Guidelines for keeping pace with innovation and tech adoption

Business Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption How to Respond When Competition, Your Customers, and Automation Come Knocking Esther Schindler Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption by Esther Schindler Copyright © 2017 O’Reilly Media, Inc All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA 95472 O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use Online editions are also available for most titles (http://oreilly.com/safari) For more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department: 800-998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com Editor: Laurel Ruma Production Editor: Nicholas Adams Copyeditor: Rachel Monaghan Interior Designer: David Futato Cover Designer: Randy Comer December 2016: First Edition Revision History for the First Edition 2016-11-18: First Release The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption, the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to ensure that the information and instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and the author disclaim all responsibility for errors or omissions, including without limitation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance on this work Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own risk If any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to open source licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsibility to ensure that your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights 978-1-491-97412-4 [LSI] Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption: Don’t Just Fail Fast — Learn Fast There are two kinds of fool One says, “This is old, and therefore good.” And one says, “This is new, and therefore better.” Dean Inge New products, services, and methodologies clamor for our attention All of them promise to make our lives easier, to help our teams become more productive, and to give our companies more opportunity to make money Some might even be telling the truth We all have guessed about when to climb on board with a new technology, hot product, lauded programming language, or other hyped item touted as the latest-and-greatest innovation Even when the item truly is exciting, adopting it is a risk no matter what size of business you run or where you stand on the corporate ladder If you commit too soon, you may discover that the innovation doesn’t measure up to its promises, and its failures screw things up for your own projects If you jump on board too late, after your competitors adopt the innovation and work out all the kinks, your organization may find itself playing catch-up This is an age-old problem A hundred years ago, businesspeople argued about whether it was the right time to get rid of horse-drawn conveyances and invest in those newfangled delivery trucks But they had more time to contemplate the options These days, the pace of change is so fast that it’s hard to learn what an innovation is, much less make a sensible decision about the right time to adopt it It’s not like you have a choice, really Things are changing all around us, and we (as individuals and businesses) have to respond, one way or another “All organizations change, regardless of whether employees are ‘prepared and ready,’” says Kirsten Osolind, senior VP at strategy and innovation consulting firm Reinvention Consulting “You need to be on a constant quest to wrestle new efficiencies from existing assets You need to surf waves of opportunity You need to run at the right speed, in the right direction.” Fortunately, useful guidelines can help us make the “right item, right time” decisions, and assist in the integration of the new technology into existing business processes These suggestions may aid you in recognizing when and how to implement a technology change You Say “Disruptive” As If It’s a Good Thing In the late 1980s, I was president of a tiny computer user group in rural Maine We decided to put on a computer faire — the techie equivalent of “My dad has a barn; let’s put on a show!” — which ultimately drew about 1,000 people For a rural coastal community with a traffic light every 40 miles, that’s a lot I asked Pete Petersen, the vice president of WordPerfect Corporation, to be our keynote speaker, in hopes that the guy running the business for the market-leading word processor would be willing to talk to us To my delight, Petersen said yes, even accepting my oh-so-naïve topic suggestion of prognosticating the future of computers I remember his predictions to this day “I can’t tell you what future computers are going to look like,” Petersen said “But I can tell you this: they’ll be smaller, cheaper, faster, quieter, and more powerful.” And he was right Nearly every technology change in the past 30 years has fallen into one of those categories We appreciate anything that’s “smaller, cheaper, faster, quieter, and more powerful,” whether those qualities apply to a speedier personal computer, a more efficient software development process, an RFID chip that communicates useful data across a network, or a SaaS application inexpensive enough for a small business to afford When changes are gradual, they’re easy to weave into “business as usual” methodologies It doesn’t cause much stress to replace an aging computer with a faster model, and you get little corporate pushback if you suggest a tweak to “the old way of doing things.” But when we talk of innovation, often we refer to something really new The Technology Adoption Curve Human improvement isn’t always a single moment of discovery in which an entire worldview changes Those who study the