2023 Top 5 Business Trends

It’s a new world for 2023, with managers facing new challenges and managing traditional business issues. While the recent large wave of the ever-evolving disease seems to have passed, there are threats of resurgence and new strains. There are implications of war and regional conflicts on the horizon that could also impact businesses. The era of "free money" is now behind us all, while currencies seem to be adjusting to a tight capital plus uncertainty in most traditional and untraditional currencies. Investors, businesses, and customers will be much more careful in the future, implying an economic pull-back and more conservative investment. Even so, innovation will still be necessary to navigate through rather than being primarily aimed at "moonshots." What does this mean for business trends?

Managing Uncertainty

You can't manage what you can't see or measure. So organizations will double down on managing uncertainty. It means that on the reactionary front, businesses will focus on speed to respond with innovation, change, and faster digital technologies to assist management in observing, orienting, deciding, and acting. Proactively, businesses will bolster their corporate planning exercises to consider scenarios and use new applications of digital sentinels to sense emergent threats, opportunities, and unanticipated "black swan" events or event clusters. AI will likely play a more vital role beyond just operational machine learning.

Wrestling with the Cost of Doing Business

Businesses will try to lower costs on core operations without putting the burden on the backs of their employees, partners, and customers. It implies more intelligent automation and not just outsourcing costs to partners, making customers the data entry clerks, or putting more stress on employees. Capital expenditures will typically be observed as they progress to profitable results and in all tight money times. However, care must be taken not to use cost containment to choke off important innovation. The most intelligent organizations invest during down cycles to get momentum on the other side of a downturn.

Increasing Loyalty for Real

Clearly, businesses have taken customers and employees for granted in the past, and it is coming home to roost. Companies must be flexible with work models to stay competitive and offer upskilling opportunities, tailored benefits, and intelligent automation assistance for the higher-skilled workers who know the game is about skills. In addition, brand reputation will get technical assistance in measuring real-time customer satisfaction through voice, more intelligent natural language chatbots, and better interactions that are not only driven by rehearsed scripts.

Wrestling Change Through Focused Adaptability

Businesses have a hard time with change. Sometimes it’s the inflexibility of core processes and systems. Still, more than that, it keeps people engaged with the change so that they can contribute towards goals and have the change feedback on the progress of the resulting changes as they roll out. Technology systems need to be fitted and surrounded by flexible and fast digital technologies, and people need to be engaged frequently.

Focusing on Core Business Needs

Businesses should focus on core businesses and shed those activities that do not contribute to the core business unless it is an innovation that would distance your organization from future economic up cycles. Concentrating on the core will be essential to weather any storms that emerge. As a result, staff evaluations, technology redundancies, and vendor consolidation should be on the table in 2023. In addition, new methods for managing non-core activities will be aggressively pursued.

Net; Net:

While rapid growth is not expected in the economy, organizations will take bold steps to intercept and manage changing conditions. Organizations that leverage emergent management disciplines and technologies will be far ahead of those organizations that just play speed to reaction well. Any efforts to be on top of real-time observations, pattern interception, and critical actions will be paid back handsomely when conditions are emergent, as I expect going forward.

Significant Activity Over the Last Decade

First of all, thank you to those who took the time to read my thoughts on my blog over nearly a decade. It started out as a fun outlet for expressing my ideas on hot topics and ended up helping many. I am writing this now because the number of hits surpassed 800K inception to date this month. This number might be a little inflated because some actors try to sneak pointers to their content, but I deleted 99% of the invader's thanks to hints from Google. I did use this platform to share my art and music creations, but these posts were not bellringers. I thought it might be good to share the "Greatest Hits" with you. There weren't a lot of surprises for me as I watched trends over time. Other than the US and Russia, Europe dominated the number of hits. All comments will be appreciated, especially topics that you feel would be helpful in the future.  

Net; Net:

I sure have enjoyed writing for you, but I delight in feedback. Please reach out by commenting or sending me a message through Linkedin or Twitter. 

Amazing Journey Album is Now Streaming

 Announcing “Amazing Journey” by the Foxx and Sinur Label is Now Streaming

Everybody has a life journey to experience. This collection of songs takes you down a journey of the search for fulfillment and love. While each song stands alone with unique style and message, together they create a journey for the listener that will evoke various emotions while delighting your ear, engaging your mind, and hopefully moving your soul. Amazing Journey is streaming on all major streaming services. Please try your favorite streaming service. If you don’t have access to a service, there is a CD available.  Click here for a Sample of Amazing Journey

What Others are Saying About Amazing Journey

Amazing Journey is an eclectic mix of many musical styles. The songs take you on a well-crafted emotional journey. Top notch musicianship along with the heartfelt vocals and lyrics make this a very enjoyable project indeed!

Greg Chaisson, Manager of Bizarre Guitar plus bass guitarist, singer, songwriter, and producer of Atomic Kings and Badlands, Phoenix, AZ

I really like how this turned out; there are so many different styles at play and it works! The production/mix is tight. Siren’s Song is my favorite, but there’s so much to love here! You should be proud of this CD! I’m impressed!

