My session proposal for E20 Santa Clara was accepted. I will present along with Joe Crumpler in the community track. Now comes the hard part of putting together something coherent that hopefully imparts something useful to the attendees. Honestly, I am starting to fear that I have already told you 125% of what I know. If you can live with that possibility, by all means, read on!
Here goes: why am I presenting on this, what am I talking about, and how can it be implemented?
Why
Observable work principles implemented through enabling technology creates stronger connections with our customers and colleagues. As a result, the team and the company will perform better.
What
What is Observable Work? I'm not sure I know. By writing about it I hope to figure it out for myself.
I think that it is a more open way of working enabled by people and technology that moves away from closed silos and towards open, integrated work processes. It recognizes that there are still hierarchies and org charts and matrixed organizations and needs for security and compliance. On the other hand, it also recognizes that the only way to deal with the crushing complexity of the modern information work environment is to embrace the fact that everything is "intertwingled".
To quote from Greg Lloyd's post,
Much of what a sociologist would call "social" behavior when talking about Enterprise 2.0 would naturally center on the sociology of work: how people communicate and interact with others while dealing with questions, issues, exceptions, suggestions and the messy stuff that routine transactional systems can't handle, along with interpersonal relationships that develop in a specific context or as member of an extended enterprise (including customers, suppliers, consultants and external as well as internal stakeholders).
How
In previous work, I have outlined some principles. I now propose to talk in terms of patterns which hopefully give more of a roadmap of how to implement Observable Work in an organization. I am likely heavily borrowing from many ideas already expressed in such places as Wikipatterns; however, I hope that I am adding a bit of original thought here. If not, I would love to know.
As I see it, these patterns are implemented through a combination of people, technology and process. Commonly, any information technology-enabled solution is thought about as a combination of people, processes, and technology. Here, the idea is that through a combination of the right people, using underlying technology, you can implement processes that will make you and your team more effective.
This is based largely on my own experience, brought to life in this blog post through the help of lots of colleagues and friends that have shaped my thinking.
People Patterns
Various organizational, cultural, psycho-social, and management elements that enable an Observable Work environment.
- Community of Trust
- Community Manager
- Openness is celebrated
- In Process Culture
- Learning and Teaching is Enabled and Rewarded
Technology Patterns
Specific functionality and features that when put to the proper use enable an Observable Work environment.
- Hypertext allows stronger connections
- Activity Streams: Filtered Please!
- Email Used Smartly
- Security Security Security
- A Directory Stuffed Full of Files Doesn't Help
- In Line Everything
- User Interface and Navigation
- Widgets and Mashups and Gadgets
Process Patterns
Now that you have the right people and organizational practices, along with a proper toolset, here are some generic process patterns that could work in many different situations:
- Crowdsource Your Wicked Problems
- Build Links Between Your Silos
- Status From Visible Work
- Lightweight Approvals, Surveys, and other Barely-Repeatable Processes
- Open Read Access Fosters a Climate of Ambient Awareness
- Integrated Personal Workspaces
- Trusted Collaborative Spaces
- Narrate Your Work: Worklogs and Other Techniques
That’s my brain dump. I think that is it for now. Each of these patterns could be a slide in our presentation, but I doubt that we’ll have time for that. I’m still not sure how this all fits into a PowerPoint format. Edward Tufte, any ideas?
In the meantime I will be writing my own wiki entries for these patterns, perhaps posting some details back here for feedback. Thanks for your time.