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Thinking ahead, but starting today

How to identify and initiate the first steps into digital transformation. The digital transformation is a relentlessly rapid process. Like a tsunami, it can wash away corporate structures at hitherto unknown speeds, and it can destroy entire companies and industries.

There is a lot of focus on the digital transformation. But this also poses a risk. Especially larger companies find it difficult to get a handle on the speed of the conversion processes. Many consider it a Herculean task to define their own digital strategy. The development and internal coordination of such a strategy within the company comes dangerously close to a never-ending story.

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The good news - there is a way. At Campana & Schott, we have found it very useful if at the beginning, the digital strategy is only defined at the divisional, departmental or even at the product level. What this means: Start the process in your own area at the same time or in advance of the digital strategy for the entire company. Use this time to develop, test and adjust the main parameters of your own digital road map. Therefore, while others are still engaged in general discussions, you should already begin to gain experience with new digital projects, quickly analyze results, and reject many good ideas - so only the best can be consistently pursued - and always adjust the direction of your own digital road map.

This procedure is even possible at the level of individual products! Main question: What can the Customer Journey for your product (or that of a traveler, patient or policyholder) look like? What new digital channels can be used to better reach the target groups for your product? And which new services create a particular and customer-relevant added value?

Our recipe

I recommend the following recipe for this process: At the beginning is the conceptual objective. The digital objective governs the direction of the entire team, and helps with building an agile mindset for each employee. It describes the visionary business idea - the where we are going part. In other words, with what combination of (digital) products, services and market access does the company intend to make its money in the future? The digital road map that defines the way to get there: A description of concrete, realistic implementation measures and dates. It also defines which organizational skills must be present in the team.

We have analyzed the transformation projects we supported during the last few years, and can be more specific in this regard. The following four steps have proven themselves with regard to the implementation of the conceptual objective: Four Steps deliver everything you need

Typically, these contents can be developed in four steps. They may look as follows:

Step 1- Envisioning

The first step is used for coming together, defining a vision and for the initial definition of a location. Typically, the latter process involves the use of a digital maturity model. We recommend that the workshop results are subsequently developed into a draft customer journey or employee journey map.

Step 2 - Digital Potential

This step is used to enhance the digital customer journey and the digital employee journey (target and actual). These journey maps are used to identify the data (sources) and potential for improvement. The contents are: A discussion about the question how a customer journey and employee journey unfolds its impact?. Deriving initial potentials for improvement (also including new digital services or products), an assessment of the potential and prioritization.

After the second step, we often prepare an analysis of the required organizational skills. The main question is: What type of capabilities are needed for which improvements?

Step 3 - Digital Business Impact

Exactly these capabilities are discussed in step 3, and potentials for cost reductions and revenue increases or other qualitative effects are also estimated. This process results in an initial feasibility calculation. Ideally, it also leads to an initial business case.

To be able to start with the digital transformation in your own department, we recommend that ideas for possible prototypes are already developed at this stage - and then one or two are selected or the first prototype is already implemented!

Step 4 - Digital Strategy

The last phase represents a synthesis of all inputs: Outstanding decisions on the direction of the road map are made, and the business case is presented. At the end, you have a strategy for the digital transformation in your own department, together with an approved road map, and ideally your team will also proudly hold the validated prototype in its hand.

The benefit

I consider the above process a key accelerator for the digital transformation. It allows for the transformation to be implemented in one's own division, department or for one's own product. In the case of multinational organizations, the workshops can also be implemented consecutively in several regions. In that case, five to ten concrete starting points (collaborative opportunities) will be identified, which are then set up across the regions. In this way, the digital vision can be linked globally from the bottom up.

The procedure described here allows you to accelerate the process and already provides validated building blocks that you can contribute the digital strategy for the entire company. In addition, this process creates a level of commitment among your employees (and your leadership team), and also allows you to make an important contribution to creating an overall more agile organization.