David McCoy, Former DJ and Digital Consultant, Atlanta Georgia

“Having grown up on theme albums, I miss them with new albums having just a number of songs. Jim and Ethan have put together an album on the themes of life and love. I found myself drawn to the deep experiences in my own life as they came back to life in this album. Highly recommend this exploration”

Craig Hayenga, Retired NASA Scientist, Phoenix, AZ

Winning Change Management Delivers

It matters not what kind of situation organizations find themselves in; change is always present. Change often implies an organizational and individual risk that creates angst. These facts alone should drive organizations to be great at change, but unfortunately, they generally are not. In today's world, it seems like stability is even more elusive, with change and potential change hovering around every corner. Therefore, it puts a premium, making change management a core business capability. What should organizations do to improve the change process to survive, thrive, and capitalize on change? There are three things that I would point to that are enumerated below:

Continuous Alignment on Goals:

Change is no longer a project with a defined start and end. Instead, it is continuous and accelerating. Because of the agility needed in the world today, there is a significant need to keep teams focused on their goals and any change or refinement of those goals. It means that the goals become a first-class visibility object in the change process. Because alignment is crucial because the change cycle will likely be split into many pieces, all progressing while changing the interactions of several advancing teams. There are two key enablers to making this happen. One is a shared repository of goals and all the supporting content for all to see. The other is a strong collaboration and communication capability to keep everyone abreast of progress when goals are stable and changes if the goals shift.

Focus on Watching the Change:

In an emergent world, change management must provide Just-in-time feedback to all recipients in a synchronized fashion, so all can act on it appropriately. Change sponsors often only look at the emergent change's operational and tactical results. It is a significant miscalculation. Sponsors need to be laser-focused on the actual change process itself. This way, the results will align with expectations, but more importantly, drift can be detected early to adjust during the change process. The sponsors will lead the way to the teams keeping a sharp eye on the progress of the change management process.

Upscale Team Change Skills:

Because of the increased frequency of the multitude of sources of and impact of today's change, organizations had better make change management a core competency. In some instances, this will become a survival skill, whereas, in other circumstances, it will be a necessary part of a game plan to win. As we all know, people are the key to change, and they have an emotional tie to the changes. While they might like the vision, some folks fear the change. Here, empathy is crucial in keeping leaders and team members on an even keel. In addition, clear visibility and effective communication are necessary without all the overhead of meetings.

Net; Net:

Change management is crucial for organizations to succeed and drive outcomes. It is common knowledge that study after study points to a 70% change failure rate. On the horizon, all organizations are seeing more change coming. We are at a critical juncture to "Get Great at Change" or else. The convergence of more change than ever and being poor at it paints a grim picture. Change management has risen to the top processes to get great at. You can't just hire a consultant that works with your executives and declare change; you must get much better at the change management process to make changes effective. It should become a core competency.

Additional Readings:


There is one organization that gets it and helps you grow competency in change management that doesn’t take a vacuum cleaner to your pocketbook. Here is a pointer to some of their writings

Change Itself is Changing

Don't Stop Believing in Change

Big Change is Enabled by Cared For People

Art for the 3rd Quarter 2022

 I decided to return to my traditional digital art and produce some colorful pieces. I also tried a sponged piece just for grins. Let me know what you think of these recent fractals. If you want to enjoy some of my past pieces, click here. Next quarter, I'll probably do some more experimentation. 

                                               Starlight

                                              Emergent

                                           Neon Strings

What Have Folks Been Reading Lately

 During the third quarter, the interest in real-time business visibility was accelerated, emphasizing situational analysis. It makes total sense as events worldwide are interconnected and emerging, causing organizations to make the right decisions and apply the proper actions in a more timely fashion. This effort depends on unifying various data sources, usually in the cloud these days. You can see this in the pie chart below measuring the third quarter 2022 topics. It is also interesting that Northern European countries are keenly interested in these topics as they respond to war-related moves tactically while dealing with more strategic shifts related to climate and supply chains. See the offshore (non-US) hits by country. typically northern Europe is an early adopter of new technologies that link to business outcomes. YTD for 2022 shows an increased interest in customer-pleasing efforts as we slip into a downturn where the fight for customer loyalty will be crucial. So the quest for automation for profitability will have to be taken in light of customer acceptance. 

Art for the 2nd Quarter 2022

 I decided to go back to my traditional digital art and produce some colorful pieces. Let me know what you think of these recent fractals. If you want to enjoy some of my past pieces, click here  Next quarter, I'll probably do some more experimentation. 

                                                 Crystal Galaxy 

                                                   Neon Bee

                                                Grape Panther 

Budgeting Technologies for 2023

If you thought budgeting was difficult in the past, this round of budget planning for 2023 would be like nailing jello to a tree. Yes, we will all be looking for ways to cut costs, mostly through smarter automation and intelligent selection of projects that promise to deliver improvements in costs, revenue, and customer satisfaction. This will require a more focused approach to goal-led efforts while dealing with everchanging goals. This will require focusing on goals while they are stable and developing super skills in situational analysis, decisioning, and actions. This post will focus on the technologies that contribute to goal focus and understanding the habits necessary to deliver competence in situational shifts. Consider investing in these five areas to get the most business bang for the buck, and don't slack on innovation within these key technologies. 