creative process of innovation distinguish between incremental enhancements and true game changers Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma (Harvard Business Review Press, new edition 2016) — which has a terrific four-minute video summary — calls these sustaining innovations, improvements to “the way we’ve always done it” and disruptions, unexpected changes to existing systems that redefine a problem as well as the solution Everyone was looking for a better iron lung; instead, Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine Steve Jobs cited Henry Ford as saying, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”; even if the attribution is inaccurate, the sentiment is not Not every disruption is a technology disruption, the way that a new CPU or medical breakthrough might be Sometimes the change is a business model or a methodology MP3 music players were around for a while, as an expensive lackluster wannabe product category, a problem looking for a solution Then the iPod got it right With a different business model, Apple integrated hardware, software, and services; it created both happy consumers and a technological, musical, and social juggernaut Disruption sounds like a marvelous thing when you’re the entrepreneur doing the disrupting It means your business is doing something truly unique (and, one hopes, profitable) to which other organizations must attempt to measure up That’s been true for ecommerce, Uber, phone cameras, Software as a Service (SaaS), social media, and dozens of other revelatory technology and business model changes If you run a business, though, disruption is a bad word It means shaking up the status quo, often with an uncertain outcome Not everyone wants to be disrupted; most leaders are content to be boringly productive, profitable, and business-as-usual Disruptions are time-consuming distractions, at best This topic was deeply explored by Everett Rogers, a professor of Sell the Change Let’s say that you personally have concluded that the Turbo Ninja Plus is a good option Now you need to convince other people of that direction — even if the decision is yours to make “Successful organizational change requires a shift in perspective,” says Reinvention Consulting’s Osolind “Employees become an integral component of the entire change equation.” Remember the technology adoption cycle? You might see the opportunity of the Turbo Ninja Plus, but it is unlikely to be equally evident to everyone in the company When you discuss the new option’s advantages and disadvantages with managers, users, and other stakeholders, consider their worldviews too For example, when you talk with an early adopter about the Turbo Ninja Plus, you can bring up its technical specifications, its likelihood to give the company a serious competitive advantage, and the irritation of putting up with its growing pains To a technology enthusiast, it’s often worth taking a chance on something new, and such supporters are happy to invest in at least a pilot project But if you aim to insert something truly new into a corporate environment, acknowledge your listeners’ mainstream attitudes The same sales pitch you gave to the early adopters can turn off conservative decision makers Buyers in the early majority can understand practical value, but they want to be reassured that they aren’t the very first to encounter problems Stress the business references and metrics collected by other reputable organizations You can comfort these people by citing the Turbo Ninja Plus’s conformance to industry standards and its sustainable improvements Not every person says no because he is a technology laggard Among the reasons people prefer to wait before adoption are: Their needs are latent While they suffer the same effects as those who are excited about the proposed improvement, they haven’t actively identified that a solution exists, let alone considered a product or service A trusted comrade can speak to the situation (“We never realized how much time we spent doing that!”), and hopefully you’re the person with that reputation, but in general these folks are immune to any marketing beyond word of mouth Help them see that they have a problem worth solving, and they will be ready to consider a solution without friction or interference They perceive a high cost of change That can be monetary: surely the budget can be spent on something with a safer and predictable outcome? Or we know the product price will come down when the technology is more established? These people also may view the cost in terms of the difficulty of moving data and procedures from one system to another, such as a database transfer or rewriting code Consider how your implementation answers each of these concerns They are wary of losing competence Even minor changes affect employee routines and rituals, such as adding yet another social media client or recreating an invoicing process Even when a dusty old tool is substandard, it’s familiar, and you know how to work around its foibles A new system means discovering the new weaknesses (usually the hard way) without any idea of how to fix the problems Yet again, education can make a difference; so can creating documentation that guides users from the “old way” to the “new way.” For example, when Microsoft worked (successfully) to displace WordPerfect with Word in business environments, it emphasized how easy it was to import WordPerfect files “It’s important to address each challenge head on, while making sure everyone is comfortable with the change,” says Kumar In practical terms, you need to build safeguards against unexpected roadblocks or failures “Education and realistic expectation