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5 leadership rules for the digital transformation

Everyone wants digital transformation. Really all of them? When we take a good look, we often see that need for quick digital trans-formation has not yet arrived at decision-making levels, quite the contrary. With these 5 leadership guidelines, you are well prepared for the upcoming transformation. Because... the digital transformation has to start at the top. Digitale Transformation: Erstellen einer Social-Collaboration-Plattform, Leadership-Regeln und einem agilen Management-of-Change Prozess.

One of the key tasks and preparations for the digital transformation is Digital Capability Building, i.e. the creation, establishment and expansion of digital competences within the company. Besides technological and methodological skills, this especially involves management competences. Yet what kind of management is needed for this?

Security was yesterday

Let's first have a look at the current environment. Up until just recently, most (large) enterprises were in a situation that was characterized by a relatively high degree of security. Long-term planning horizons, clear specifications and a more top-down-oriented management style had been the rule and for this situation usually also quite adequate. However, based on the fast digital transformation need, this picture is now changing fundamentally.

Framework conditions are now changing so quickly that companies simply no longer have the time to invest in extensive research work and long committee discussions. Here, it pays off to bring knowledge, resources, passion and responsibility together in order to achieve results more quickly. Interim conclusion: In an uncertain situation, in which orientation, new opportunities and customer reactions can no longer be anticipated as had previously been the case, agile management is required. And this means: an entirely different conception of management.

Less management, more leadership

For this management conception, it is essential to differentiate between management and leadership. But what does this mean in concrete terms?

Management activities are predominantly characterized by:

the formulation of tasks and processes tracking and control of target-actual comparisons optimization of efficiency and quality continuous improvement In summary: Clarification of the "how" and "when"

Leadership, on the other hand, encompasses:

a focus on purposeful and superordinate targets conveyance of a guiding vision for the future intense personal communication active support of change In summary: Clarification of the "what" and "why"

This contrast makes the following clear: Leadership is something entirely different than management. And for digital change, what we need is leadership in particular. Let's take the central cornerstones, such as purposefulness, intense personal communication and the support of change. Based on these, we can sketch out 5 leadership guidelines for the digital transformation:

Clearly acknowledge your commitment to the digital transformation - explicitly and repeatedly: Constantly communicate your objective, emphasize the urgency and necessity of the transformation. Profess speed as an objective: Be quicker than before and quicker than the competition. Monitor the agreed implementation personally: The next management levels and the staff as a whole must recognize that you are really serious and that desired changes do not peter out. Display your presence in individual initiatives and become uncomfortable if agreed changes are protracted. Generation S will be a central part of your corporate culture: Employees from the start-up culture expect short, fast and decentralized decision paths as well as agile working methods. The self-conception and commitment of a start-up can be the guiding principle of the future corporate culture. Make use of this as a catalyst in your company! Employee orientation/within the team: First invest in teams, then invest in ideas and technologies! You need a reinforcement of your teams at all levels. Activate your employees and let them be independent. Opt for diversity in your teams and for problem-solving through cross-functional teams. Show that you see failure as a part and the learning and creation process and then you assume that 3 of the 4 ideas will not work. That's OK. And will inspire your company's development teams. Employee orientation/individual: Hiring and developing your employees are your most important investments. This involves giving your individual employees personal feedback reviews and individual recognition in a timely manner (instead of formal employee assessments). Take the low significance of financial incentives into consideration. True motivation happens when  individual employees experience the purposefulness of their actions and identify with the overarching and social relevance of their work. Only this generates loyalty, commitment and ultimately, successful innovation.

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The transformation of the digital workplace: 7 theories for greater productivity

Digital transformation is in full flow; it starts in most companies with an eye on customer-oriented processes. And that makes sense. But now it's time to apply digital changes to the internal workplace. The new workplace should and will change the organization: the self-organization and collaboration of employees in the organization. You might ask, what is of most importance in the end? The summary of a summary for a successful Digital Workplace project is: Strategic roadmap, flexible implementation and intensive Change Management. The so-called Digital Workplace is a central driver towards greater productivity and new ways of working. But: What are successful companies doing differently to the others?

