WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

WHY IT MATTERS: CTO position often comes up in discussions, and more often than not the question is "what do they do?". This is a good start to think about it.

WHY IT MATTERS: remote work means changing the way we work and the tools we use. This book extract provides an interesting diagram to help make sense of it all. Useful.

WHY IT MATTERS: so much has been written and this article raises interesting questions and possible solutions. Best quote: "Others talk of the office as a destination, a place that has to make the idea of getting out of bed earlier, in order to mingle with people who may have covid-19, seem attractive."

WHY IT MATTERS: interesting stats and useful information for all companies as they make their plans for return to the office. In particular this stat which indicates that 1 in 3 may look elsewhere if return to the old way is projected.

WHY IT MATTERS: returning to the office, yes or no? full time or part time? The talk of the town these days it seems. More important question is: WHY return to the office? To sit in front of a computer all day? Nope. The buzzword seems to be all about caring for ancestral human behaviours and needs: rituals, tribes, ... Anthropology more than technology.

This long article from The Guardian explains what they are with some useful examples. It details with success the experience of early adopters of digital technologies and their experiments with new office behaviours that digital transformation mandates.

The article reminds me of my software development experience. As I started to use Agile methodology and 3 week sprints, I found that it was best to have everyone on-site for the first few days of the sprint, to align everyone and let design decisions flow from conversations between team members. When the backlog was groomed and everyone was coding, then developers were better at home for the next few days, at their own pace and schedule using videoconferencing and messaging to share. Then bring them back for the final crunch - all together to pull in with the testers and the UAT team. So not 2 days home, 3 days in the office. More like 2 day workshop, then half day meetings to regroup every few days, then 2-3 days (or more) of crunch time before the sprint end.

For digital transformationalists like me, office rituals are important because the remote working tools have serious limitations and it is often best to sit next to your colleagues at regular intervals to be productive and efficient.

WHY IT MATTERS: human nature will dictate return to the office or work from home.

People that DO things for a living - coding, answering calls, writing marketing copy, etc. - don't want to waste 1-2hrs per day traveling to an office to sit in front of the same computer they use at home! Return to the office will not be a huge selling point for them.

People that MANAGE others will crave the visibility and face to face interactions. They will push for a return to the office. And because they are higher up in the food chain, the pressure will be HUGE for workers to return to the office.

Thus I think working remotely will negatively impact your promotion potential within typical organizations and that most workers will goo back to the office at least 3 days per week - even if their work could as well be completed remotely.

WHY IT MATTERS: "digital transformation" often means anything and everything. These 5 markers can help you define quantifiable metrics to ground resources in concrete, actionable activities. Too often, unfortunately, are CDOs "chief digital officers" , CTO "chief technology officers" or "VP digital transformation" or "VP innovation" tasked with vague requirements that are aspirational ("move the organization in the digital world") or qualitative ("coordinate actions and support executives in the digital transformation"). After a few years of workshops, evaluations, and pilot projects they often fail to deliver meaningful business impacting metrics. 

WHY IT MATTERS: interesting solution developed at Cloudflare, a technology company, to facilitate conversations across the organization. The paper highlights the challenges of making random chats truly random (and useful). As work from home and remote work become the norm post-covid, this will become required in all organizations. Not only large distributed companies but also startups that decide to go full work from home.

WHY IT MATTERS: buried in this article from McKinsey is this gem of a chart about different ways to introduce transformation, including digital. Pick the wrong method and you are doomed. I believe it.

WHY IT MATTERS: technology is high on CEO radar of priorities as digital transformations shifts from front-office (web, social, search, all areas of the marketing CMO) to the back office (manufacturing, security, IOT, cloud, AI). CIOs play a role but many times they can't cut it so the CTO comes in. Could be a fundamental trend, or simply tunnel vision (it is an IBM survey after all ;-). Thanks to Sean Moffitt - Future Proofing Next guru! Many more insights in the full report.

