Links for this week (weekly)

  • tags: enterprisesocialnetworks streams socialobjects design

  • “While enterprise social networking has been covered extensively in the media and by IT analyst firms, one of the least discussed aspects of the topic has been the issue of design and the potential impact of design on employee adoption of such tools and applications. At the June Enterprise 2.0 Boston conference, I presented a session, “Design Considerations For Enterprise Social Networks: Identity, Graphs, Streams & Social Objects”, in hopes of drawing attention to the issue and to spark conversation around design practices. The session did not focus on any particular user interface (UI) technique or product implementation (e.g., e-mail, community site, social collaboration platform, etc.). Instead, the information was presented at a holistic and inter-disciplinary level, covering a collection of related issues:

    Affordance-centered design
    Social theory and design
    Work and personal value
    Blended user experience
    Psychology of adoption
    Enterprise architecture”

    tags: enterprise2.0 socialbusiness enterprisesocialnetworks enterprisesocialnetworking design adoption enterprisearchitecture gamification

    • With enterprise software, we tend to focus design practices on the “known requirements” and functional aspects of how work is performed in process, project, or productivity scenarios. We rarely invest in the time, research, and resources needed to understand the organizational, community, and inter-personnel dynamics that create the cultural context for how the work is done. The result? The industry remains in its early days when it comes to designing social environments that accommodate the myriad subtleties that influence how people network with others beyond the narrow confines of a tool or application.
      • we need to take the next step and realize that the value employees’ gain from social networking will also be strongly affected by how well an organization:

         

        • Leverages an inter-disciplinary research methodology to understand the cultural context of its work environment
        • Applies those findings to its design practices (e.g., user experience, process, information, application, media, technology)
        • Connects enterprise social networking efforts to its enterprise architecture (EA) program
        • Creates feedback loops between related design, HR, employee engagement, governance, and change management activities
    • Research and design practitioners likely need to investigate a range of people and media issues (e.g., identity, networked publics, social capital, media literacies, social network analysis (SNA), participatory cultures), but need to synthesize and express such findings in business terms.
    • While design efforts need to support business objectives, leadership teams need to also invest in practices that improve culture and employee engagement
    • We also need to think “beyond the screen” regarding how design practices help mediate online and offline social networking that may have little cause-effect association to a specific business task or process.
    • The first wave of social collaboration solutions implemented a destination site for networking and community building (sometimes referred to as a “corporate Facebook”). Today, the focus has shifted towards adding social capabilities to applications and productivity tools, including mobile scenarios. It’s important for strategists to realize that people’s social networks span any single tool, application, or device. Focusing on a single use case scenario to the detriment of others diminishes overall business and employee value.
    • Today, we know little about the underlying rational for how networks are cultivated and mobilized. We need to do more in this area.
  • “In this article, the authors discuss how an emerging research stream, which they term resource orchestration, has the potential to extend the understanding of resource-based theory (RBT) by explicitly addressing the role of managers’ actions to effectively structure, bundle, and leverage firm resources. First, the authors review this emerging stream by comparing two related frameworks, resource management and asset orchestration. This comparison leads to their integration, which enables a more precise understanding of managers’ roles within RBT. Then the authors discuss what is known and what remains to be known about resource orchestration. This leads to in-depth reviews of three areas where research on resource orchestration can be used to extend RBT. These areas are (1) breadth (resource orchestration across the scope of the firm), (2) life cycle (resource orchestration at various stages of firm maturity), and (3) depth (resource orchestration across levels of the firm). They close with a discussion of future research that will extend resource orchestration and contribute to a more robust RBT.”

    tags: humanresources management resources resourceallocation resourceorchestration competitiveadvantage

  • “Whether you are in government, non-profit services or something commercially oriented, your business is driven by goals. Those goals may be explicitly identified and formalized, such as with Peter Drucker’s management by objectives (MBO) model, in which leaders establish specific goals within the organization so that the outcome is mutually understood, while leaving the specific course of action and the decision-making to qualified workers and stakeholders. That approach offers the benefit of both guidance and measured outcomes that support establishing performance dashboards.