Goal-Led Collaboration

According to surveys done by Harvard Business Review and Microsoft, organizations are not as good at goal-led approaches as they would like. Only 38% of executives said that their staff has a clear and ongoing understanding of the goals that count. These same executives said that key company activities are 27-44% out of alignment with goals. At the same time, meeting times have skyrocketed 252% in the last two years. This needs to change, and organizations need to change this trend even in stable times. Here are two case studies to prove the value of Goal-led Collaboration. The first is a B2B Supply Chain Case Study. The second is an approach to solving a difficult societal problem   Goal-led is proven and low cost and brings together the chaotic communications we deal with daily, and doesn't require a big investment. Start with establishing a goal cycle and support it with good technology 

Management Cockpit with Focused Data Science

The era we live in is filled with unexpected events and new situations, putting a premium on situational analysis assisted by technologies such as situational AI, Data Mining, Machine Learning, Event Management, Real-Time Fast Boards, and Situational Management Cockpits. Going for all of these simultaneously might be a budget burden, so I would suggest starting with event/pattern recognition with Fastboards plus various kinds of learning/discovery technologies (AI & Mining). Practice decisioning alternatives by establishing management cockpits for dealing with emerging situations and scenario planning with responses. This is an evolving and emerging set of sciences that have gone from backroom planning to the front lines of business. A stronger link between strategy change and operations will be vital, along with a link with Goal-Led approaches.

Intelligent Automation 

A major contributor to cost reductions will be automation and its intelligent application of it through project selection and implementation. In addition, the automation will have to go from static automation to dynamic and smart situational automation. It means that automation will move from mechanical focused speed to intelligent and adaptive approaches that are sensing, learning, deciding, and acting properly at the moment without losing sight of the situational context. This will mean moving on from just Low-code and single-dimensional RPA to include smarter technologies that are goal-led as well. There are many forms of digital automation that might be considered here, but I would suggest driving the choices around the business outcomes of goals. Click here for a link to digital technologies organized by business outcome

Human Augmentation

It is clear we will need to get the most out of people to make progress. I would suggest organizations look from the outside in to get the most bang for their technologies. This means that customers, partners, and collaborations outside your organization get priority instead of just optimizing your cost per transaction. This means looking at the real end-to-end journey for all of your outside constituents first to impact their goals and your organization. This way, your processes are in synch with customer goals and journeys  Once the processes are in synch, your employees and contractors will have an easier go. However, skill augmentation of employees is still a real issue. Leveraging voice analysis and AI learning in real-time can be a big boost. Having an AI coach in an employee's ear is also a long-term goal. 

Real-Time Data Fabric/Mesh 

A smart data mesh that leverages hybrid data sources in real-time is an essential building block to support the other four technologies listed above. While the physical locations of any data is a big issue, having a logical business-focused data catalog that helps both people and technologies to leverage data from real-time to archival data. This is a long-term goal that requires regular investment to help with the real management of data in a proactive manner. It will start with a unified database and extend to a catalog-driven data fabric/mesh This is the real way to deal with data sprawl, but the investment is long-term and infrastructural in nature. 

Net; Net: 

While there will be belt-tightening, there are ways to prioritize technology investments that will still provide long-term delivery while incrementally providing contributions to today's profitability pressures. It's a tricky balance to invest in digital progress while keeping operations on point and able to adjust to constant change. Look to this space for a discussion on dealing with change by leveraging situational methods, practices, and technologies. 

Linking Strategy to Operations Easily

While it is never easy to link strategy to operations, specific approaches, methods, techniques, and technologies can make it easier. Today, all organizations are challenged to drive growth and optimize business operations in a compliant and socially enlightened way. Change is being imposed by changing conditions that may imply opportunities or threats. It is on top of organizations wanting to better their customer relationships, products, and services. Therefore, high-performance decisions and actions must be delivered under all strategic, tactical, and execution/operational conditions. IT means prioritizing responses dynamically. This blog will explore the priority of efforts organizations can take optimizing on ease.

There are three states organizations can be in and out of based on what’s happening in and around them. Often all states are happening at once in various proportions.

Steady State

This state is where the change winds are light. it is often the calm in the periods between significant changes or when complex change settles back to a more normal pace. It is where typical dashboards, management reports, and balanced scorecards can be designed and implemented with management keeping an eye on early change indicators.

Adaptive State

This state is typically in an active change period like we are going through with COVID, war, and supply chain challenges. Here, there is dynamic and real-time observance looking for events, signals, and note patterns. Once detected and oriented, decisions can be made for actions throughout the organization and the contexts it operates at the moment. Often these are imposed changes.

Planned Change State

It is where management with a clear mind can plan programs and projects from the evolution of operations incrementally to total transformations. It is often where new markets are targeted, new products/services are introduced, and mergers/acquisitions are planned for future execution involving programs and projects.

Figure 1 Strategy Links


Linking Strategy to Operations on the Easy Curve

Listed below are the categories of activities that have your operations linked to strength. They are listed in order of ease to attempt. Organizations can go way over the edge to make any of these more complicated than they need to be, so this order is advisory. It could be different for your industry, type of organization, or your culture. Keep in mind that the closer to the core of Figure 1 (operational views) and stable strategies, the easier it is to link strategy to operations. As organizations approach the outer rings of figure one, especially in the adaptive state, the more difficult linking moving strategies to operations becomes. It is essential to understand that methods, tools, and techniques help with the outer edge and handle the whole "link to strategy" continuum depicted in Figure 1.