setting is key to making sure adoption happens at a pace that is acceptable,” Kumar says “Selling a change impacts the entire ecosystem of an organization, from employees and customers to strategic partners, vendors, the supply chain, and processes/procedures,” says Osolind “Change leadership works best when you invite the entire ecosystem to help you rewrite the storyline When folks make decisions and feel like they are choosing for themselves, they’re more likely to be committed to the outcome.” “Beyond communicating a clear vision, allocating the right resources, and aligning performance management systems, the key to successful organizational change is removing barriers and creating circumstances in which employees’ inherent motivation and drive is freed and channeled toward achievable goals,” says Osolind “Doing so requires that aforementioned shift in perspective, where employees at all levels are not merely informed about change or trained to manage and handle change but rather deemed to be an integral active component of the entire change equation Start a small groundswell Create a grassroots movement Train the trainer Consider perks for ideas and usage adoption at various levels.” Some organizations are more open to change than others For H.K Productions’ Davis, opinions are welcomed when backed with proactive suggestions “We listen, apply what’s useful, and move forward,” says Davis “And as progress is made so are the minds of those who were hesitant in the beginning.” Ideally, you’d like to work for a company with a culture of innovation, where it’s okay to experiment and fail But that doesn’t have to mean, “Be the company that takes big chances.” “Any company has a culture that it should look at as an asset when it’s contemplating change,” says Dave Gray, management consultant and author of The Connected Company (O’Reilly, 2014) Those aspects shape decisions, including the choices you reject For example, says Gray, both Nokia and Samsung had similar strengths in manufacturing Nokia saw the digital culture on the horizon, so it sold off everything that wasn’t related to mobile phones, and invested heavily in software “They took major risks that were (in retrospect) obvious mistakes,” says Gray, because the culture of software and manufacturing directs different kinds of risks But instead of repeating Nokia’s mistakes, Samsung recognized its culture and its capabilities, and chose a different path, says Gray Samsung’s attitude: smartphones are coming, and we don’t know who will win — but whoever wins, they use Samsung hardware, whether it’s a Samsung phone or screen components that form part of Apple’s supply chain “The culture is the huge center of gravity you can use to accelerate on your path, like spacecraft going around Jupiter,” says Gray “But often, companies disregard their greatest asset.” Consider a Slow-but-Sure Approach In general, the smoothest solution is to change as little as possible Try the Turbo Ninja Plus in only one department, for instance Use it on only one product line It’s important to discover if the advantages outweigh any costs before you roll out to the entire company, says Wowza Media Systems’s VP of engineering, Barry Owen “Better yet, a pilot project on one team and verify if the benefits are real,” he says This approach minimizes the disruption by keeping explosions small Problems are dealt with locally so that they don’t ripple across the entire project It also gives the company an opportunity to identify “Oh, I didn’t think of that effect” problems and to solve them early, before implementing across the organization Incremental adoption helps avoid several types of risks Among them are testing the solution for actual readiness and discovering the transition’s unanticipated social and environmental issues To mitigate the risk of adopting too early, consider: Performing benchmarking and quality evaluation of the technology itself Measuring the upward compatibility of existing systems to become informed about the impact of the change Creating alternatives, so that a project’s success does not depend on the new technology being adopted (For example, create a plan for the project to still be accomplished with the previous technology, even if the old technology increases the budget or schedule.) Measuring and monitoring pilot projects so that project estimation tools can be refined to reflect early experiences Coordinating the new technology’s impact with support tools so that the entire set continues to work together Here’s how Spreadshirt’s Laures went about the process with his ecommerce upgrade His situation may include technical decisions and processes that don’t apply to your own Turbo Ninja Plus, but most of the steps have rough equivalents Define the order of migration Once Laures and his team committed to modernizing the company’s technology stack, they defined the order of migration “We analyzed those areas of the business that suffered most from the inability to change,” he says For example, most of their online marketing directed traffic to the website frontend The company’s user experience experts had concepts sitting on the shelf that could never be implemented because of missing flexibility in the old, monolithic system Migrate only what needs to be touched “Tech people sometimes tend to work in an all-or-nothing approach,” says Laures In their desire to avoid complexity, developers may conclude, “Let’s start from scratch on a greenfield and switch everything to the new platform once it is finished.” If you can swing it, great But at Spreadshirt that was not the case “The monolith consisted of a couple of million code lines covering