1. A digital workplace affects everyone - so everyone needs to be involved

The Digital Workplace is a strategic project. It affects all areas of the company - in fact, every employee who has their own PC. At the same time, very different expectations develop in different areas of the company. While Sales may potentially be very interested in mobile solutions, Corporate Communications may place more value on a personalized intranet. These varying interests and expectations must be managed. All areas affected need to come together and discuss the resulting priorities in a constructive manner.

Often, using the services of an external moderator proves the most effective way to decide on concrete steps moving forward and to develop an overarching roadmap. This states when and in what order which components of the digital workplace will be implemented and made available.

2. A classic with great potential: The search for experts and existing information

The roadmap for the digital workplace is oriented for the most part around individual applications that can achieve a considerable increase in productivity for the company. The recent German Social Collaboration Study shows that searching for experts and a better search for - often existing - information deliver a high level of added value. The new Digital Workplace in the company must find its answers through this.

3. Not yet a classic, but great potential: Working in communities

Not quite as obvious, but of great potential, is the creation of IT-supported communities, another clear recommendation in the study. Through this, tools for communities work in two ways. On the one hand, they can lead to greater company productivity, as tasks can be completed more quickly and/or with greater innovation. On the other hand, communities, or the active, subject-specific exchange across departments and locations, are a relevant contribution leading to a more agile organization, through which generally speaking, non-hierarchical, networked methods of working are encouraged.

4. Innovation, a little at a time

Good Digital Workplace projects are innovation projects. Learning is at the forefront: which technologies suit the company? For this, not only is a controlled test environment permitted, it is positively desirable. Fear of new technologies is the worst adviser. New technologies or new cloud services should be tested and introduced as pilot projects in small, controlled experiments. This is the best route to creating a Digital Workplace. The IT department sets guidelines and creates the architecture and service specifications. However, even the IT department can only occasionally predict which components and services will actually be adopted by users. It is an empirical process that can however be guided. Try often does not mean try randomly.

5. The new digital workplace is profitable

A Digital Workplace project offers the opportunity to consolidate IT. For example, a large mid-tier customer of Campana & Schott, a global manufacturing player with 9,000 employees: the number of tools used for communication and collaboration was reduced by more than half from the original 72. More importantly, the number of providers and software manufacturers was reduced by more than two thirds from 19 providers to just five.

6. Investing in Management of Change (MOC)

Digital Workplace projects are not technology projects. Or at least not only. Without detailed planning and comprehensively executed communication support, only a fraction of the possible usage can be achieved. Companies should rather do without additional technical functionality, than not budget or budget too little for investments in permanent and multi-channel support for future users. Particularly when implemented in a workplace, they result in a massive change to the way in which employees work and collaborate. So much so, that it is clearly necessary to also invest massively in change management support.

Changes do not happen of their own accord. Change management support measures need not necessary be innovative, but they must consist of a package of complementary tools (i.e. multi-channel). The activation of pilot users, departmental disseminators, digital communities, automated help systems (particularly for answering user queries), training systems and videos - all these, complete with live-events, are proven means, but require investment. Nonetheless, it is a prudent investment.

7. Strategically planned, but implemented in an agile way

Finally, I would again like to go over the individual measures. At the start, there is a single vision of what the future, digital workplace should achieve and which strategic goals should be met. Within the scope of this, an agile but appropriately-focused implementation can follow. Implementation opens things up to many smaller initiatives and pilot projects - combined with the knowledge that some of the planned components will not eventuate within the organization. That is what trials are for, on an on-going basis. The whole process resembles a control loop. The company implements the roadmap for a digital workplace in a series of smaller steps. If some steps do not aid in achieving the goal, they are adapted to do so.

Added to this is the start small approach, i.e. with fewer technical components that are continually tested, and only then are the next functions added. Even with a grand vision, it is advisable to approach the actual implementation as a growing Minimum Viable Product. In this way, the Digital Workplace contributes to an agile company.