Performance Management

Performance management starts with human visibility and automated notifications. It could be as simple as a standalone dashboard or as complex as a functionally integrated management cockpit looking for patterns and events in real-time.

Process Optimization

Processes must constantly get better as customers demand a better experience, and exceptions are noted, analyzed, and dealt with within manual and automated processes. The optimization process often includes mining, visualization, and analysis. In extreme cases, advanced formulas and AI play a role. Scopes can expand to whole B2B chains.

Quality Management

The processes, production lines, and supply chains need to be optimized, but these results must also be dealt with in terms of quality and customer delight. It is crucial to devise ways of inspecting and getting feedback on quality. It can be manual or automated. When automating and training technology from data and experts, the complexity can get edgy.

Governance/Compliance

While compliance is essential to stay active in markets and geographies, the methods are often emergent. While the rules may be evolving, the processes and constraints are continually developing as target dates loom.

Risk Management

As every organization has a specific risk culture, it is difficult to assess risk. While it is often easier to determine the frequency of a chance happening, the threshold for particular actions is often a challenge. The skill level of the decision-makers has to be high, steeped with deep knowledge, and often experienced with projections.

Program/Project Management

Managing a goal-led approach to delivering improvements or necessary changes is often a big challenge. Keeping everyone up to date with changes and getting all skills to collaborate equally is a big deal. Tracking change effectiveness leveraging before and after deltas is always a chore.

Strategy Management

Knowing the right strategy for current or emerging conditions is very difficult. Often it requires deep planning to recognize patterns of opportunity or threat. Then, once detected, a bevy of analytical/simulation models usually has to test responses in uncertain situations.

Net; Net:

Is it easy to link strategy to operations and tune tactics? I would submit that it depends on the situation and the emerging strategy. One thing is for sure. There are methods, tactics, tools, and techniques that can make it easier, faster, and more effective. Some of the blog posts listed in additional reading might help the reader. In addition, there are a couple of vendors who can help with this approach.  Wizsm & Tibco.


Additional Reading:

Frictionless Management

Real-Time Fast Boards

Management Cockpits

Real-Time Strategy

Management by Wire

AutoPilot Management

Gain Significant Results with Goal-Led Collaboration

Several savvy organizations had picked up on the power of goal-led collaboration and applied them to real-world situations. Here are two very interesting case studies that come from very different directions but share the common benefit of customer delight.

The first case study is attempting a problem that folks have been struggling with for decades. Many people have dreamed of helping children with Autism. Click Here for an impressive benefit case study that will warm your heart. The tangible benefits, while unrealized right now, will be delivered later. The intangible benefits for patients and families will start the evolution.

The second case study is about how a B2B focused organization delivered tangible and crisp benefits that were impressive during the initial times of COVID. The benefits made everyone in the CX suite grin from ear to ear. Many of us would love to deliver a 29% increase in revenue while reducing costs by an impressive 30%. All of this while reducing the time to deliver from 6 weeks to 2 days. Click Here for an impressive hard benefit case study that would make most of us proud.

Transforming While Attaining Stretch Goals

It's hard to imagine making a significant transformation within a large multi-national B2B organization while dealing with the complications of COVID and supply chain issues. However, this case does just that while attaining the triple crown of business benefits of increased revenue, decreased costs, and a significant value increase by reducing the "time to respond." This organization achieved impressive results by leveraging an outside-in approach to customer outcomes while driving results with goal-led collaboration. As a result, they were able to expand during the time of COVID on a large scale. Let's check this case study out.

The Challenge

· The order to dispatch cycle was six weeks on average, creating problems for all customers.

· The customers were also delayed in providing products and services to their customers/dealers.

· The complexity of change across multiple markets and countries

This large organization has leadership in three major business sectors. First, it must continue providing products and services while significantly changing the ordering process, compounding problems downstream. Second, this 3+ billion-dollar revenue company has to improve across all 100+ countries it services. All of these forces were being affected by the COVID impacts. Third, the innovation required will insist on including the customers and the customers of the direct customers.

The Solution

It started with understanding the current situation and what the customers wanted. This was done leveraging an outside-in approach to creating customer confidence. This organization used the CEM Method to guide the process that helped discover the customer's real needs, design customer profiles around the real needs, and deploy smoothly. These efforts were managed with goal-led collaborations that linked actions to outcomes from the sponsor all the way to the doers with clear visibility.

· Providing solid and stable providers

· Providing products/services as and when specified

· Run without disruption

The Benefits

These benefits were derived from goal-led collaboration guided by the CEM method, continuous optimization individually and collectively aimed at the primary goals. There was a significant reduction in order dispatch resulting in cost reduction and revenue increases while increasing customer confidence in the uncertainty of COVID

· Order dispatch time reduced from 6 weeks to 2 days

· Increased revenue by 29%

· Reduced costs by 30%


Net; Net:

This approach generates happier customers with significant changes to business results. This case study reached the triple crown of increased revenue, decreased costs, and more value by leveraging goal-led collaboration while looking at the problem and solutions from the "outside-in."

