Taking the fastest journey to the digital workplace (presentation)
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Filed under: Digital workplace, Intranet and digital workplace awards, Intranets, Latest Features
I was honoured to be invited back again to keynote Congres Intranet 2016, held in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Without a doubt this is the largest intranet conference in the world, despite it specifically targeting a Dutch audience (!).
My presentation explored how to make progress in the real world, towards the future vision of the digital workplace.
The key points:
- While a wave of exciting technologies are changing the nature of organisations, more tools doesn’t necessarily improve things.
- The digital workplace journey is a journey, as much as it’s a destination.
- The Digital Workplace Radar provides a powerful way of understanding what’s here right now, and what is still some way off.
- Digital workplace teams should have projects underway to address the technologies and approaches that have already landed.
- Concrete strategies should outline how technologies that are currently circling will be tackled, including the budget and resources required to make it a reality.
- For ideas that are still in flight (and therefore some way off), ongoing conversations with leaders should communicate the blue-sky vision.
- These three things must be done in parallel, to ensure that teams don’t get caught up with waiting for strategies to be approved, or dismissed for their blue-sky-only ideas.
- Step Two’s 6×2 methodology provides a uniquely effective way of choosing which projects should be initiated.
- The long-term vision is often best communicated in narrative form, such as A week in the digital workplace.
Real-world examples and screenshots shared:
- The search-driven business solution at Prestige Financial, replacing a task that required 12 minutes of effort across seven systems, with one search in 30secs.
- The digital workplace at Robin Partington & Partners, a small architectural firm with a remarkable focus on digital productivity.
- The digital workplace at Hansen Yuncken, who have used SharePoint to automate core business processes.