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Recently I was asked by a customer,

the CIO of a mid-level global market leader, What is the point of a collaboration strategy? An IT project that only creates slides and no software, at least in the beginning, seems suspicious. Even if it only takes 15 to 20 man-days. Its point and benefits are up for discussion. At its core is a crucial question which is occupying many companies at the moment: How will people collaborate within companies in the future? And, above all: How can they collaborate more effectively and comfortably?

All of the top-down approaches of the past have failed. The answer for todays world is: Prepare a smart platform intelligently. Then, after that, you can feel confident that the employees in a company will be able to intelligently organize themselves. Employees have a very accurate feeling for which forms and channels of communication are truly useful in their daily work. This is particularly true when competencies need to be networked or contacts with other experts or colleagues need to be established who don't happen to be sitting next door at the office.

The following questions are important to consider for productive companies that have a large portion of developmental work: Which steps in the work flow take place within which system? How do the applications interact? Which IT tools could be better connected or merged to achieve more successful actual work by the development team? How can we connect with partners and suppliers?

We took on the project, discussed it in depth with the customer and then worked out a SharePoint and collaboration strategy. In particular, this includes a roadmap detailing in which steps and with which business priorities the strategy should be implemented. Heres how a board member expressed it in conclusion: A high-performing, extensively used platform for collaboration is one of the three most important strategic undertakings for us within the next few years.

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Setting the course in project management: What you can learn from our customers

Large change projects require a completely different approach from what is generally understood as project management. While "normal" projects such as a software roll-out or an order-based variant development are supposed to deliver clearly-specified results or products, programs aim to bring about fundamental changes in the company. Examples of such strategic project are reorganizations and realignments, consolidations and cost-optimization programs, or the development of a completely new product family (just think of the new BMW electric cars i3 and i8). What does that distinction mean? To put it in somewhat simplistic terms: project management has access to a proven set of methods that must "only" be applied consistently. The management of programs, on the other hand, is primarily an issue of leadership. There is agreement as to what should be achieved, but the way there is not clear yet. The end result is not clear at the beginning, and may change several times over the course of several years.

We examined a sample group of 25 large projects and have identified the following success factors for leadership in program management: the strategic direction of individual activities, often a large number of simultaneous projects, must be assessed and balanced on a continuous basis. This requires a permanent feedback process with stakeholders. Also, the program manager is the game-maker that motivates and supports the various project managers during the entire period. The performance of the overall project is managed with a governance approach that is primarily concerned with ensuring that the agreed organizational rules of the game are implemented. That is, there is less controlling of individual projects at the program level; rather, the intelligent cooperation between the various projects is at the forefront. But the crucial question for each activity is as follows: does the planned measure take us a big step towards the final business benefit; does it allow us to achieve the desired benefits that are supposed to come out of the program? Our opinion: if an organization is structured in such a way, it has set the course for challenging programs that lead to successful outcomes.

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A customer asked me recently...

Digital Transformation: Creating a social collaboration platform, leadership rules and an agile management-of-change process. I would like to offer the following observation: While there is prevailing consensus about the big IT trends (social, mobility etc.), most reports are based on a purely technology-related point of view. Most authors and analysts are concerned with the question of which technologies will emerge in the future. But they do not reflect on how these technologies can be used effectively.  And that leads us to our response to the question posed by the leader of an organization: the main success factor consists of the massive communication-based management of the change that is supposed to lead to the collaboration - introductions or changes will not be successful without professional change management. It is similar to politics: the ability to identify the right contents is one thing, but success is defined by something else - the right communication and distribution of contents to the various target groups in the company. This is reflected in the results of a study conducted by Campana & Schott in 2014: while over 80% of the more than 200 participants rated the usefulness of work areas (work spaces/team rooms) as very high, only 15% of those surveyed rated the usefulness of the company's internal social networks and newsfeeds as very high.  The result: if something is not perceived as useful, it will not be used!