This case study was provided and assisted by Parallel  Click here for a link

Case Study Goal Life Cycle Impacts Highlighted in Blue

For an Explanation of the Goal Life Cycle Components, Please Refer to the Blog Posts Below

For a Goal Life Cycle Explanation, click here

For Better Goal Management, click here

For Goal Led Technologies, click here

Autism Transformation Case Study Leveraging a Goal-Led Approach

Most of us are tasked with transformational change, and as a result are challenged to assemble, coordinate, and track the methods, resources, and tools necessary for transformation. While this case study is still ongoing, the expected results will send ripples throughout the health and therapy industries. It's going to change the way treatment plans work for autism forever. It is an innovation that will become a movement because it is newsworthy and worth watching. It leverages goal-led collaboration and takes treatment to a new level of efficiency and effectiveness. Let’s dive into this exciting transformation that promises huge industry change by treating the whole family that autism impacts.

The Challenge

· Most experience delays in getting diagnosed and many are not getting diagnosed at all

· There are waitlists for services, and many are not Receiving the hours they are prescribed

· Care across the services provided is not coordinated

The problems with managing autism from diagnosis to service completion are immense. First and foremost, children are diagnosed late because the hurdles to getting diagnosed are high. It is almost impossible to get approvals from insurance companies to leverage the scarce resources of counselors and move on to the methods and technicians that can help the situation. The other major issue is that the parents are considered in the treatment plans, and the whole household is not considered for treatment. Often getting the autistic family/household to services is quite challenging. Also, the amount of paperwork and red tape is taking away from the scarce treatment resources. Therefore, the failure rate is unacceptable even when permission for counseling is granted.

The Solution

It starts with goal-led frameworks designed to optimize the end-to-end experience for the patient, the family, and service resources. It begins with placing the parents at the center of the process by teaching the value of long-term support for the whole family unit throughout the treatment plan timeline. Next, it focuses on several vital subgoals to get through the insurance authorization and get things going quicker. Finally, it breaks down into these five subgoals that are being coordinated individually and collectively to attain the primary goal:

· Diagnose as Early as Possible

· Get Access to Services as Quickly as Possible

· Activate Parents

· Deliver Care to the Family

· Graduate to New Freedoms

The Benefits

The benefits were derived from goal-led collaboration, and continuous optimization individually, and collectively aimed at the primary goal. There were immediate benefits for more family happiness while unlocking the potential of the child and the family unit in new ways. The parents become educated advocates following a customized and designed plan leading to more direct results quicker. It reduces iterations and false steps, optimizing the service resources. Communication with all parties helps in each case and treats the problems holistically. There is clarity around actions and faster paths to results through following a customized and designed experience. It also enables treating younger and younger children giving treatment momentum early in children's lives.

Net; Net:

This approach generates happier families living to their full potential as early as possible while optimizing the counselors, cases, service providers, and administrative tasks. The goal-based system allows for continuous and constant iteration for better results keeping all parties up to date on the status of people and procedures. It will prove productive for kids at all levels on the autism spectrum. Watch this space for an update.



This case study was provided and assisted by Parallel. Click here for a link



Case Study Goal Life Cycle Impacts Highlighted in Blue

For an Explanation of the Goal Life Cycle Components Please Refer to the Blog Posts Below

For a Goal Life Cycle Explanation, click here

For Better Goal Management, click here

For Goal Led Technologies, click here

Businesses Require Better Goal Management

Because of the dynamic nature of business today with wars and rumors of wars, pandemics, and weakened supply chains, goals need to rise in importance. While goals should be specific and measurable, goals will change with greater frequency. Therefore, goal attainment will also have to be watched more carefully. We are upping the ante on better goal management and focusing better on the business supports for goal management and goal attainment. Better goal management requires a new level of transparency and communication capabilities than in the past and follows a consistent goal cycle. Click here for a suggested Goal Life Cycle (GLC). While there still will be the issue of variations by legal system and location, the adaptation of staff and automation will have to be faster and sharper than in the past. While there will still be steady-state goals and boundaries periods, the change increases its velocity. What are the foundations for goals in a changing world? This post will dig into the primary foundations around goals.

Goals for People

Better goal management needs a good dose of people power for both the management of the goals and the attainment of our changing goals. In today's world of collaboration, people are a crucial resource for establishing, maintaining, and changing goals. The problem is that collaborations today are somewhat random and not organized around completely transparent goals. When changes occur, the stakeholders that are the goals stewards are not given complete visibility to the change, and worse yet, all the participants are not clued in to how they should change their behavior. Therefore, all goal management and goal attainment activities should be tied to goals naturally and informing way.

Goals for Processes

Better goal management should directly link goal changes to the sequence and outcomes of business processes. All resources that contribute to a process's success need to understand/support the goals, goals changes, and direct actions required for new goal courses. While processes are often on the front line of detecting a need to adjust goals through exceptions or changes in business event trends, their significant contribution revolves around goal attainment. Changes in goals often mean a shift in process actions and even new process paths or step sequences. Collaborations with all the process resources for new or changed purposes are essential; however, enlightened organizations have adaptable processes that automatically adapt to new goals or milestones.

Goals for Programs

Better goal management should allow for quick adaptation of change to existing programs. The program could be a one-time event, like a conference, or a repeatable set of linked people, processes, automation, and platforms. Better program management means that learnings need to be faster and more comprehensive, and responses need to be planned and delivered quicker. It puts a premium on thorough communication and collaboration directly linked to goals instead of random collaborations that are not connected or missed because they appear to be noise communications in error.

