The End Game for Collaboration #FutureofWork

Innovation comes from giving teams space, some constraints, and a bit of time pressure

Author: Matt Ballantine | CIO

The long history of business IT has been one focused on efficiency and optimisation. From the early days of computing power being used to help food manufacturers to crunch numbers, enterprise technology has been focused on automation and process improvement. The CIO has been, as one of my old bosses used to put it, “Director of Gross Margin”.

But today the game is changing. IT is upending many sectors, and even those that are structurally immune to being Ubered are seeing significant shifts in customer expectation as everyone raises their digital game. And here lies the central challenge for IT: to be able to both optimise and innovate.

In my work at the moment there appears to be one area where this transformation is starkly in relief: the world of collaboration.

Collaboration means people working together. It also means a category of software product. And IT groups need to be extremely cognisant that not only does the latter not guarantee the former, but also that teams that are able to collaborate effectively (not just efficiently) are crucial to an organisation’s ability to innovate.

You don’t innovate through optimisation of processes. You don’t, crucially, get insight from poring over masses of data – much psychological and neurological research shows that true moments of insight are most likely to be triggered when the brain isn’t thinking “logically”. Innovation, as soft and as woolly as this will sound, comes from giving teams space, some constraints, and a bit of time pressure. Good tools to support that can then help.

Think about that when you are next reviewing a business case for collaborative tools in your organisation. What’s the story? Is it one of efficiency and person hours saved? One of cost effectiveness in infrastructure? If your organisation is driving purely for efficiency, then great. But if innovation is on your agenda, collaboration itself should be seen as a crucial lever, and so effectiveness should be as big a goal (if not eclipsing) efficiency targets.

———————————————————————————————————————-

Catherine Stagg-Macey at CIO will be speaking at the Future of Work Summit, taking place on the 24th November 2015, at the Amba Marble Arch (formerly known as the Thistle Marble Arch) in London. To hear from her and 25+ fantastic thought leaders in the FoW space, make sure you register for your FREE pass here.

REGISTER FOR YOUR FREE PASS!

Speaker in the Spotlight with DeeDee Doke #FutureofWork

In conversation with…

DeeDee Doke, Editor
Recruiter / Recruiter.co.uk

We recently caught up with DeeDee and asked her a few questions around the future of work.

1. What are the top 3 biggest challenges and/or opportunities you see in the FoW space?
   

   Challenges are: to refocus on basic human skills such as one-to-one and group communication so to best use technology and not be a slave to it; reimagining/redesigning jobs and organisational structures and operations; to align the burgeoning project work culture with a tax and benefits system; developing new ways to manage and develop workforces that operate remotely.

   Opportunities: to redefine “talent” and all of the challenges listed above!

2. What are the main Future of Work trends you’re currently seeing from your market coverage and insight?
   

   A lot of “awareness-raising” going on about increasing gender diversity in certain roles and in certain career specialisms but not a lot of problem solving going on. A focus on trying to fit working parents and careers into existing kinds of roles. Some engagement in developing flexible work spaces instead of committing to long-term office leases. Much greater emphasis on creating apprenticeships. Mobility comes in different forms and varieties and has different purposes. In global mobility terms, there is an ever greater focus on talent issues within global mobility functions and on the selection of talent to mobilise and in what capacity – a standard tour of duty (two to three years), a secondment or a project which could take on a “disruptive talent” aspect.

———————————————————————————————————————-

DeeDee will be speaking at the Future of Work Summit, taking place on the 24th November 2015, at the Amba Marble Arch (formerly known as the Thistle Marble Arch) in London. To hear from him and 25+ fantastic thought leaders in the FoW space, make sure you register for your FREE pass here.

REGISTER FOR YOUR FREE PASS!

Speaker in the Spotlight with Rocco Labellarte #FutureofWork

In conversation with…

Rocco Labellarte, Head of Technology and Change Delivery
Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Council

Rocco Labellarte is CIO and Head of Technology and Change Delivery for the Royal Borough Windsor and Maidenhead, a unitary local authority in Berkshire.

His work experience spans commercial and public sectors, at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Unilever, Calvin Klein and several local authorities. He was ranked in the top 20 UK CIOs by “Computing” in late 2014. He has delivered various models of shared service, an end-to-end hybrid cloud solution and translating digital innovation into hard business benefits.

