Narrative Box 8

6 – Responsiveness

On-call means ready and waiting to mobilize. It also means trust, born of relationships that build over time as teams work together project after project. Productivity improves along with quality. As part of our work with Northeastern on their Innovation campus — a partnership with industry to incubate and launch new ideas in advanced technology — we had weekly meetings to go over a handful of projects in different stages. Frequently we’d get “breaking news” during the meeting regarding the latest venture to commit to the space. Because they always had limited time and funding to prove viability, the spaces that support these enterprises had to be up and running at record speed. Success hinged as much on creative delivery as it did creative design.