WHY IT MATTERS: this well-researched article highlights the PROs & CONs of work from anywhere - WFA - and provides best practices from large companies that have done this at scale (1300 WFA employees at GitHub). A reference for us all in digital transformation and also a showcase for the real impact of our work: large cities may struggle to attract people versus small towns that have lower cost of living and little traffic, countries may find that work visas need to be adapted to limit remote workers (how to do that), etc.

All in all, it may be the biggest transformation that digital brings: a societal change. Who knows...

WHY IT MATTERS: no surprise, companies will hire technologists and agile methodology experts post confinement to enable their remote workforce ... and reduce the need for humans!

WHY IT MATTERS: the biggest impact of digital transformation is on humans and this article from BCG analyzes the changes in talent demand and supply. Must read for managers in the context of global changes we currently see.

WHY IT MATTERS: I always thought that companies would embrace remote work to cut costs or empower employees with flexible schedules but it maybe that the fear of disease will be the biggest trigger. Here box.com provides a list of solutions companies like them should use to enable remote work today.

The chart is from NYTimes 2017 article on remote work: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/15/us/remote-workers-work-from-home.html

WHY IT MATTERS: this is a survey so all about perceptions - but perception is often reality in this era of fake news. The survey results provide useful insights into the fears and the powers that people see in AI today. Very useful when you approach change management in AI projects ...

WHY IT MATTERS: AI & ML will replace many jobs but this report from Gartner confirms that workers should improve their business and social skills to differentiate.

WHY IT MATTERS: it looks like the new technologies that replace jobs at a rapid pace are also creating new ones at a faster pace. This may prevent dooms day scenarios where self-driving trucks make truck drivers useless for example. However, looking at the new jobs created the skills they require is very different from the one they replace (not sure truck drivers can master edge computing easily - or enjoy it). More disturbing some of the high growth jobs are low paying ones, such as elderly care workers. Change thus will be hurtful for many of the displaced.

WHY IT MATTERS: a compilation of must read articles from MIT. Different topic every week. Part of my weekend routine... What is yours?

WHY IT MATTERS: digital transformation enables individuals to behave like organizations. Personal branding thus has become essential for consultants and subject matter experts. 

I also recommend the very good book "Visual Expert" in your quest to personal branding.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0990445909

WHY IT MATTERS: digital transformation often is sparked by technology improvements - Big Data, advanced analytics, AI. Marketing has been affected profoundly by what is called marTech but this article highlights that successful transformations require an attention to people, skills, roles, work organization, and change management. Based on my experience I believe this applies to many other departments in the organization when faced with similar technological revolution.

WHY IT MATTERS: the wikibrands collective discusses different topics and issues on digital transformation with different leaders in the field. This is the place to catch up on past programs. Shameless plug, I am also on speaker on the series!

WHY IT MATTERS: a great study on the best jobs for the future.

WHY IT MATTERS: if you study or practice law and plan to retire within the next 10 years, you can move on and not read this one. If you plan to keep working in the field, then you should study programming or develop some other tech skill to remain relevant in the coming years. Consider yourself warned! ;-)

WHY IT MATTERS: I wrote about the buffer open culture in the past and find this latest post to be a great summary of the best practice they have put in place over the years. Critics will say this only applies in startups but I would argue that 1) Buffer is already a 6+ years old 80 person team company 2) Large companies are composed of business units often much smaller in size than Buffer. That being said, many of my colleagues like coming to work in the morning and interacting with people face to face during the day so this model is not for everyone. But if you are looking for a different way to work, then I suggest you look at this and the new agile tribes that I wrote about previously.

for more go here: fmcs.digital/?s=buffer  and fmcs.digital/blog/digital-agile-transformation-at-ing-shows-it-is-possible-to-transform-legacy-non-technology-organizations-to-agile-using-the-concepts-of-tribes-squads-chapters-via-mckinsey-digitaltransformat/ 

WHY IT MATTERS: banks are notorious for their lack of agility and fear of change, making digital transformation a challenge. Here ING move to the concept of agile tribes is explained.