We recently caught up with Rocco and asked him a few questions around the Future of Work. 

1. What are the top 3 biggest challenges and/or opportunities you see in the FoW space?

   a. Simplifying how we communicate and collaborate at work. Making the tools more intelligent, optimising the time we spend in dialogue, providing more time to be productive.

   b. Re-defining the boundary inside and outside of work. Technology allows work to spill over into our non-work space. It is not about limiting where and when we work, rather, making us more effective at doing our work, in work.

   c. Developing the skills necessary to transform existing business processes and technologies into consumer-style solutions – commoditised, standardised, simple to use, reliable solutions that eliminate back office processing. End-to-end automation of business.

2. What is/are the main FoW innovation project(s) you’re currently leading to benefit your organisation?

   We are developing a blueprint for local government organisations called “Council as a Service”. It will deliver three game-changing benefits: a transformational “all-in-one” Email, Case, Record, Document and Meeting Management collaboration solution; simplified automation of business process workflows and a 40% saving on back office case and document management systems.

3. What are you looking to achieve by participating in the event?

   Networking, exchanging ideas, getting to see who had delivered real innovation, and what the future holds.

4. Which specific recent FoW project/ key initiative have you led or been part of that you’re particularly proud of?

   We recently completed the first full implementation in the UK of a local government hybrid Cloud infrastructure environment, as reported in the July 2014 blog of Government Digital Services (GDS).

———————————————————————————————————————-

Rocco will be speaking at the Future of Work Summit, taking place on the 24th November 2015, at the Amba Marble Arch (formerly known as the Thistle Marble Arch) in London. To hear from him and 25+ fantastic thought leaders in the FoW space, make sure you register for your FREE pass here.

REGISTER FOR YOUR FREE PASS!

“Businesses need to realize that they need to market themselves to their existing employees far more than to prospective new ones”

Ahead of Future of Work Summit, we caught up with Peter Armstrong and Len Epp, co-founders of Dashcube, Innovation Sponsor of the event. In a fascinating, in-depth discussion, they explore their perspectives on the future workplace and technology, and their experience to date.

Peter Armstrong: At Future of Work, I am most looking forward to hearing the perspectives that different people we talk with have about the future of work. At Dashcube, we have been thinking about this for a long time, and building our thinking about the future of distributed collaboration into the product. We really value conferences such as Future of Work since they give us the chance to get out of the proverbial building and do the customer development process, talking with people and learning more about their business problems and testing our assumptions about what we are doing with our technology.

I believe the Future of Work means that distributed teams are not optional, and the tools and processes which need to evolve to support them can also be applied effectively to teams which have the luxury of being in the same building. I believe the Future of Work will be fantastic, since social forces such as so-called “millennial entitlement” will mean that people won’t settle for bad tools and oppressive processes. Fundamentally, the Future of Work will be about people, and about how better to use technology to connect people and then get out of the way.

Ovum: From a learning experience viewpoint, what has been your most valuable lesson in your working career, or your most successful failure?

Peter Armstrong: My most successful failure was trying to productize the concepts in my first book, Flexible Rails, into a commercial framework. While the framework was technically strong, largely due to the efforts of my cofounder, it failed spectacularly as a commercial product. However, the experience led to the formation of my boutique consultancy, which led to the creation of Leanpub, which led to me working with my old friend Len and to meeting Chris, and to us creating Dashcube together. In terms of lessons, the main lesson it taught me was that doing public-facing things that genuinely try to improve some small subset of the world can lead to totally unexpected successes with people you have never met.

Ovum: What technology would you like to see changing the way we do business in the future?

Peter Armstrong: I would love to see the Apple Watch and its inevitable imitators eliminate the security disaster and overstuffed wallet that is the reality with modern-day credit cards. Len wants it to open doors too, but if it just fixes payments then I’ll be happy. Paying for stuff is a disaster.

Ovum: Describe your ideal working environment 10 years from now?

