This week I ran my new enterprise mobility workshop in Australia for the first time. We had a great group of participants, and there were some intense discussions about this rapidly evolving space.

In addition to looking at what the early adopters have already done, we worked through the practicalities of what to deliver, who to deliver it to, and what an overall strategy could look like.

As part of this, we brainstormed what research questions to ask when uncovering enterprise mobile needs. In no particular order, this was the list identified during the workshop:

• What does a typical work day look like?
• What tasks are they doing? How often?
• Location when they do these tasks?
• How long does it take to do these tasks?
• What does these tasks create? Who is it sent or provided to?
• How much time is spent at a desk vs in the field?
• What information do they need in a typical day?
• How do they know what to do?
• What are their interactions with other staff?
• Customer/client interactions?
• What devices are they using? How many?
• What apps do they have on their work and personal devices?
• Security issues?
• What are their KPIs?

These questions highlight the importance of conducting field research into mobile needs, rather than just focus groups and surveys. Only more in-depth research techniques will build a true picture of working practices and environments, and this won’t surface when sitting around a meeting room table in a corporate office.