Study Tour April 2021
The April 2021 study tour to investigated the development of new practices caused by the industrialization of technology became its own case study because of the COVID restrictions then in force. We drew three main conclusions:
1. It is possible to recreate an effective study tour online, though we are still learning how to transfer physical practices related to learning, collaboration, socialization and inclusiveness to an online world.
This process requires hands-on experimentation, a willingness to challenge, the importation of some physical constructs and the abandonment of others, and an awful lot of preparation.
2. Significant changes of practice are widely occurring in industry.
Six are of immediate interest to most corporations:
- Swarming of people
- Distributed and indirect learning
- Radicalization
- Sustainability
- Focus on principles and intent
- Incentives and funding models
A further four are of growing interest:
- Supply chain management
- Situational awareness
- Augmented intelligence
- Swarming of machines
3. Practices such as DevOps and FinOps should already be in use, but there are significant questions about the value of data and the storage of it.
Access to data (including shared and open data) is a technological driver that is anticipated to have a significant impact across many practices. Both Microsoft and Amazon are clearly gearing towards this. This may raise questions regarding existing data strategy, a point that was made by Swim.ai, The Floow and Kloudle.
The industrialization of technology has always led to new practices. It is up to each of us how readily we adopt them, but the need to experiment and to try things out for yourself cannot be overemphasized.