Len Epp: Regarding wearables, I believe the biggest change in our working environments is that we are going to be using smartwatches as our keys, not just for unlocking doors, but also for unlocking our devices and even our apps. This will have a profound impact on the way every enterprise manages security for its people, physical assets, its IP and its data.  Here’s a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago (before the Apple Watch launch) that goes into some more detail on how watches will become keys (and wallets): https://medium.com/@lenepp/why-smartwatches-should-be-keys-and-wallets-e141facb95ad

Ovum: What in your opinion will be the next big change in the way that we work and the way in which businesses engage with their employees – and specifically the way IT has to service their customers?

Peter Armstrong: Businesses need to realize that they need to market themselves to their existing employees far more than to prospective new ones. 

Experimenting with new technology, stretching the limits of what is possible, developing solutions

Martin Sadler is the Head of IT and Shared Services at Walsall Council. He has led the IT service for 7 years and delivered significant technical projects and cultural change; prior to that he worked for Fujitsu Services in the Retail and Financial services. This gives him a rare perspective of being able to look at the Future of Work through the eyes of a supplier, enterprise and public sector agency. He is a devotee of home grown solutions, open source products and anything that make life simpler or better value. We caught up with him to talk about this, about his role as a public sector IT leader and about his thoughts on the industry.

“My most valuable experience is that some people will only be happy if they have something to complain about”

Firstly, when thinking about the Future of Work Summit, Martin is “most looking forward to hearing more from people who are ahead of the work anywhere curve. I am discussing the move to mobility and smarter working in local government at Future of Work; I believe that I have experiences that others do not need to repeat”.

“My most valuable experience is that some people will only be happy if they have something to complain about. This led to the need to do changes sequentially in order to pinpoint what the real issue is”.

“Respond quickly; have integrity; explain thoroughly”

The complexity of a local council is unique in business terms, and presents a lot of challenges for an IT leader. Martin knows this as well as anyone, affirming that “[a council] has conflicting purposes and more diverse activities than any reasonable organisation would be expected to do”. To manage this challenge, he sets in place clear generic activities: “respond quickly; have integrity; explain thoroughly; with a huge degree of flexibility in how and when services are provided”.

There is currently a big drive towards smarter working within the public sector, with a need for increased efficiency in IT delivery, which, while exciting in many ways, presents a challenge in itself. As Martin puts it, “The diversity and number of legacy systems is a real impediment as is the pace of suppliers to convert their applications to be web based. This is then hampered by the price of providing a hosted solution”. And then, paraphrasing Einstein, “never underestimate the ability of groups of people to do stupid things”.

On a more positive note, we spoke about what Martin’s most rewarding project of his career has been: the Rolling out of Thin Clients across Walsall Council, which he describes as “one of the most exciting things I have achieved. The mix of experimenting with new technology, stretching the limits of what is possible and seeing the staff develop the solutions has been fantastic”.

What’s Your Work Pattern?

SAP Jam is Silver Sponsor at Future of Work Summit. The SAP Jam solution facilitates collaboration at every level of your business. Here’s what it’s all about.

Enterprises can claim a complimentary pass for Future of Work, by registering here. Take a look at the event agenda with just one click. Ovum has a strong legacy in this area, with many years research experience in enterprise mobility, collaboration, file sync and share, mobile device management and mobile application management. We are continually working with the people and organisations who are seeing the Future of Work become a reality. Moreover, our Future of Work, Mobile First and BYOX events have seen fantastic discussion with the leading lights in this growing industry sector.

Who will be the major players in the workplace of the future? What does future workplace technology look like, and who will make best use of it? Join us to find out.

The Future of Work, according to the Greenpeace Head of IT

Andrew Hatton, Head of IT at Greenpeace, will be participating in an Industry Leaders panel session at Future of Work Summit in London on 25 November, entitled ‘The future of work – What’s all the fuss about?’, alongside Senior Executives from the BBC and Camden Council. View the latest agenda here. We caught up with him to talk about his experience to date, as well as what he considers will shape the Future of Work.

Ovum: From a learning experience viewpoint, what has been your most valuable lesson in your working career, or your most successful failure?

Andrew Hatton: To Listen. The importance of listening, as part of being an effective manager and leader cannot be overstated.

Ovum: What are some of the challenges of your job?

AH:

1. To operate as sustainably as possible.
2. Coming up with truly sustainable solutions to problems can sometimes be harder than it should, whether that’s IT or choosing office equipment.