Goals for Systems of Automation

The problem with most automation is that they are optimized to deliver on efficiency that depends on stable goals. Packaged and legacy applications, components, and micro-services are created for a known set of outcomes. The maintainers of this automation need to be informed early of any changes as early in the cycle as possible because of the lead time to make changes in this often-brittle automation. Even if automation were designed to flex, we are seeing unexpected scenarios that will likely change the ingenious automation of the past. Therefore, early in the change cycle, synchronized goal change communications and collaborations are a must putting a premium on linking to stakeholder goals.

Goals for Supporting Platforms/Infrastructure

Often unseen supports become a change inhibitor. These could be transportation systems, physical platforms, manufacturing lines, networks, or technical system platforms. Over time these are the last to become flexible and represent constraints on supporting goal changes. Communicating with the stewards and outside vendors about the goal changes has to be early in the cycle. Many infrastructure platforms were designed with a specific purpose in mind, so communicating early and often helps these folks figure out ways to bend or extend the infrastructure. Some infrastructure changes require long lead times.

Net; Net:

We all are trying to deal with change and the downstream effects on all moving parts of the organization that need to know about or change behaviors to support new or existing goals. Communicating in synchronization, preparing for the changes, and implementing the changes needs to be done in shorter time frames in today's dynamic and flexible worlds. It is a much different world than we have been used to in the past. Better goal management, methods, and tools will likely result in our new change-prone world. It may require further training and outside perspective to prepare for better goal management in a world of constant change.

Dodging A Digital Downturn

We all see the signs of a potential economic downturn on the horizon. There are no dumpster fires right now, but you can see signs of nervousness. Like it or not, uncertainty will impact all our organization’s digital efforts. It means that we will all have our outcomes tied to the kind of business outcomes that companies desire. If we want our digital initiatives to progress, regardless of their progression, we need to tie them to the best possible results from a business perspective. Here are the five desired outcomes that seem to appeal most to executives.

Increasing Revenues

The typical digital projects around revenue attract more prospects to your organization’s products and services. It usually includes adding compelling new digital channels and mechanisms to attract multiple generations increasing the sales funnel. Another primary stream is around speeding the progress of the prospects through the sales funnel by automating portions of the sales cycle. Care must be applied to not irritate prospects or add onerous tasks to sales professionals. Digital initiatives are often aimed a cross-selling/ upselling existing customers that are likely to accept offers.

Decreasing Costs

Often digital initiatives are aimed at cost reductions, and they usually deliver through various forms of automation and fast feedback from operational processes. Additional benefits can be gleaned by adjusting decisions and rules that govern/direct organizational processes and tasks. Adding more intelligence to processes and tasks is often another way to decrease costs by assisting or reducing the human resources necessary to complete work. The issue in cost reduction will be around competing with other efforts and expected rates of returns your executives expect. Linking silo efforts is a best practice for savvy organizations.

Reducing Risk

Preventing loss is a popular approach to justifying efforts. It can range from making sure your organization's actions comply with existing rules and regulations, planning responses to emerging threats, or taking proper advantage of apparent opportunities. Initiatives that bolster risk avoidance are always popular with executives making critical decisions often. Moreover, preventing loss is constantly on the mind of executives, so efforts to reduce any risk appeals.

Attracting/Keeping Customers

Initiatives that identify prospects by offering them a better experience for less money always attract investment. The more subtle efforts revolve around keeping the customers you already have. These days customer loyalty is not a given, so initiatives that help measure the voice of the customer scientifically and assist meaningful customer engagement are highly prized. It may be listening to your interactions with a customer looking for key phrases to indicate potential churn, customer satisfaction, promoter potential, etc. It may include watching the actual interaction over video channels as well. Some of the best feedback comes from employees on the front line working with customers. Adding new customers is one of the highest cost activities for organizations, so investments are needed.

Attracting/Keeping Employees

The days of employer intimidation are waning now, so attracting and keeping employees crucial for success is a more significant issue than ever. Savvy organizations are taking a new look at their processes and tasks for better treatment and leverage of employees. It may include more digital assistance for knowledge workers, but it includes removing friction from integrating silo systems and eliminating mindless tasks. Keeping employees requires creating a worker-friendly and trustworthy culture. Indeed, hybrid work environments help employees have more freedom, which is a minimal level of support. Digital initiatives can be used to gather input from employees to avoid things like we are experiencing today with the "great resignation."

Net; Net:

If the present nervousness is just a temporary phenomenon, rechecking how our digital efforts contribute to significant business outcomes is a great exercise. If more uncertainty emerges, linking to primary business outcomes will become a survival technique. If executives decide to pull back on digital initiatives, we will have to make sure key digital initiatives progress even if they become a lower priority. Remember that executives have to think they will beat their investment hurdle rate if they continue to invest in your digital projects. Knowing the hurdle rate for your organization or industry would be essential to understand when justifying digital projects. Keep in mind that digital initiatives that deliver a multitude of the five will get more support even in downtimes.