three different business models, ERP, and production processes,” explains Laures A project to start again from scratch would have taken years, during which the old system would continue to suffer Plus, there are no real guarantees with that methodology Laures has never seen a successful Big Bang migration in his career “Touching only those components that will be modernized next is a better approach to reduce complexity, stick to the things that work, and still innovate in certain areas,” he says Minimize synchronization Once Spreadshirt identified the first component to update, they faced the next decision “Besides the Big Bang approach, there are actually two additional paths to modernization,” Laures points out: duplicate and sync and rip and integrate With “duplicate and sync,” you start from scratch (only for the single component) and duplicate the business logic within the (in their case) new microservice New components can use the new services, without being tied to the monolith “To ensure that the service has access to the required data, database synchronization between the legacy and the new system is set up,” Laures says “After that, new frontends can easily integrate with the new service using modern frontend technologies.” The alternative approach, “rip and integrate,” tries to avoid error-prone and expensive data synchronizations by switching off the legacy component after the new microservice is available and reroutes all clients into the new service This approach could also be seen as the last step of a component’s legacy migration, says Laures Assign one team per business concern Don’t ask the entire company or department to be involved in the change One team should own the entire business process Advises Laures, slicing team responsibilities along technical layers (the frontend team, service team, database team) might lead to unintended friction points And, when problems arise, it could result in some finger pointing between the dependent teams Organize the Transition Don’t throw a ton of resources at something that seems like it might be a good idea without concrete evidence of value or customer need, suggests CA Technology’s Berkes Start small, and evaluate progress at each stage “Accelerate the development of new ideas that are proving their value; chances are that you’re not the first one with the idea,” he says “And just as importantly, stop development of ideas that aren’t working out as hoped to make room for more promising ones with your limited resources.” Owen followed this process well when Wowza migrated from one software development tool to another The team began with a clear goal: “Modernize our version control infrastructure and get all teams on the same tool.” It articulated Git’s benefits to the organization: “Most new hires are much more familiar with Git than any other tool And lots of new tools and source repositories only support Git.” And then the migration got under way, with these guidelines and activities: Any new project is started in Git instead of SVN Teams using Git help train the teams using SVN on best practices Develop a migration strategy and use tools to migrate existing SVN codebases to Git without any history loss For example, one product used sequential build numbers instead of commit hashes; a way to replicate that in Git was needed Make necessary changes to the automated build system Practice migration Fix and repeat as necessary Rip off the Band-Aid: “As of Monday we are using Git.” Note that training came first, so that the developers familiar with SVN didn’t feel lost with the new tool Owen’s team also tried to contain the change in a small group and to ensure the bugs were worked out before, as he puts it, the Band-Aid was ripped off Coping with Change When we individually grasp the promise of a Turbo Ninja Plus — which surely is smaller, faster, cheaper, quieter, and more powerful than the previous technology — quite often we’re tempted to drop everything and move to the new tool immediately But human beings are slow to change, especially when their current solution gets the job done If you work with other people, you need to get them to buy into your vision Any new proposal needs to take their reluctance into account It needs to resolve the reasonable questions, such as the late-stage mainstream buyer’s concern, “We want to work with proven vendors, not startups who might disappear overnight.” You don’t want to be in the position of espousing change for the sake of change Make sure you can articulate the benefits to the people it affects, says Wowza’s Owen They need to understand why this is making their life better You need to acknowledge the frustrations during a transition to the users “Be practical and understand that you may lose a bit of productivity for a time,” says Owen “Be patient but firm There can be pressure to go back to what was comfortable Continue to reiterate why you are making this change.” Consider a Formal Change Management Process “Fail forward, faster, and bigger That is what leads to breakthroughs!” declare the people who lust for change “You only miss the boat if you’re not moving fast enough!” These people are in the minority, and (happily) are rarely found in larger organizations Whatever the nature of your Turbo Ninja Plus, people are the biggest challenge in any adoption process, particularly when it’s forced upon them Adoption should be a participatory process, with users prepared for and actively involved in the transition planning as well as in the implementation phases Ensuring that everyone participates in the process encourages the adoption to be driven by the team and not imposed from above The