Saturday 21 April 2012

Collaboration spaces - a new way of working, office design of the future


Collaboration and innovation are popular catch cries in many organisations these days, but how many organisations actually take the time to do more than just talk about it?

In our industrialised economy there is almost 200 years of managerial processes dedicated to exploiting workers as a ‘pair of hands’, indeed Henry Ford famously remarked "Why when I only want to hire a pair of hands, do I get a whole person?“. The ‘scientific management’ movement that pervades our management thinking and practices today never considered employees as a source of innovation or that employee collaboration should be encouraged.

While many organisations give lip service to innovation and collaboration very few seem to be making the broad range of changes necessary to make it a reality. As McKinsey’s 7’S model shows organisational change requires a wide a range factors all of which need to be addressed to achieve change. Setting a vision or goal for collaboration is only one part of the change process. Another area that needs to be addressed are the structural changes to where and how employees work, as offices, cubicles and assembly lines were designed for productivity and control over employees not collaboration or independent thought. In recent weeks I have been privileged to view a few examples of how some companies are restructuring the way people work.

Microsoft Australia has removed many of its offices, cubicles, desks and allocated parking spaces and replaced them with ‘first in’ open working spaces nobody owns, each employee has a locker/trolley for specific documents, devises. To work they choose a seat and plug in. Microsoft claim this has reduced office space needs by 20%, what is of more interest to this blog is that Microsoft found that staff from different departments are sitting together and interacting in ways they never would have before. In considering this observation Microsoft concluded that humans are creatures of habit and that staff in traditional office environments made ‘tracks’ from the car park, though a specific pathway to their desk, kitchen, bathroom and rarely ventured beyond that. The outcome was that staff rarely intermixed beyond their particular department. The changes are quite new but the feedback from Microsoft management is very positive.

I also visited Google’s Sydney offices, along with the legendary free canteens, play areas and chill out rooms are a host of collaboration spaces. These vary from ‘traditional’ meeting rooms (often with quirks such as the upside-down room where chairs and tables are suspended off the ceiling to provide fun to those video conferencing into the room) to a whole host of informal meeting rooms and meeting spaces resembling a plush bar or cafe. While traditional meeting rooms are ‘booked’ in the usual way, the informal meeting rooms and all other meeting spaces are on a ‘first come basis’. Every meeting room and most meeting spaces come with video conferencing and all have power for device connectivity. There are also groovy single person spaces (with video conferencing of course). The dedication and collaboration of Google staffers is the envy of all other companies, maybe the environment they have created plays its part.

The Wall Street journal also ran an article this week on the trend of unassigned working spaces, while they note companies have been motivated by cost factors they too are discovering the collaboration benefits of these arrangements.

Paradoxically one of the last bastions of personal cubicles and private spaces seem to be our universities, the very places where innovation and collaboration are supposed to endemic. In the faculty I where I teach part time, each permanent staffer gets their own little lockable office (swinging a cat inside could be a challenge for lower ranking academics), there is a kitchen area and breakout area but it is sterile and uninviting and I never see anyone using it, let alone lounging near-by to chance bumping into others. To add to the sense of isolation the departments of the faculty are spread out across the campus, not only is the opportunity for mixing ‘accidentally’ with other departments in the same faculty limited, the likelihood of informal contact with other faculties is almost non-existent. Of course there are research groups and plenty of meetings but it could be so much more. This could be acceptable if it was not for the call for more cross-discipline research that is considered essential if academia is going to help solve societies biggest dilemmas and contribute positively to human well being. Perhaps re-modelling the university and redefining the meaning of ‘faculty’ would create the environment for true collaboration.

If collaboration is essential to your business, what are you doing to ensure the environment you create truly supports human interaction?

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Saturday 14 April 2012

The commoditisation of scale and other technology disruptions


In a recent Harvard Business Review blog Maxwell Wessel wrote a thought provoking piece on the commoditization of ‘scale’. Wessel argues that a major bastion of industrial revolution competitive advantage the ‘economy of scale’, where very large organisations gain advantages in the market due to their large size (scale), effectively creating a barrier to new entrants and smaller players in the market is becoming commoditized and therefore no longer confers competitive advantage due to advances in technology which enable any size of company to access the advantages of scale. He asserts “in today's world, you don't need to have scale to enjoy scale”. For example even micro companies operating out of a residential garage can access the global market over the internet for very small outlay, compared historically with the need for expensive distribution channels a physical presence in each country and expensive advertising to reach the same market. This will radically change the nature of competition in the economy and lead to hyper-specialisation. Wessel’s blog is well worth reading.

The commoditisation of scale is just one of many ways emerging technologies are revolutionising businesses and economies, it also illustrates just how disruptive these changes will ultimately be. Technology has already enabled the ‘global supply chain’ with outsourcing to the lowest cost market, the internet has radically changed digital distribution especially audio, print and visual media and  3D printing is set to revolutionise many areas of production to name just a few. It is indeed an exciting time.