Ovum: What technology would you like to see changing the way we do business in the future?

AH: All data centres becoming clean and green, so organisations’ online operations become more sustainable.

Ovum: What one thing would you implement tomorrow if you knew you were guaranteed to succeed?

AH: An end to built-in obsolescence in so many of today’s electronic products (e.g. mobile phones, laptops, TVs).

The understanding already exists to make things fixable and upgradeable. But in some cases we are going backwards not forwards (e.g. gluing batteries into products so they can’t be removed is a bad idea). What is lacking is not in the main part technical understanding but the political will, to change things for the better. Groups like Greenpeace and iFixit are working to try and change this.

Ovum: Describe your ideal working environment 10 years from now?

AH: The Greenpeace UK Office, as it is now! (We are lucky, we have a wonderful garden in the centre of London. In Springtime it’s the most amazing place)

Ovum: What has been the most rewarding project you worked on, and why it was rewarding?

AH: Opening one of London’s First Cyber Cafés back in 1995 and experiencing first hand people’s sense of wonder of browsing the web for the very first time.

Ovum: What in your opinion will be the next big change in the way that we work and the way in which businesses engage with their employees – and specifically the way IT has to service their customers?

AH: Green IT 2.0 (I know 2.0 “anything” is now somewhat of a cliché).

But basically I think more and more employees will want to ensure that their organisation is operating sustainably and that will include IT. So, IT needs to make sure that it’s offering those services and devices that are best in class from a Green IT perspective, whether it’s the type of phone being offered or the Cloud service the company uses.

You can view all of the topics to be discussed at Future of Work Summit on the event agenda, and you can discuss these topics and more with Andrew, and all our speakers, by registering today (enterprise end-users can claim a complimentary pass).

Ovum Industry Congress Europe Speaker Q&A: Ara Avakian, Global Reporting Initiative

Ara Avakian is Senior Manager Technology Solutions at Global Reporting Initiative,  and he will be part of the following panel session at Ovum Industry Congress Europe, taking place in Amsterdam on 8 October 2014: To the Cloud and Beyond, alongside Belastingdienst and ONVZ. We asked Ara about his experience and projects, as well as his expectations from the conference. Here’s what he had to say:

Ara Avakian: At OIC Europe, I am most looking forward to hearing about how to transition to a data-optimized organization that is positioned to smartly capture, manage and capitalize on information. Despite new apps and enterprise systems some organizations still suffer from information silos, this may be due to insufficient buy-in or change management but an absence of easy to use tools may also play a part. I’d like to hear some examples of how organizations are transitioning and what their experiences have been.

Ovum: From a learning experience viewpoint, what has been your most valuable lesson in your working career, or your most successful failure?

AA: Over the years I have seen a number of technology projects initiated without first undergoing a rigorous review against organizational priorities. I’ve seen this occur across a variety of industries and with projects including enterprise software, websites and online tools. I’ve learned that projects often get initiated for questionable reasons and that simply because we’ve received earmarked funds or someone in upper management is driving an initiative isn’t enough. It’s clear to me that all projects should be reviewed as part of a formal process with upper management (during budget season) where they can be checked for alignment against organizational strategy and prioritized with a clear cost and realistic schedule. These are minimum requirements and if not met then the initiative should be put on hold until more information becomes available. In some instances it’s correct to push back – as long as one can articulate the reasons in clear business risks to upper management. For my own proposals I’ve found it’s especially important to ask the ‘5-why’s’. Is it strategically aligned? Is it providing value or is it just cool? Can the ROI be quantified? Is it a priority worth the resources, time and budget or are my energies best spent elsewhere?

Ovum: What one thing would you implement tomorrow if you knew you were guaranteed to succeed?

Interview: the vision of the future workplace from Richard Dallimore, Director, IT Risk and Governance at Baker Tilly

We’ve been speaking to Richard Dallimore, Director, IT Risk and Governance at Baker Tilly Business Services about the future workplace. Richard will be speaking at Future of Work Summit on 21st November as part of two panel sessions: ‘Integrated policy management tools across app, device and network’, and ‘Trends to watch in 2014’. Join us at the event to find out more!

1.)    What piece of new technology has made a considerable improvement to your day to day working life recently?