    Alternatively, goals may be (and to some degree or another inevitably are) less formal and more likely in response to a particular event, such as countering a competitor’s product release or delivering aid in response to a natural disaster. In every case, however, goals drive the mission of all organizations, and transactions and transactional processes comprise some part of the means to the end.”

    tags: acm goals objective adaptiveness

    • a survey I conducted recently (see downloadable chart), in which respondents reported that the vast majority of any given day involved working toward specific goals, yet did not follow a predetermined path
    • Most of the day is spent working toward an identified outcome, yet the means for achieving that cannot be predicted in the way required to program it into a transactional system (think predefined steps, automated workflows, structured data models.)
    • What is new is the ability to leverage combinations of capabilities, such as business rule engines (BREs) and business process management (BPM), to deliver goal-seeking solutions that are driven by outcomes rather than predefined paths. The best examples are found in the new space known as dynamic or adaptive case management (ACM).
    • Most support systems, whether full-blown CRM or internal helpdesks, are focused on the fastest time to close the ticket (i.e., transaction processing) without necessarily focusing on the larger goal of satisfying the customer.
    • When a case is launched, the circumstances that define its successful conclusion are known—the policies, the rules, the resources, the players involved—but not exactly how those will combine to ensure the outcome, e.g., that the customer is satisfied. E

    • Adaptability is defined in terms of how a response is facilitated, rather than simply the ability to respond or change.

    • With ACM, the need to perform comprehensive product/system training in advance (what is known as “just-in-case” training) can be replaced substantially with a “just-in-time” ability, in which guidance is delivered within the run-time environment and the specific context at that moment (i.e., “context-sensitive support”) by leveraging the applicable business rules and case-related content. That could also include the ability to identify and initiate collaboration with specific subject matter experts.
    • ACM is ultimately about allowing knowledge workers to work the way they work best, giving them the tools and information they need to do their job. Increasingly, that means having access to social media and outside information sources.
  • “It is important that organizations take time out to evaluate the skills they value in their employees. Without this re-evaluation, organizations risk being locked into older, slower, business models that will hamper their ability to innovate and compete with organizations that have adopted Enterprise 2.0 technologies and a Skills 2.0 mindset.

    To realize the real benefits of these new business models, organizations need to go beyond asking for change or implementing new technologies, they need to identify and reward skills & behaviors that are aligned with the organization of the future.”

    tags: skills rewards behaviors humanresources

      • INDIVIDUAL:  Modification of personal behavior to be more aligned with new models for success
      • TEAM: Increased awareness amongst co-workers, to help create a culture that is capable of identifying and encouraging new skills and behaviors (or that is at least not discouraging of desired skills and behaviors)
      • ORGANIZATION: Openness to re-evaluate and modify existing measurement and reward systems to encourage skills and behaviors need to compete and succeed in an Enterprise 2.0. world
    • Skills 2.0 Model: Assessment Tool â€“ A short-form assessment tool to quickly identify an individual’s possible strengths and put them on a course of action to increase the level of conversation within an organization.  
    • Skills 2.0 Model: Skills & Behaviors â€“ A set of recommended skills & behaviors that organizations may wish to consider rewarding.  O
    • Resources â€“ Supporting tools and research that might be worth reviewing to evaluate and drive these new behaviors.
  • “Le billet de ce jour fait suite à de nombreuses suggestions que j’ai reçues de me pencher sur la sociocratie, en particulier suite à mon billet précédent sur l’effet d’échelle. Les articles sur la sociocratie font souvent référence à la cybernétique et aux « systèmes complexes », ce qui a également aiguisé ma curiosité. Il m’a fallu plusieurs mois pour lire une partie de l’abondante littérature et tisser les liens avec d’autres ouvrages ou systèmes de management. Je suis arrivé à une conclusion, plutôt négative, que je vais vous livrer autour de trois convictions :

