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/

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.

David Gwillim

Exploring the value of IT to organisations

email: david.gwillim@optusnet.com.au

blog: http://www.businessitvalue.blogspot.com/

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

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/

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/

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/

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/