Business as usual (doesn't stand a chance)

The overarching theme at the Future of Work conference was one of disruption. Indeed, much of Cameron's workshop centred on shaking our understanding of how organisations typically run themselves. With industry giants failing to adapt and fading into obscurity and the rise of savvy disruptors and rapid technological change, it's clear that traditional business models have their limits. 

Cameron said such poor performance comes down to the fact that many companies have little understanding of what it is they’re doing. “Companies fail because they spend a lot of time building stuff nobody wants.”

In other words, the effort is there, but real self-assessment is either not valued in the business or it's misplaced in the value chain.

So how can business and IT leaders transform the way they work using agile thinking? 

Agility is key

Agile is a methodology, created for software development, which values:

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.
• Working software over comprehensive documentation.
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation.
• Responding to change over following a plan.

Cameron explained how agile thinking can effectively be used across the business in a case study by Nordstrom, an upmarket department-store chain in the US. The objective of the project was to produce an iPad app that customers could use to try on and compare sunglasses.

• Individuals and interactions: The store’s R&D team was literally moved to the shop floor where genuine customers could view their processes, interact with the unfinished product and provide immediate feedback.
• Working software: It didn’t matter that customers were given access to a product that was nowhere near the end product. The streamlining of processes meant the team could take on genuine feedback in minutes rather than days and implement it in new product iterations within the day.
• Customer collaboration: While the act of moving development staff to the shop floor is extreme, stripping back the layers between developer and customer with a focus on constant improvement meant the team was able to deliver a functional product within a week.
• Responding to change: The process became a cycle of continuous feedback and refinement and meant the direction changed in unexpected ways. As Cameron put it: “Rolling strategic thinking is critical.” This is particularly true in ensuring a project remains clear on its objective.

Despite its technology focus, the agile methodology works well across the spectrum of business. “It's a different way of getting work done,” Cameron said.

Disrupting with Deming

Cameron argued that we should “challenge conventional wisdom because it may be wrong”. He cited that the complete embrace of quality and putting the customers’ needs ahead of competitiveness was an idea championed by famed US statistician W. E. Deming. Deming was responsible for reforming manufacturing in post-war Japan – particularly it’s then-fledgling automotive industry.

The established manufacturing model valued high productivity above all else, while the concept of quality merely centred on fault-finding. As such, defects weren’t picked up until it was too late and defective units had to be reprocessed at great cost.

Deming reasoned that quality should be built into the production process from beginning to end, and that everyone involved should be responsible. With the reframing of quality throughout the value chain, quality issues were immediately dealt with by the collective.

Perhaps the greatest evidence that his methodology works is in the enduring success of Toyota.

Indeed, today’s companies need to be agile if they are to remain sustainable beyond the next quarter. And the business and IT leaders that run them must ask themselves what they value more: productivity or quality.

Underlying it all, however, is the repositioning of the importance of people. As Deming said: “Understand human nature – create sustainable system.”