result is a team owning the adoption effort and tailoring it to its current culture If the innovation is disruptive enough, the change may be more formidable than even the best project manager can handle It may behoove you to hire or retain a professional change manager to guide the organization through the process, support employees, and play the role of liaison and advocate for the business activities Modern change leadership combines information technology with human resources, sales, marketing, and business-process change, says Osolind, to reduce risk, overcome operational complexity and cultural resistance to change, and create future growth opportunities Learn from Your Experience Even when we’ve done things a hundred times before, it sometimes takes a few iterations to get a process or product just right That’s even more so when you adopt an unproven Turbo Ninja Plus, both in technical terms — the feature you need isn’t implemented yet — and in terms of integrating it into your workflow or finding the right business model Sometimes it’s outside your control For example, Jacob Cantele, CTO of Concierge Auctions, learned that the first draft isn’t always the real innovation Cantele’s company wanted to scale the business to respond to the volume of sellers wanting to put their property on the Concierge Auctions platform But in the initial attempts they discovered that buyers were not ready to take the plunge — not until other mobile platforms created a stable ecosystem “There wasn’t a lot of precedent for these types of purchases via app,” says Cantele “It took Uber and other apps to make buyers feel more comfortable.” Instead, Concierge Auctions refocused on improving its website and making it more mobile friendly “That experience strengthened the product and marketing teams and helped them refine the user experience,” says Cantele “The app was relaunched last year as Instant Gavel, and now 80% of the company’s auctions are done via app.” Even when the transition goes well, you should conduct an honest postmortem to assess how well the tech adoption project went For instance, after the SVN-to-Git migration, Owen assessed what went right (“We survived and now have all the teams using Git; no more SVN All the teams now understand multiple branching workflows and adapt to fit their product”) and what could have been handled better (“There was a lot of fear, uncertainty, and doubt created by the change; and we could have done a lot better job with training on things like GitFlow and best practices and setting up test repos where folks could figure all that out”) The assessment isn’t only after the fact Know when to pull the plug, too “You need to have a rigorous, data-driven system to evaluate the development of new ideas,” says CA Technologies’ Berkes “Having welldefined gates, metrics, and effective governance of innovation is essential to prevent zombie projects that go on and on without ever delivering real value, or pet projects based on individual whim.” Rather than view this as giving up, look at it as a fact-based decision that celebrates the learning gained by having explored the idea “Don’t fail fast — learn fast!” he says In any case, Berkes urges, have a process in place for continuous improvement, and develop a culture of introspection to identify areas of opportunity and formulate specific, actionable plans to address them “For example, sharing technology across our many product teams has historically been a challenge,” he says “Just a few months ago, we started an Inner Source program to allow easy and fast-paced code sharing across CA’s entire technology community The program has really taken off, which is a good sign that it’s solving a previously unmet need.” Ultimately, we search for balance On the one hand, we want to develop cool, innovative stuff that sets us apart, using the most modern tools and technologies On the other hand, we don’t want to bet on the wrong horse And it’s all under pressure Startups are nipping at your heels Technology is automating everything, including our own jobs Management is demanding research on a schedule And users and customers relentlessly demand the next best thing (as long as you don’t actually change the things they like) It isn’t simple But perhaps with these guidelines, it’s a little easier About the Author Esther Schindler is a longtime tech industry journalist and has translated geek-talk into English since 1992 She loves to explain how technology can, indeed, improve the quality of life Find her on Twitter at @estherschindler Bring chocolate Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption: Don’t Just Fail Fast — Learn Fast You Say “Disruptive” As If It’s a Good Thing The Technology Adoption Curve The Chasm in Your Company Failure Is Dangerous Conservatism Is Okay Evaluating the Options Determine What You Want: Introducing the Turbo Ninja Plus Measure the Promise Against Your Goals Consider the Consequences of Adoption — and Failure Sell the Change Consider a Slow-but-Sure Approach Organize the Transition Coping with Change Consider a Formal Change Management Process Learn from Your Experience ... Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption How to Respond When Competition, Your Customers, and Automation Come Knocking Esther Schindler Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation. .. to ensure that your use thereof complies with such licenses and/ or rights 978-1-491-97412-4 [LSI] Guidelines for Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption: Don’t Just Fail Fast — Learn Fast... Keeping Pace with Innovation and Tech Adoption, the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to