Attaining Autopilot Management

There are areas where automation is scary but necessary. It is true of management and driving vehicles. Both are on the way to more automation. We are seeing a revolution in driverless cars that is taking the driving tasks from the drivers and slowly passing them on to forms of automation combined with AI that learns effectively in real-time. This automation journey is bearing fruit now with driver-less taxis and driver-less freight hauling. The maturity of automated freight movement is taking off rapidly right now. Automation may just assist us in the nick of time with messed-up supply chains and driver shortages. There is an emerging parallel for managing organizations that is early and also taking off. There is a maturity to this autopilot management journey that I will try to convey here. Much of this revolves around making better decisions and taking appropriate actions speedily. This post will investigate the progress towards "Autopilot Management" and when we might see it. This post is building off some earlier posts on management by wire and the management cockpit.

What is Autopilot Management?

Autopilot management automates the management processes that observe, decide, act and watch for the expected or unexpected outcomes. It will not happen overnight and will evolve from simple automation to highly informed and interactive automatons. The quest for 100% automation might be a pipe dream. Still, great leaps of progress can be expected over the next few decades making business agility a powerful ally in the competition game. It is now possible because of the leaps in digital technologies, including AI that learns and postulates alternative courses at the strategic level, alternative rules at the tactical level, and focused actions at the operational level. The definition will have levels of maturity that I have described below.

Level 1 Notify:

Notification is the lowest level of automation. Events, patterns, and actions are aggregated and visualized, focused on known decision points. The management cockpit plays a key role here for integrated visualization. Automation will notify the manager(s) of abnormal or out-of-bounds conditions or situations. It is purely advisory and will grow to identify emergent events and patterns to sense potential emergent conditions related to threats and opportunities.

Level 2 Suggest:

Moving up the autopilot maturity curve, the management cockpit will provide/suggest alternative decisions and actions. In some cases, the management cockpit will suggest further analysis and collaboration to deal with expected or unexpected situations. It may be as simple as continuous improvement suggestions at the operational level or an adjustment of rules and boundaries for customer experiences or processes at the tactical level. However, it could draw attention to a potential shift in strategic direction or identify new opportunities and threats.

Level 3 Decide & Advise:

Kicking the intelligence factor up a notch to decide and offer alternative actions for automated action before action is taken. The best decision that automation is capable of is taken, but the manager still determines the proper course of action. In this case, the manager would still have the finals say to the measures necessary in the situation detected or emerging.

Level 4 Decide, Act & Offer Overrides:

Here the level of freedom the automation is given has increased. It decides, but it will take action if an override is not selected within a reasonable time frame. A manager had better have a solid reason not to take the intelligence's advice in the automation tested and established. It might really be necessary for an emergent condition that might need further analysis, particularly at the strategic level.

Level 5 Full Autopilot Management:

It is where the automation would not require a manager's attention to the dynamic management conditions. Instead, the automation would be free to do anything an experienced manager could do within boundaries and constraints preestablished. Finally, it is where the law, ethics, and corporate charter play a significant role.

Net; Net:

Since flexibility and responsiveness now rule the marketplace for today's successful organizations, autopilot management has and will continue to become an increasing focus for organizations. Remember that any organization might only apply total autopilot to selected problem domains and give less freedom to other problem domains. The amount of change and emergence we have seen and will continue to see is going to accelerate. Just look at the impact on our interconnected world that COVID has had so far. While we are early in the automation of management, we can expect much more as managers become more comfortable with the automation of their internal tasks for managing their domain. Also, managers will look to automate interactions with external environments and the traditional other internal domains.

Please Help with A Survey On Management Cockpits by Clicking Here You will receive a summary of the results if you leave an email address in February. Please be patient with the initial screen and use your down arrow on the drop-down selections.

Additional Reading:

Frictionless Management

Real-Time Fast Boards

Management Cockpits

Real-Time Strategy

Management by Wire

Art for the 3rd Quarter 2021

 Another creative quarter has past and the works keep coming. This time I did a fun one that tried a method that employed painter's tape and layers. Hope you get entertained with these pieces :)  If you want to see the rest of my collection, click here.

Costa Hummingbird

Yikes Stripes 

Tornado 

Crab Attack 

UFO

If you see something here or in my collection that stirs you, send me an email at jim.sinur@gmail.com. 

Management By Wire is just Around the Corner.

Management by wire has been the wish of many organizations starting back in the 1990s after the first practical application of fly by wire was delivered by Airbus in the late 1980s. The notion of giving management assists in holistically managing their organizations with software assists for single-loop learning situations grew fast. The parallel was evident and desirable, but until recently, it has not been delivered uniformly. This post will investigate the progress towards "management by wire" and when we will see it. 

                               Figure 1 Feedback Driven Learning Loop Approaches

What is Management by Wire?

Management by wire is a strategy in which managers rely on the organization's "information representation" and feedback loops (see Figure 1) generated by software and data working together to inform management of progress towards goals and outcomes while sensing any potential shift in conditions in and around that organization. It borrows from the idea of managing an airplane under various states and conditions while heading to a destination safely. It allows managers to not just "follow their gut feelings and experience" but provide detailed information for status and change for potential actions in a shortened time window. Because organizations are complex like airplanes, many measures are coming at the managers with different velocities and combinations that may be beyond a manager's capability at any one moment in time because of the breadth and depth of their responsibilities for managing goals, initiatives, and outcomes. 

Why are the Stars Aligning for it Now?

Digital technologies are giving us so much more capability than we had in the past. Here are some of the trends that point to attaining management by wire sooner than expected.

