Who is Jan Schmidt? What does he do? To whom does he answer? Whose client is he working for? Which area of expertise does he work in?
Jan Schmidt works for KPMG. He has been hired by the World Bank in Washington DC to do consulting work. He is an expert in ergonomic environments and business work spaces. The bank is having problems with productivity in its research department and they have asked Jan to come up with a solution for the situation.

The following is a preliminary report submitted to the client with recommendations.

Situation.
The research department at the World Bank has been having internal communication problems. This has resulted in poor productivity and low office morale. We have been observing the teams for the past three weeks to evaluate the communication behavior amongst them. Here is an analysis of the situation.

Observations.
There are twenty people working in the department. The offices are set up so that they communicate by telephone and by email. On occasion we have observed that they use the internal network chat system to resolve problems. Furthermore, the coffee machine is located on the ground floor so the R&D team seldom chat around coffee breaks. Most of them eat at their desks.

Recommendations.
The preliminary observations reveal that one of the possible recommendations for this situation is to set up an open space. The walls in the department are modular so it would not be too difficult to do this. Preliminary estimates for the costs are around $35,000 to complete the project.

Jan Schmidt
Senior Ergonomic Consultant KPMG
Washington DC