, mailroom, labs, customer service
• Conducted by the strategy team with a consistent protocol

• Organisational chart and headcount per function from Data Requests
• Leadership interview hypotheses relevant to each function
• Current floor plans and seating allocations
• Interview protocol covering: core processes, team interdependency, critical adjacencies, collaboration patterns, focus requirements, confidentiality, technology requirements, customer interaction, learning, innovation, management rhythm, mobility, operational constraints

1. Structure each interview around the work, not the workplace: walk through the function's core processes end to end before asking anything spatial.
2. Map interdependencies concretely: which teams does this function exchange work with daily, weekly, rarely — and is that exchange scheduled, spontaneous, physical or digital?
3. Distinguish adjacency preference from adjacency requirement: 'we like being near Finance' versus 'month-end close fails without same-floor access to Finance'. Demand evidence for every claimed requirement.
4. Document focus and confidentiality needs by process: what work is disrupted by interruption, what conversations cannot be overheard, what screens cannot be seen, what is regulated.
5. Capture customer and visitor interaction: who comes in, how often, what they must see and must not see.
6. Record the management rhythm: stand-ups, team days, review cycles — the recurring events that create predictable spatial demand.
7. Note mobility and operational constraints: field roles, shift patterns, equipment, storage, regulatory requirements.
8. Consolidate into function profiles with a claimed-versus-evidenced marker on every spatial assertion.

• Adjacency claims that describe history ('we've always sat there') rather than process
• Every function claiming maximum confidentiality and maximum collaboration simultaneously — probe until it resolves
• Interdependencies both sides describe differently — one team's 'constant collaboration' is the other's 'occasional email'
• Operational constraints leadership does not know exist (equipment, regulation, shift overlap)
• Territorial defence disguised as functional requirement

• Function profiles: processes, interdependencies, adjacencies, focus, confidentiality, technology, customer interaction, rhythm, constraints
• Interdependency matrix across all functions
• Claimed-versus-evidenced register of spatial requirements
• Function-specific questions for the Dynamics Assessment

The interdependency matrix is the primary input to Stacking and Blocking. Function profiles calibrate Taxonomy Alignment and the Kit of Parts. The claimed-versus-evidenced register defines what the Occupancy Assessment must verify. Confidentiality and customer-interaction findings flow into Architectural Guidance zoning.

Separating genuine process requirements from territorial defence is the core interpretive act. Interviewees rationalise preference as necessity fluently; the strategist must probe respectfully without accepting or dismissing, then verify against observed behaviour.

• Asking what space the function wants instead of how its work operates
• Accepting adjacency claims without process evidence
• Interviewing only office-based knowledge functions and missing operational roles
• Recording answers without cross-checking interdependency claims against the counterpart function
• Treating the interviews as complete demand evidence — they capture articulated demand, which Dynamics and Occupancy must test

At a media company, the legal team claimed a full-floor confidentiality requirement justifying dedicated enclosed space for 40 people. Process walkthrough showed confidential work concentrated in six roles handling litigation; the rest was standard contract review. The evidenced requirement became a secure suite for eight plus bookable confidential rooms — releasing capacity that changed the stacking plan for the entire building.