Tools

Make Office Better

Posted on by DWAdmin

Make Office Better

I originally posted this a few months ago on the old blog, now all the more timely with the latest franchise release of new packaged technical innovation in the form of Windows 7 to hit the streets yesterday.  I first came upon www.makeofficebetter.com from Steve’s post,

“I had a look at MakeOfficeBetter.com over the weekend and was actually a little surprised to see it go live today – basically a crowd sourcing site along the lines of Dell’s Ideastorm to solicit feedback on Microsoft Office. It’s not an official site but if this is what our Redmond bods can do in their spare time then I’m impressed.”

So, I had to add my long desired Dynamic Work enhancement (“Where We Are Available”) to Scheduling Assistant in Outlook to help determine not only ‘when’ people are free to meet, but also ‘where’ . Check out the submission “Add Geographic Proximity to Scheduling Assistant”.

If you like the idea, be sure to give it a ‘vote’ by clicking ‘+ me’ at bottom next to ‘people like this idea’ or give it a comment if you have some further reflections.

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The Third Space

Posted on by DWAdmin

Starbucks Third Place

When I start to talk to people about reducing the fixed costs of fixed desks and fixed office space, the most common response is, “Oh, you mean home working…” Well, yes…and no. Part of the challenge of Dynamic Work is the too widely held view that the only two places in the work are home and work (and maybe a fun place you go on holiday once a year).

For a while now, Starbucks, these day often synonymous with out-of-office-out-off-home working, has coined a term for this extra geographic dimension – ‘The Third Place.’ Here are a few erudite commentaries on the appeal of this non-work/non-home workspace…

· Howard Schulz on the notion of the ‘Third Place’ – “You might say, 'OK, they're full of crap.' And you know, this is how we feel," says Schultz. "We're in the business of human connection and humanity, creating communities in a third place between home and work."

· Steve Clayton on “I get my best work done at Starbucks” – In fact my favourite spaces to get work done are well outside of the office – even the home office. I often wander down to a coffee shop or Shackology where there is free WiFi and a good vibe that doesn't stop me working. People think I'm joking when I say I'm going to the coffee shop to work but it's where I get a lot of good work done.”

· Katie Ledger on “My office is Starbucks” – “I don't spend long periods of time in coffee shops but it's just being able to do business ANYWHERE that makes it so exciting. Lots of new ideas coming out of this space at the mo.”

If anyone is passing through Marlow, give a shout for a ‘meeting’ at my local third place and location of an increasing proportion of my productivity

Telecommuting Tips

Posted on by DWAdmin

CIO Magazine

CIO magazine ran an article ‘7 Things the CIO Should Know About Telecommuting’ with great pointers on this tactic for exploiting Dynamic Work…

1. Telecommuting Saves Money. Truly.
2. Telecommuters Really Can Be More Productive.
3. Telecommuting Doesn't Work for Every Individual.
4. Trust Your People.
5. Hone Management Skills for Telecommuting.
6. Keep the Telecommuter in the Loop.
7. Tools and Technology Make a Big Difference.

I often see #5 – Management Skills – as one of the major blockers. Managers don’t support telecommuting and flexible work not truly because of concerns about the employee or the business, but rather concerns about their ability to manage.

“Telecommuting is a true test of a manager's skill. It's hard enough to measure employee output when the individual is in the office; now supervisors need to add the complexity of doing it from a distance. And not every manager possesses the necessary skills for keeping tabs on telecommuters.

“Elizabeth Ross, director of technology projects execution at AMEC Earth & Environmental, has telecommuted and managed telecommuters. She sees a direct relationship between the strength of a manager and the telecommuting experience. ‘Managers who know how to manage resources, subcontractors, and the like, can make the situation work, sometimes exceptionally,’ she says. ‘Managers who don't communicate well, [who] don't know how to manage their own time well, and so on, don't get around to checking in or managing the telecommuter very well — if at all.’ “

“It's that latter kind of manager (for example, the inept manager) who's typically the least supportive of telecommuting, according to Ross, because the work arrangement highlights the manager's weaknesses and requires him or her to improve or change his or her style. For that reason, user experience consultant Albers suggests that only managers ‘who have demonstrated extraordinary organization and leadership abilities’ should be allowed to manage telecommuters.”

Where We Are Available

Posted on by DWAdmin

Outlook Scheduling Assistant

Microsoft Outlook needs an enhanced ‘location’ capability in the Calendar capability. Right now Outlook Calendar is the first and most used ‘collaboration’ by customers, but its focus is on coordinating *when* people are available.  A critical second dimension of collaboration is and will become increasingly *where* people are available.

Outlook implicitly assumes the traditional context of ‘office work’ where all parties converge to work in geographic proximity at a ‘knowledge worker factory’.  Increasingly, knowledge work will be as modular, distributed and flexible as web services.  Think kanban/JIT/integrated-supply-chain for knowledge work.  In this environment, bringing together knowledge worker resources geographically will be as important as chronological coordination.

Furthermore, Microsoft has an exceptional asset to which to apply to this area:  Live Maps.  Through the integration of LiveMap GIS capability, Outlook will be able to help people arrange meetings that don’t just optimise schedules, but also optimise location to minimise travel which will come at an increasing cost in future years.  Specifically, when people book a meeting, they would be able to specify a LiveMaps coordinate in the ‘Location’ field of the Appointment.  One could configure Outlook to default to ‘Desk’ location during work hours, and ‘Home’ location during non-work hours.  The ‘Scheduling Assistant’ would then be enhanced to allow parameters which specify to propose meeting times not just ‘when’ parties are free, but also when they are already within an X mile radius of each other. Such an enhancement to Outlook would help to avoid the Long Drives that I recounted last week.

The New Tools

Posted on by DWAdmin

Toolkit

It’s not just a range of pressures that are driving people to these new modes of work, but it is also a wealth of enablers that have emerged to unleash the potential for resolving these pressures in unprecedented and innovative ways.

Asynchronicity – The operative production model of the 20th Century was the serial, synchronous ‘assembly line.’ All of the resources for production lined up in one space and one shift. As knowledge work developed, this model continued to predominate with processes for planning, approving, assessing, etc. moving from mail tray to mail tray in just as methodical a fashion as a Model-T trundling down the line. The operative production model of the 21st Century is asynchronous parallelism. Email communication that can be read and responded to today, tomorrow or next week. Collaborative documents where multiple parties contribute.

Communications – A pervasive, increasingly flexible and capable communications network becomes the hub that unites the diverse pieces. It is not just the digital network that it the Internet, but it is also the increasingly sophisticated capabilities developed on top of it, the increasingly varied devices attached to it and the increasingly diverse contexts to which it has been applied.

Modern Management Principles – Knowledge work predominant in the service economy of the 21st century is much more results based than its manufacturing, production-line focus on activity. Modern management concepts like Peter Drucker’s ‘Management By Objective’ (MBO) harnesses approaches critical to the new modes of flexible working.