What about companies that successfully introduced a social collaboration platform - how did they do it? During the first phase, they establish an (emotional) willingness to change and create the organizational conditions (including a top-quality project team, defined multipliers and defined stakeholders). We advise our customers to develop a separate change story that provides all participants with a tool to consistently lay out why the change is required, what it means and what it will bring. During the next phase, the actual transformation period, many companies are concerned with the technical tasks of provision and roll-out. Particularly during this phase it is very important that the changes are always accompanied by communication measures. A mix of the following measures has been very effective in our experience:

Train-the-Trainer training sessions; followed by continuous coaching of the trainers Coach key users from the beginning, ideally starting at the top management level Guidance for key users: what functions are the "early adopters" supposed to work with, and in which cases? Supporting measures, such as a separate home page, newsletter, webcast, FAQ or Wiki Obtain feedback, adjust use concepts, documents and training Pro-actively communicate adjustments or required changes (or a change in course)

A stabilization phase at the end ensures the long-term establishment of the social collaboration platform.  In this context, changes in behavior that have been achieved (or not) are measured, and adjusted if required. Finally, the success stories are communicated within the company.

By the way, together with the organizational leader of the DAX company we agreed that conventional "classroom" training would mostly be omitted. Instead, there are "desk visits", hence visits to the user's workstation, and working together on concrete use cases using the new technical options. But most of all, the new social collaboration platform is immediately used for the project to comment on, add, share and distribute contents. Non-accepted or non-used elements area already turned off during the first phase. One could almost use the phrase "agile management of change"....

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"No more spaghetti please" - it is time for a new IT demand management approach

The exceptionally well-attended "IT Demand Management" conference confirmed one thing: the fast-growing interest in a new demand management approach. Campana & Schott believes that demand management will soon establish itself as a leading discipline.

      Removing complexity (the spaghetti effect)      Strengthened functional departments      Special effect Industry 4.0

1. Removing complexity (the spaghetti effect)

Many conference participants spoke of "spaghetti environments". They were referring to the intertwined organizational interfaces between the functional departments and IT. This creates a lot of extra work and usually leads to wasted resources. But participants mainly discussed increasingly complex technical interfaces and dependencies a) between existing IT applications and b) on-going IT projects. Intertwined like a bowl of spaghetti.

What are some concrete approaches for getting a handle on spaghetti complexity?

The change of today is the run of tomorrow: before starting or - or even better - approving a new project, take some time to think about how the product result will affect the complexity of your system environment. For smaller projects: make the projects as small as possible; this also reduces complexity and increases your company's ability to respond. Shorter planning cycles: the project portfolio is reviewed three to four times a year, and adjusted. Ideally, the project and planning duration are the same. For example: new priorities are set every three months, and at least a large portion of the projects also runs for approximately three months - this further improves your ability to respond to new circumstances. Efficiency is one factor, but not the only one: Cost savings are one thing, but more and more companies view business cases at a more holistic level - what is the impact, what is the concrete added value of the project or new application for the core business or directly for the customer?

2. Strengthened functional departments

Another point on which the numerous discussions at the conference agreed: Functional departments are in effect creating their own IT organizations. But it does not have to be this way. When IT regains its agility and is quickly able to respond to changing requirements, it becomes a strong partner to the business. This works if IT truly represents the functional department and finally supports the division with its concerns. This becomes possible when demand management and project portfolio management become one in IT. Then one can truly say: "From shadow IT to a centrally balanced IT project portfolio". That is confirmed by the experience of our MDAX customer SMA Solar.

3. Special effect Industry 4.0

Finally, many companies are also experiencing a trend in which the collaboration between functional departments and IT takes on an entirely new significance. Demands by customers to move the provider's products into the "Internet of Things", and the rapid shift towards Industry 4.0 means that functional departments must provide a vision in terms of the internet. Particularly production and supply chains are digitally transformed. Companies must undertake enormous development efforts in very short time periods, so as not to be left behind, or to become the leader of the pack. IT demand management plays a key role in this context. At the same time, we will see entirely new approaches and tools to ensure the rapid success of the digital transformation:

Project management and project activities between IT and the functional departments will take on a much more collaborative character. New (collaborative) tools will establish themselves for this purpose. Communities, as a joint and dynamic but rather loose and theme-oriented form of collaboration, play a central role in this context.

