Evaluating Technology for Flexible Workplace Change
> Gary Dixon has twenty years of experience in technology and consulting. Clients have included Ernst and Young, BT, O2, GE, Business Objects, IBM, Orange, TMobile, Caritor. A background in Learning and Development, a consultant with a wealth of experience in client engagements and design/delivery in the context of enterprise technology programmes. Read more from this author
Technology is now a byword for change and new ways of working in both the public and private sectors. What was once the domain of consultants and psychologists, specialising in the people and process aspects of workplace design and style, the new raft of projects demand implicit understanding and implementation capabilities around technology. But what kind of technology can reshape the way to profitability for an organisation of 3-100,000 people?
Let’s look at 3 criteria for technology in the workplace:
It has to be easy to use. It has to have a walk up or a pick up and use interface. Simple as that. Like the iphone. No training required. Remember a couple of years back when Orange ran specialised workshops in their stores to teach us how to use our phones? Teach us to drill into the detail a couple of menus past the interface in order to get to some decent, useful functionality?
It has to integrate. Simple as that. Make sure that the technology integrates with our existing buildings, people and processes. Like when you think about video conferencing and how for years the manufacturers didn’t integrate it. Instead they created specialised rooms that only a couple of your colleagues were comfortable using. In the end you usually made an audio call and talked the other side through your slidedeck.
It has to be scaleable. Simple as that. Asking questions about scaleability in technology is the surest test I know to filter out the fads and gadgets that are about to come to production in the next three years, all with logical marketing claims to be the solution to your collaborative workplace issues.
Easy to use, integrated, scaleable. Simple as that.
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