Pages: 8

Smartphones, breakthrough solutions for major health issues, and tackling how poverty is reduced are examples of “big ideas”. How does one go from a “big idea” to the realization of it? It’s not a single-path process. It’s a journey with many paths. It’s very messy. It takes significant time. It requires teams of experts. And there’s no guarantee that the idea will translate into success. The process of going from the “big idea” to vision to delivery is impeded by the underlying technology infrastructure that teams rely on, which is largely based on 1980s personal productivity software, email, and file servers that automated 1950s clerical work that relied on typewriters, adding machines, inter-office memos, and filing rooms. Without an architecture that defines “data” elements and storage for the organization’s vision delivery process, teams are left to their own devices to make technology and data storage decisions. The result is a patchwork of technology with disparate data that the authors refer to as the “Islands of Digital Teams”. The organization’s vision delivery process must be reengineered by transforming teaming.

Pages: 20

With ever-increasing competitive pressures, the need to reduce the time-to-value (or time-to-bail) of a “big idea” - a new product, an organizational transformation, a healthcare initiative, or a humanitarian development project - has never been greater. The ability to impact performance depends upon the quality of knowledge being generated by teams in the vision delivery stream and the speed at which it is shared to support decision-making. Unfortunately, the current digital infrastructure for vision delivery teams is woefully inadequate. When teams form, they must identify and agree upon objectives. Next, they must create and efficiently execute a plan to achieve them. This requires coordination and collaboration not just among team members, many of whom may be remote, but also between teams. What is needed is an integrated infrastructure that provides team goal management, teamwork coordination, team decision support, team “work product” support, and approval workflow capabilities in addition to “team-to-team” navigation, “team-to-team” coordination, and “team-to-team” data exchange. The authors define a “Digital Office Complex” (“Complex”) as an architected collaborative infrastructure designed to provide support for teams can work together in a unifying manner.

Pages: 21

The authors define “digital teaming” as team members working together and with other teams using a Digital Office Complex that provides capabilities for team goal management, teamwork coordination, team decision support, team “work product” support, and approval workflow in addition to “team-to-team” navigation, “team-to-team” coordination, and “team-to-team” data exchange. It requires transforming existing team practices and developing new skills to achieve the benefits of digital office capabilities. The value of digital teaming lies in its ability to increase participation, visibility, creativity, and diversity of opinion, all of which can increase the team’s likelihood of achieving success.

Pages: 18

The authors describe Scrumfall as a team-centric approach for delivering business initiatives, such as launching a new product into the marketplace, implementing a software package in an organization, and integrating company operations following a merger. Scrumfall teams are supported by a Digital Office Complex, as it provides a fast communication structure and visibility for team members, customers, senior leadership, and other stakeholders. Scrumfall draws upon three major methods for delivering projects: Waterfall, Critical Chain, and Scrum.

Pages: 14

“Digital governing” builds on digital teaming skills described in Chapter 3 to enhance strategic thinking, change management, and oversight using the capabilities of the Digital Office Complex. This chapter describes and provides example uses of digital brainstorming and team decision support capabilities to strategic thinking frameworks, including Scenario Planning, stakeholder analysis, SWOT, SOAR, PESTLE analysis, and Force Field Analysis. It also describes how leadership team members can use the Digital Office Complex to “manage by walking around digitally”.

Pages: 8

Using a forklift to move a pallet of bricks, a jack to lift a car to change a flat tire, or a computer to produce invoices for ten million customers every month are all examples of machines that make tasks possible that otherwise would be impossible. Another lever is artificial intelligence, which is an area of computer science, inspired by simulating the human brain. It uses mathematics, statistics, and calculus to process data, especially enormous volumes of data, to predict outcomes very quickly. The Digital Office Complex organizes both structured and unstructured data for vision delivery for the enterprise. AI, especially the power of neural networks, can be leveraged to augment teamwork. It can be used to assist teams in digital brainstorming and team decision support, preparing an initiative before executing it, and monitoring “in flight” initiatives to look for early warnings that can impact its performance.

Pages: 9

Reengineering a company’s vision delivery process is a “big idea” that starts with the leadership team creating the accompanying vision. What will a reengineered vision delivery process look like for their company? Major considerations before undertaking a reengineering of a vision delivery process are cross-functional teams, critical success factors, insurgents and incumbents, learning expeditions, process redesign, organizational culture, and digital knowledge assets.