This is leading to many commentators to call for fundamentally new ways of organising and managing businesses, one Australian forum ‘Building the Organisation of Tomorrow” on linked-in provides a fascinating forum on the changing nature of organisations. It is well worth monitoring for the latest thinking on organisational change.


Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au


Wednesday 28 March 2012

Should information on the internet be certified for credibility?


Once upon a time IT was a black box managed by introverted magicians who were kept out of sight if not out of mind in the back rooms and cupboards of an organisation. IT is still complex, in many ways it is much more complex than 20 years ago, there is certainly many less ‘user serviceable parts’. Conversely it is also exponentially easier to use, in the way a car is increasingly complex but easier to drive than ever, some even park themselves. My teenage daughters know nothing of the underlying file systems or programming logic that underlies a modern laptop, yet they use the technology and have a relationship with it, that is radically different to my experience of technology. This simplification in the use of IT and the explosion in communications and information it has spawned what has been referred to as the democratisation of information.

At the same time, experience in the US shows that today’s college students are loosing the ability to critically assess the credibility of information that is presented on the internet. It has been suggested that we may the moving from the information age into the age of miss-information. The internet has provided access to a wealth of information, I am always staggered (and greatly enjoy) what I can find. As most of it is un-curated or moderated I am also very wary of the validity of the information as there is no easy way to assess its credibility. There is a pressing need for a reality check on the information on the internet especially given the plethora of health and wealth advice. Maybe in the not too distant future we will see information ratings agencies springing up giving ratings on the credibility of each site in the same way that ‘made in Australia’ or ‘certified organic’ does today.

David Gwillim
david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au

Wednesday 21 March 2012

BYOD computing puts people back into the IT equation


I have been fascinated by the trend towards ‘bring your own computing’ normally staff would be very reticent to provide their own gear instead insisting the company provide it (for cost, repair and support reasons). This is engaging more people than ever in the leading edge of IT innovation and this is a good thing.

Of course this is also symptomatic of the fact that consumer IT innovation is outstripping corporate IT innovation by a large margin. Once upon a time if you wanted to play with the latest IT toys you needed to join an IT department. Today your lounge room is more It savvy with the iPhone, Twitter, Facebook and gaming consoles leading the IT revolution.

As far as BYOD in the work place goes there is a precedent, in the early days of ubiquitous mobile phones employees often used their own personal mobile before company policy and corporate thinking recognised the value and essential need for wide distribution of mobile phones in the office (initially they were issued to executives, then senior mangers etc, desktop PC’s had a similar evolution, as iPad’s are today with many boards of directors. I-pads and twitter are slowly making their way into the mainstream office too. The billion dollar question is where will innovation come from next – the corporate or personal world?

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Sunday 11 March 2012

IT project failure “it’s the people stupid”


I have long contemplated why IT projects and in particular, software projects fail so regularly and seem so hard to do compared to other project based disciplines. There has to be a reason why a bridge or factory (and physical IT infrastructure for that matter) can be built per project plan and be successful but software applications so often fail to live up to expectations. There are a great many lists and case studies that document software project failures and post-mortems on the likely causes and all seem valid and potentially useful. But they are still unsatisfactory in explaining why writing good software applications is so hard.

It struck me, that the answer is people, and no it’s not the project team, they exist in every project, so do the project sponsors etc. No, it is the fact that application software is dependent on the interaction of individual humans for its use and ultimate success (and arguably its existence). As humans we are a fickle and diverse lot and each of us experiences and interprets our surroundings in our own unique way, this makes designing software a unique challenge.

While we also experience buildings and bridges individually they have to conform to the physical constraints and characteristics of the materials they are made from, their intended purpose and location. It appears likely that our ‘experience’ of software is somewhat different, it is possible to divorce people from a building, you still have a successful building, software without its intended users is a failure.

The implications for software project management is that users must be the central feature of the development, while this sounds logical it is not always easy to engage users and in the case of consumer software (such as Apples IOS mobile operating system) it is even considered undesirable to engage users.

It is significant that modern development methodologies such as Agile emphasise and centralise the involvement of users throughout its iterative approach, there is room for refinement and better ways of doing software development that shift the emphasis from process, project specifications, project risk etc to one centralised on users. The bottom line is, if users fail to engage with the application it has failed.

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Wednesday 7 March 2012

CFO’s predict the role of the CIO will not exist in 5 years


This prediction coming as it does from a survey of CFO’s to whom CIO’s are increasingly reporting is worth a closer look. The survey by IT services company Getronics canvassed 203 UK based CFO’s with 1,000 plus employees.