It has to be my Android tablet – its light and flexible. Allows me to work on the train, or read a book. I can use internet resources for personal use or use Citrix to securely access the office and work. Certainly saves my shoulder carrying around a laptop.

2.) What in your opinion will be the next big change in the way that we work and the way in which businesses engage with their employees – and specifically the way IT has to service their internal customers?

Choice – employees are expecting a choice of platform – they don’t really care how they access the corporate app – they want to be able to access it on whatever they have with them – whether that’s  a corporate issued laptop or a Tesco Android tablet.

3.) We see employees increasingly self-selecting the devices and even the apps (especially File sync & share, VOIP & IM, and enterprise social networks) that they use for work. Do you see this trend happening in your organization and if so do you think it presents a challenge or an opportunity?

I’m not sure it’s an opportunity for an Information Security director – it’s a headache! But we have to move with the trend if the firm is to attract the right kind of graduate or recruit. The biggest challenge is the ever expanding security perimeter that cloud storage and remote working presents to the firm and ensuing the firm understands risk that goes with the expanding perimeter.

4.) New ways of engaging and collaborating with colleagues online and from multiple different devices are fundamentally changing the way that people work. What do you think will cause the biggest change to working practices in your organization over the next 24 months?

• Mobile device proliferation and working from multiple devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets and PCs) – as I mentioned above – it’s about choice – the user expects to able to access the corporate app on whatever he/she has to hand
• Improved mobile data and WiFi networks – the UK lags behind the rest of Europe – we have to improve

5.) What is your vision for the workplace of the future: how will we be working in 2015, and what further developments might we see by 2020?

Ovum says organisations investing in mobile enterprise apps will not be blown over by St Jude

London, 28 October, 2013 – As severe weather warnings continue across the UK, organisational productivity is likely to suffer as employees struggle to gain access to key business applications beyond email. This is according to global industry analysts Ovum, who believe that CIOs that embrace the need for mobile enterprise apps and cloud productivity apps will maintain productivity in the face of disaster, such as the arrival of the storm dubbed “St Jude”.

In a new report*, Ovum explains that when it comes to providing value to a business and reaping the benefits of the mobile consumerisation and BYOX trends, mobile enterprise apps will make the difference. Failing to provide employees with the right applications across the right range of devices will increase their inability to access to the tools and services they need on days like today, when conditions make it difficult for many to get where they need to be. It may also drive employees to engage in “bring your own app” (BYOA) activity – finding and using their own cloud productivity applications such as file sync & share and enterprise social networking – therefore exposing corporate data to security threats.

“Many employees are already using cloud file sync & share applications to share files and documents between their various devices, better enabling them to work wherever they are and no matter what device they have in front of them, whether a corporate-provided laptop or their own tablet,” says Richard Absalom, analyst at Ovum. “This may help in terms of letting them get on with their jobs, but if it is informal, unmonitored activity then it also presents a severe risk to businesses in terms of data protection. Giving employees access to services with similar functionality but business-grade security is key to any business continuity program. Going a step further and providing employees with enterprise mobile apps, specifically designed to let them perform core tasks beyond email and document sharing on their smartphones and tablets, will vastly improve mobile and flexible working practices.”

The growing demand to develop and manage these types of mobile enterprise applications is creating an opportunity for platforms and vendors in the enterprise mobility management (EMM) space – one that they are quickly seizing upon. Ovum expects many more businesses to start deploying them over the next 12 months, meaning events like St Jude will pose less of problem.

—ENDS—

NOTES TO EDITORS
*The Case for Mobile Enterprise Applications

To arrange an interview or for more information, please contact: Claire Booty on +44 (0) 20 7017 7916, or email Claire.Booty@ovum.com.

Ovum’s Future of Work Summit on 21st November in London will address how to engage with and harness the mobile, connected employee to increase productivity. For a free press pass, or to speak to an analyst ahead of the event please contact Claire.Booty@Ovum.com

ABOUT OVUM
Ovum provides clients with independent and objective analysis that enables them to make better business and technology decisions. Our research draws upon over 400,000 interviews a year with business and technology, telecoms and sourcing decision-makers, giving Ovum and our clients unparalleled insight not only into business requirements but also the technology that organizations must support. Ovum is an Informa business.