Technology tools for productivity

A recent study by the Pew Research Center highlights how important technology has become to modern workers.  

The Pew Research Center surveyed 1000 American adults and ended up following up with 535 who were working full or part time. The findings are fairly straight forward: the internet and e-mail are perceived by online workers to be very important communication tools for productivity. Both technologies serve as multipliers allowing workers to communicate more broadly than traditional phone.

Interestingly, social media was not rated that highly by either office based workers or non-office based workers.

The study can be found online at the Pew Research Center website.

Questions for the OD Professional

The study raises some issues in the people space:

1. The trend to a more mobile and internet connected workforce will continue. How are you helping your organisation to build capability to manage that change in direction.
2. How are you building capability in frontline supervisors to enable and support this shift (if the shift aligns with your business strategy)?

Supporting links

Pew Research Center (html)

Digital Life in 2025: Technology's impact on workers (PDF)

Strategic Kanban

There is a good book on visualizing work called Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry. The book is an entry to the world of Kanban which in Japanese literally means "signboard or billboard."

Kanban was designed to control the logistical chain from a production perspective. More recently it has been used in the agile software development space.

At its core Kanban in the software development space is about  (a) a backlog of work (b) things that need to be done this week (c) in progress, and (c) done or completed. This reflects a very simple workflow of (a) to do, (b) doing (c) done. This simple workflow can be scaled to much more complicated process.

I became aware of Kanban a couple years ago when I was working on building a talent management system across the New Zealand public service. It became a very effective tool for managing my teams work.

Over the past year I have been learning the rythem and dynamics of a new role. With a full year, I now have a better understanding of the seasonal nature of work for my current organization. My project this past week I have been working on getting clarity around how to apply a Kanban style board to a more strategic role.

The requirements for my strategic Kanban are:

1. Shifting the focus from near term (doing) to the future (to-do). [My managers are responsible for doing.]
2. Ensuring a long enough time horizon to make sure I am leading my function to a proactive position rather than re-active space.
3. Facilitate conversations with my managers about accountability and trade offs.
4. Foster understanding of interdependence and pre-requisite.

My first draft, outlined in my book, is in the photo below.

The board as designed has a focus on:

1. The three forward quarters (e.g. Q4-15, Q3-15, Q2-15),
2. The forward three months (March, Feb, January),
3. In progress,
4. Waiting on,
5. Done.

The board is designed around the standard 76mm square post-it note.

The actual board is now up and I am working through the process of getting it populated by with my direct reports. It is shown in the photo in the header.

For those interested in  virtual Kanban, here are some options:

• Lean Kit (leankit.com)
• Kanbanary (kanbanary.com)
• Kanban Flow (kanbanflow.com)
• Kanbanize (kanbanize.com)