Key findings were:
17% of CFO’s believe the CIO role is in jeopardy
43% believe IT will merge with finance
77% of CFO’s had assumed greater responsibility for IT decisions over the past 2-3 years
50% claimed that lack of integration between finance and IT limited the impact of cost savings achievable from IT projects

Major drivers cited include the continuing commoditisation of IT services especially cloud and other outsourced services that are now available. Also apparent in the survey was a lack of trust in the IT leadership with 38% of CFO's feeling the CIO does not know enough about finance and 40% feeling the CIO does not know enough about IT!

For me the findings are more evidence of the growing paradox between the commoditisation and operationalisation of IT within business while at the same time rapid technology change is transforming the global economy and creating the opportunity for new and more effective business models. The survey results suggests that there is a lack of leadership and strategic insight from CIO’s and as a result IT is increasingly being marginalised. Comments such as that of Mark Cook the CEO of Getronics in reflecting on the survey “that only by freeing up CIO’s from the day to day burden of managing assets will organisations be able to truly realise the value that a CIO can bring to their business” ignore the fact that CIO’s have had about 30 years to stake their claim and provide true leadership to the business, most have failed to do so. A new logic for IT management is therefore needed to ensure organisations have the skill to survive and exploit the business environment of the future. The previous one has not worked, its time to try something else.

The Getronics report can be accessed at http://getronics-uk.com/knowledge-share/news-and-events/changingcfo.php

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Sunday 26 February 2012

Big data - requires cultural changes for success


Much has been written lately about ‘big data’ being the next big thing in business. There is no doubt that the explosion in data being collected by organisations opens opportunities for exploitation, especially if you can exploit it quicker than your competitors. However just deciding to trap and analyse 100 terabytes of data does not make an organisation expert at ‘big data’ or guarantee any competitive insight will result. In many companies the only real experience with large quantities of data and its use is through the finance team. The problem with the accountants is that they treat data in a ritualistic way (remember the comedy sketches of accountants making sacrifices to the god of balanced books?) so that vast quantities of the data they tend has little relevance to the organisation. To a lesser extent marketing also use data extensively though often those number are externally summarised so the nitty gritty of data management is avoided. Also most people are very weary of data and statistics, the political misuse of statistics has a lot to answer for.

All of this means that without considerable effort an organisational initiative to hop on the “big data” bandwagon is doomed to failure. Having spent 6 years of my life championing data management and analysis in a large multinational organisation here are a few suggestions to improve the chance of any ‘big data’ project:

1. Reverence for data – everything else in this list really reinforces this point. Data needs to be taken seriously to be effective. Discounting it should not be done lightly and there should be good reasons for ignoring data.
2. Culture of data accuracy – “garbage in - garbage out” is as relevant today as it ever was. Big data will only ever be useful when everyone involved in its collection puts a priority on it and is fastidiousness in ensuring quality, accuracy and timeliness of data inputs.
3. Trust the data – many a plane has crashed because the pilot decided that the instruments were wrong and they knew better. Once the systems have been set up and data validated it should be believed, nothing erodes the value of data quicker than discounting it because it tells us something we don’t want to believe.
4. Don’t shoot the messenger – when profit is sinking do you blame the finance team for recording such poor results? Data is often used as a scapegoat when times are tough, it is nothing more than a tool.

Effective use of data therefore, is dependent on a positive organisational ‘mind set’ towards the value that the data can bring. All the latest analytic tools, consultants and trends will not mean a thing, indeed will be a big waste of money unless the organisation is willing to change its mindset and accept the value of data.

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Tuesday 21 February 2012

Knowledge is power and the fallacy of open communication


Being a keen observer of managerial behaviour I have always been perplexed by the paradox displayed by many managers when it comes to open communication. Most managers want their staff to be open in their communication with a “no surprises” policy but actively vet and manage any information they provide to their superiors who inevitably demand the same open information. I have even dealt with a CEO who rabidly demanded open information from his team then furiously controlled and manipulated the information he provided to the board of directors.

I often wondered how the managers in question thought this behaviour was reasonable, after all it is not exactly leading by example is it?

Of course seen through the lens of power and politics this behaviour makes perfect sense, information asymmetry is very powerful, our market economy and all political systems are built on this principle.

But is it leadership and will it stand up to the challenges of a networked economy? The answer is probably yes, even where a leader shares openly with their team, the team can develop an information advantage over other teams through information asymmetry. I am still uncomfortable with this idea though, how does it reconcile to leadership quotes such as the following Chinese Proverb “not the cry, but the flight of the wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow”?

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Sunday 12 February 2012

CIO’s – Who do you report to? Does it matter?


