embracingthechangeculture
-aneventround-up
Amazon released 1470 new features last year – that is a lot of change for one platform! And the rate of change isn’t slowing down. All this change has lead to a business landscape where innovation is paramount – every industry is being disrupted.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT, and Big data are the big buzzwords at the moment… but we’d like to focus on the underlying stuff that makes these innovations possible. Optimising existing workflows, building new capabilities and managing teams through change so your organisation is able to adopt technology changes faster.
On August 30th, Dynamo6 hosted our third annual AWS event with speakers who have been there (or are on the journey), done that, and got the business results to prove it. They told it how it is and we’ve written a summary of their collective insights below.
Before we jump in, we'd like to offer another huge thank you to our speakers: Igor Matich, Executive Director & Found at Dynamo6, Murray Goodman, Head of Product at Kordia, and Keith Chilek, CTO at Tourism Group Holdings.
lesson 1: prepare for the future workforce
The next generation is entering the workforce now, and they are shaking things up. The familiarity with technology in all aspects of their lives does not exclude their expectations of a working environment. So what’s the buzz about? Your team directly affects the experience your customers have with you, and customer experience drives innovation.
Allowing your innovation to stem from your customer journey is at the heart of good business. A favourite quote around the D6 office is ...
Customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied ...
lesson 2: fail fast
There’s a price tag to innovation and it adds up quickly if you spend time mucking around on a project that isn’t delivering value. Knowing when to move onto the next version saves time, money, and some sanity! Being agile in the way you work allows you to get more done. Fail-fast: know when to abandon ship and empower your team to own these decisions.
Not all projects can be saved by working harder. Have goal posts with timelines set out that identify what success looks like. Check in regularly and hold everyone accountable. Failing fast allows you to try again to be successful. It frees up time and resource to use your previous learnings and iterate ideas and processes to ensure the next project will achieve the goals set out. Fail fast, fail often, and enjoy the increased quality of your projects with your team.
lesson 3: create a change culture
Technology (or lack thereof) plays a large part in your team’s work experience, whether they realise it or not. The quality of communication, productivity, and collaboration all rely heavily on your systems in place. Even so, change is messy, uncomfortable, exciting and empowering and leading your team through to the other side takes skill.
Taking your team along for the ride, and keeping everyone on the same page is essential. Using simple use cases and iterating to the more complex, is a great way to prove an ROI to your team. These can help create the all-important ‘buy-in’. Humans follow a grieving process when their habits are upset. The below image outlines this process well. Adapting your priorities to the stage of change makes the transition a lot smoother, and far more enjoyable for everyone.
Here are a few nuggets that are so simple, they often get overlooked:
- Share the details – it’s easy to forget you have the most information about this change, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Share timelines, details, and most importantly WHY you are embarking on this rollercoaster.
- Leave your door open – change brings questions. Allow people to share their concerns and questions with you. You might even uncover a gnarly situation you hadn’t thought of and be able to fix it!
- Ease into it – change one thing at a time, iterate, and then repeat. It’s so tempting to dive straight in, especially when you’re excited about the transformation, but take a step back and take the time to perfect each piece of the puzzle for a seamless end result.
- Keep recognizing great work – don’t let business as usual fall neglected. The everyday bits are even more important during change.
when it’s all changed and innovated…
Don’t forget to reap the rewards of this change rollercoaster. Take your successes, and scale!
Dynamo6 is an AWS Partner. Our team are experienced and certified cloud specialists. To find out more about our AWS consulting and cloud adoption, talk to us.