Better Visibility

We now have fast boards available to replace slow and lethargic dashboards where speed counts. Fast boards give managers up to the second views into essential issues. We now have management cockpits that can give integrated views of performance, states of crucial processes, and the success of any automation applied for better optimization.

Better Insights

With the help of better-integrated visibility, the manager can be equipped to leverage their experiences and gut feeling while surrounding them with additional analytical & AI assist combinations that I like to call poly-analytics. It can allow the managers to try different options before deciding and acting. It would be true for real-time operational adjustments all the way through to strategy adjustments.

A Better Data Mesh

Because data is getting easier to access with better integrations, dynamic transformations, and not having to worry about location, any manager can get the view they need to manage. While there are still challenges with data quality, the fly-by-wire notion will identify the priority projects for more data cleansing.

When Will Management by Wire Arrive?

Organizations are gaining experience with the building blocks for creating a manage by wire environment. There has been significant progress in managing data better logically as well in various physical locations. Because the management cockpit focuses on the crucial outcomes, data that feeds the cockpit gets better quicker. Integrated visualizations that leverage fast boards are growing by leaps and bounds. I expect organizations will have examples of portions of their business operating using management by wire principles by the end of this year and complete end-to-end business leverage of fly by wire in the next few years. Better get started soon or get left in the dust.

Net; Net: 

Since flexibility and responsiveness now rule the marketplace, today's successful organizations focus on sensing, orienting, deciding, and responding to the immediate need for change. Change necessary to be ready for new customer needs and shifting business environmental needs. Our world is now emergent in nature, so we need new approaches powered by better information technology that assists management in giving a holistic and integrated view of their organizations to start—inevitably leading to better interpretation of feedback information, better decisions, and improved actions. Even if we live in a steady-state world, optimizing organizations' responses will pay back handsomely.

 

Additional Reading:

Frictionless Management

Fast Boards

Management Cockpits

Real-Time Strategy

 

 

 

Results-Oriented Communications (ROC) for Stakeholders

 Stakeholders should be partners in our organizations and should be treated with utmost care. Often they are at an increased disadvantage because they are often not directly involved with the day-to-day operations, initiative progress, and the incremental improvements that bolster confidence and trust. Each stakeholder type or individual wants different results and watches many milestones of progress. Results-Oriented Communications/Collaborations (ROC) can assist these very stakeholders in their roles. We will explore the various kinds of stakeholders and how each of these stakeholders can take advantage of ROC. There are both external and internal stakeholders associated with every organization/company. Three major kinds of stakeholders will be explored here.

Investor Stakeholder: One external type of stakeholder is associated with the investment aspect of an organization. These investors are keenly interested in any communication that would imply an effect on financial results. They spend time sorting through various communications and ratings to determine the health of their investments. ROC can help because stakeholders can be linked to all pertinent communications. Besides these links, there are typically goal/outcome visual summaries available to view at a summary level. Routinely investor stakeholders can look at essential outcomes/goals and see the progress towards them. Since all communications are linked to these outcomes and supporting initiatives, an interested investor can drill down to a very fine granular level to satisfy their interest and or generate inquiries to or collaborate with internal stakeholders or managers. It will support various styles of investors who range from managing by exception to micromanager types. The amount of time saved by looking at initiative summary dashboards is significant. Still, when sniffing down a trail of potentially negative impact on results, the time saved is immense because there is a repository of supporting documents and collaborations about these documents.

Customer Stakeholders: Another crucial external stakeholder interested in your organization is counting on your business to remain viable to become a source for future purchases of goods and services if the relationship generates loyalty. This loyalty depends entirely on your organization's relationship with these customers, which is generally a result of servicing experience and product performance. ROC can help because it can be leveraged to follow the journey of various kinds of customers and manage the initiatives to improve customer experience. Assuming an outside-in perspective, key customers selected to represent the customer experience and routinely check progress on improvements and drill down to the communications revolving around their specific needs and perspectives while sampling the new experiences along the way, thus generating collaboration opportunities. Some collaborations will occur by reviewing the proposed outcomes. Good customer experiences will represent customer goals at an operational level as well. ROC initiatives will typically aim for balanced customer/company goals and measures of success.

Internal Stakeholders: Internal stakeholders are the ones that represent the various roles and skills that an organization employs to operate the company and deliver desired outcomes for all stakeholders. Typically, initiative owners, managers, and skilled employees represent specialized competencies, skills, and knowledge. When tied together across skillsets through tsks and processes, these resources deliver the expected outcomes measured by operational targets and KPIs. These same resources are tasked with improving the customer experiences, processes, and tasks necessary to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of decisions and actions. ROC is essential in managing initiatives to enhance balanced outcomes, end-to-end journeys, end-to-end processes, and tasks. The progress of any endeavor can be tracked from all stakeholders’ perspectives making efforts transparent. In addition, all efforts to improve are linked to the supporting communications for detailed drill-downs to manage progress. ROC will get feedback through collaboration as tasks are planned, executed, and completed.

Net; Net:

Other stakeholders can be brought into the ROC tent, such as suppliers, communities, governments, and potential competitors, but the three most important influences are represented above. The day in the life of a stakeholder will be made better by the capabilities afforded by ROC methods, techniques, and technologies. As the ROC market develops and matures with the technology players, landmark case studies will emerge to emulate better results.