The CIO industry press often states that who you report to does not matter and that it is possible to lead and be innovative from any reporting line within a company. The evidence suggests otherwise. My own research http://businessitvalue.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/is-your-it-team-strategic-or.html shows that organisations that use IT strategically always have the CIO reporting in to the CEO or is a member of the executive team. The current trend of shifting the CIO under Finance in many organisations indicates a view that IT is not strategic but operational and a cost to be minimised.

New research published this week by Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) adds to the evidence that reporting and organisational structure is important and does determine the role and effectiveness of IT in the organisation. They found that high performing organisations (25% of the 489 surveyed organisations) were twice as likely to have the CIO reporting to the CEO than other organisations, indeed they considered this essential to the effective use of technology. In these organisations IT regularly delivered on business needs.

They conclude that “unlike the predictions of some pundits who say IT is commoditizing, we see that those IT organisations that can effectively serve both their customers and their firm, deliver projects on time and on budget, and distil mountains of bits into meaningful insights are as rare as ever. In this way IT’s ability to drive business value is becoming more – not less – differentiated.”

With the rapid changes in technology, and even more rapid changes in technology use (think social, global, individual) the opportunities to gain competitive advantage from innovative use of IT has never been greater, for organisations willing to integrate technology into their strategy and recognise the CIO’s pivotal role in helping the organisation through the reporting structure the potential rewards are immense. Who do you report to?

The PWC report can be accessed at:
http://www.pwc.com/us/en/advisory/2011-digital-iq-survey/index.jhtml

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations
email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Sunday 5 February 2012

Are standards destroying IT governance?


Fundamentally, governance is “the exercise of authority” (Dictionary.com), this is operationalised as who can make what decisions, also called ‘decision rights’. Through the allocation of ‘decision rights’ the directors/owners of a company exercise control (to the degree that they choose to) over an organisation (corporate governance). IT governance is essentially the same (being a subset of corporate governance) with a focus on the IT assets of the company.

Governance applies (with differing decision rights patterns) regardless of the organisational structure or objective. Governance exists in an organisation regardless of whether it is a tightly controlled, highly centralised company, a large bureaucracy or a loose alliance of semi-independent actors. Why then is governance and IT governance in particular considered a stifler of innovation, agility and new forms of organisation?

Perhaps it is because those on the IT governance gravy train have found value in systemising governance and IT governance in particular into a series of standards, processes and methodologies which an organisation ‘has to have’ to have good governance. ISO 38500 “Corporate Governance of Information Technology” was issued in 2010 based on the world’s first IT Governance standard AS8015 issued by Standards Australia in 2005. It contains six general principles for IT Governance which are intended as guide for organisations of decisions to consider. This however has become an umbrella standard and IT Governance has become (according to the influential IT Governance UK organisation) defined under the Calder-Moir framework as consisting of 6 exhaustive ISO standards and no less than 25 complex frameworks and methodologies. Just one of these frameworks is CoBIT which alone has over 300 ‘control points’ in order to manage an IT system. If implemented in its entirety the Calder-Moir framework would bury an organisation under a weight of process and policy that it would never recover from. No wonder managers and employees have negative views of IT governance.

It is time to return to the fundamentals of IT governance, not just to revive the efficiency of today’s organisations but so that it can play its rightful place in emerging forms of organisation that seek to avoid the bureaucratic and sole destroying impost of traditional command and control organisations. Governance is not the enemy.

David Gwillim
Exploring the value of IT to organisations


email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au
blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

Monday 30 January 2012

What would you advise someone who is starting their career in IT in 2013?


One of my assignments this year is to assist final year IT students at the University of Technology to prepare for a career in IT. It will include resume writing and interview techniques etc, but what are their career prospects?

Careers in IT in Australia have changed rapidly in the past decade, the opportunity to work in a hardcore research or software development company have always been small (some like Atlassian, Wisetech and  Canon’s CISRA provide career options), however the traditional IT organisation within non-IT businesses are facing the paradox of IT becoming infinitely more complex while being easier than ever to install and use allowing other business divisions to by-pass the internal IT department entirely, leading to considerable downsizing. Outsourcing (including cloud services) has greatly simplified the IT challenge within many organisations. There is currently an opportunity for a career in Australian IT services companies, this area has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years, however once organisations get comfortable with outsourcing, third party management and off-site storage of their data, the next logical step is to move it all offshore to the lowest cost provider, impacting Australian IT careers.

The greatest opportunity I see for today’s IT graduates is to identify a better application, system, process, web design, iPhone app, game etc and build their own business around it. The opportunities for IT entrepreneurs have never been greater, with the rapid pace of technology development the opportunity to leverage technology in new ways is vast. Those graduating today are ‘digital natives’ with an insight into IT and a relationship with technology that us old-timers cannot even imagine. The opportunities are endless and very exciting, today’s IT graduates can shape not only the future of IT but the world.

What would you say to today's IT graduates?