The greatest challenge for today’s leaders is how to upgrade their organisation’s operating system.
Agility, adaptability and connected innovation are hard to achieve within divided structures.
In a software-driven world, organisations need to become more like software to evolve.
We help design, develop and run your organisational operating system.
We look at five key dimensions of the organisational operating system.
Our diagnostic health bot asks questions and gathers data to create a real-time picture of progress towards becoming an agile, adaptive organisation. We use this information to create custom learning journeys and suggest new management techniques to address weaknesses.
We map digital capabilities and talent, identifying gaps that are priorities for action, and help create distributed agile transformation systems to make change routine.
Shared digital leadership and strategy are key to making sure all stakeholders are aligned and helping build the connected capabilities the organisation needs.
Structure
What is getting in the way of connected, agile working? How can we create real-time co-ordination & communication structures that are faster and more reliable than hierarchy?
Culture
An agile organisation needs more openness, accountability and psychological safety for people to step up and own their work. How can we test for these attributes and what interventions can help?
Practice
Shifting from a process view of the world to a service-oriented approach is key to continuous improvement. How can we make operations more collaborative, data-driven and service-focused?
Technology
How can we better integrate our workplace technologies to connect, standardise and automate the boring bits, whilst freeing up people to focus on value-added activities?
Leadership
What does leadership look like in a digital, networked world? How can leaders not just drive incremental improvements, but create the conditions and the platform for exponential success?
At the leadership level
We work with digital leaders to map digital strategy, capability gaps, and cultivate a network of digital guides across the organisation; we also deliver in-depth digital leadership learning and development programmes.
At the platform level
We map the capabilities, services and skills of emerging agile teams, and help assemble them into a service platform that the whole firm can use. We also help design and implement key platform elements starting with a digital learning hub.
At the team level
We help switch from a process-centric work system to a more agile and service-centric approach, identify scope for automation or standardisation of these services, and then create the interfaces and connections with other teams to work better together.
Old Wine in New Bottles
Sometimes change gets stuck between two worlds, and all we end up with is old structures with new branding. During a period of transition or paradigm shift, there is often an interim phase where we use new models to create a slightly better version of the old world...
Mind the Experience Gap
Some thoughts on making 'experience chasms' a bit shallower at the boundaries of traditional orgs. We’re seeing increased interest in customer and employee experience from most organisations, focused on increasing loyalty, revenues, engagement and empowerment. But...
Repeating the Mistake of Abstracting Social Connections in System Design
A few thoughts and links on scale, connection and mutualism in the design of social systems and organisations Scale, connection & mutualism in system design One of the repeated tragedies of ideologies and political systems is the pursuit of scale and control at...
Two Tips for Accelerating the Path Towards Smarter Digital Workplaces
We have some great ideas about the future of organisations and the digital workplace, but we will have a way to go on teaching people and teams the basics It is always great to zoom out and think about the future of work and the competing trends that will shape it:...
Between Two Worlds
Thoughts on institutional upgrades, hierarchies versus networks, and re-wilding as an organisational design priority. This week’s ‘Lunch with the FT’ featured the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, and he had some interesting things to say ($) about how mature...
What Does it Mean to Move From Projects to Products?
Cerys shares some great reads on the shift from project to product that accompanies agile transformation, and some hints for non-technical teams overwhelmed by the journey. As organisations work through the transformation efforts needed for increased agility, some of...