    La sociocratie combine un ensemble de valeurs, diagnostics et pratiques qui correspondent bien aux enjeux du 21e siècle, mais c’est une approche contraignante et qui est en conflit sur plusieurs points avec les valeurs du « lean » ou même de l’entreprise 2.0 que je défends par ailleurs.
    La sociocratie n’est pas une architecture organisationnelle scalable. En particulier, ce n’est pas la réponse que je cherche à la maîtrise des flux d’information lorsque la taille de l’entreprise croît (malgré, et contrairement à, la référence systémique).
    La sociocratie est très marquée d’un point de vue culturel ; elle est adaptée à un petit nombre de cultures et de situations, mais n’est pas universelle. Ce qui ne signifie pas que la sociocratie ne soit pas une excellente source d’inspiration en termes de pratiques et de valeurs. A chaque entreprise de trouver ce qui peut lui servir, mais je n’y vois pas le modèle de management de demain. L’avenir dira si je me trompe – pour l’instant, les exemples sont assez peu nombreux.”

    tags: management sociocracy toyotaway complexity collaboration organization hierarchy coordinatination consensus decisionmaking teams teamwork autonomy systemic

    • En revanche, la structure de la double intersection des cercles est lourde et elle ne me semble ni scalable, ni efficace pour des grandes entreprises. Cette double représentation crée des comités et lieux de décision avec un grand nombre de personne, ce qui n’est pas judicieux par rapport à la volonté d’agilité (face à la complexité).
    • l’efficacité vient bien de la capacité de self-organisation et composition d’une organisation modulaire avec des unités autonomes, mais il faut favoriser un couplage faible et une coordination légère et agile, ce que le double cerclage ne réalise pas)
    • mais si les ambitions et les valeurs de Ricardo Semler sont très semblables à celles d’Endenburg, l’organisation pratique de Semco est surtout centrée sur l’aplatissement de la hiérarchie, la participation/re
      •  

         

         

        • Il existe une très grande variation de compétences, à tous les niveaux, et l’entreprise doit reconnaitre et s’appuyer sur les contributeurs les plus talentueux (ce qui suppose de leur donner l’autonomie de pouvoir le faire)
    • Il y a des individus coopératifs et des individus non-coopératifs, et l’entreprise doit apprendre à reconnaître/valoriser les premiers et mettre les autres dans l’incapacité de nuire.
    • Une entreprise, en particulier en France pour des raisons qui sont bien expliquées par Pierre Servent ou Philippe d’Iribarne, a besoin de « chefs Â». Le manager joue un rôle clé dans la communication, c’est un pivot dans les flux de transmission d’information.
    • . Mon expérience en tant que DSI est que c’est la fonction qui crée le talent et non pas l’inverse. L’organisation, pour bien fonctionner, a besoin d’incarner certaines missions, en particulier celles qui nécessitent de la mémoire et de la vision, pour garantir la bonne exécution des décisions à longue échelle de durée (c’est précisément une remarque systémique).
    • Je ne crois pas du tout à la fin du management : au contraire, l’augmentation de la complexité, qui le thème commun à tous mes livres et à ce blog, ne peut pas Ãªtre traitée sans un recours au management. Ce n’est pas le même management que celui du 20e siècle, mais nous avons toujours besoins de managers.   L
    • Si l’on reprend la liste des rôles du management dans une vision classique, telle qu’articulée par Fayol : prévoir, organiser, commander, coordonner, contrôler, il y a bien un changement à opérer, mais les fondamentaux demeurent. Il y a moins de prévision (complexité), moins d’organisation (auto-organisation), nettement moins de commandement

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Head of People and Business Delivery @Emakina / Former consulting director / Crossroads of people, business and technology / Speaker / Compulsive traveler
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