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Partly cloudy, or: all of a sudden, the Cloud appeared

Worldwide networking, fast and flexible availability and integration of all employees - Cloud changes the game. Sometimes things move very fast. Campana & Schott believes that the tipping point has been reached: within just a few months, the attitude - not to mention corporate reality - with regard to Cloud-based solutions has changed drastically. Skepticism and downright rejection were the order of the day until just recently. In the meantime, we have noticed that Cloud-based components, rather than the planned on-premise solutions, are being implemented even in on-going projects.

A current example from the automotive area: Our customer had actually decided against a Public Cloud-based solution. But then one event completely changed the risk-reward ratio.

What happened? The acquisition of a company led to the search for a comprehensive collaboration platform for the post-merger phase. Teams from both organizations, which were spread around the globe, had to exchange information about collaboration, projects, process adjustments and associated savings. The originally envisioned on-premise solution would have led to months of preparation and waiting times for hundreds of users.

In the end, the customer, still quite skeptical in the beginning, took our suggestion of a Public Cloud-based solution based on SharePoint Online, Office 365 and Azure. But the largest impact did not come from the rapid and flexible availability of the system within just a few days. The real benefit was in the direct integration of the entire management level up to the level of the Management Board. This highly-relevant target group now experienced the Cloud as a tangible concept.

The nicest surprise for us: management has already submitted numerous ideas and requests for Cloud-based solutions for the time when the two companies have become one... Cloud changes the game.

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The digital transformation reaches the heart of Microsoft

Recently I was part of a 15-member team that represented Campana & Schott at the Microsoft Ignite technology conference in Chicago. The future is digital - and Microsoft can meet this demand.

Every evening, the team met to discuss the day's events over a glass of beer. A very clear picture emerges once all of the individual impressions are put together: the digital transformation has reached Microsoft. And the surprising part - at the center of this transformation is the organization and human collaboration at Microsoft. How is that expressed? While earlier conferences used to be dominated by single large release or product introductions, this conference brought a series of smaller surprises. And that is not a coincidence or lack of innovation, but rather the new normal.

Most far-reaching change in 20 years

We believe that Microsoft is changing into an increasingly agile company. Even pivoting - hence the willingness to drastically alter business models based on changing customer requirements - is no longer a foreign concept for Microsoft. It has resulted in a company that values internal competition. Different teams and product groups compete to find the best solution for a particular problem. And the customer will decide.

And internal competition is not the end of it. Just recently, Microsoft purchased a Berlin start-up company when it acquired the Wunderlist app. Why? Microsoft has been trying to bring work management solutions to the market for some time, at the lower level of project management so to speak. In our opinion, with this purchase Microsoft has extended its range and added a new player from the outside to save valuable time for its internal development activities. The primary focus may be on a new solution. But on closer look, it also becomes clear that Microsoft has gained innovations, employees and the work style of Generation Y, and injected it into its own company. This will certainly have an effect on the company's own work style ...

What new trends did we see?

But in the end, Microsoft is about software solutions. In this context, we have identified the following trends in terms of social collaboration:

The Cloud forms the innovation motor - Microsoft is increasingly moving towards a model whereby new functionalities are initially made available through the Cloud only, and only become available on premise at a later date, and not always at same scope - such as the new Microsoft Project 2016 But Microsoft also realizes that hybrid solutions will make up the lion share of implementation projects in the near future. And even though Salesforce.com has rejected Microsoft's first takeover offer, it was likely not the last word on this subject ... Infopedia provides a new option for internal knowledge management There is an interesting variant for creating internal links between employees: Delve and the so-called People Page (as alternative to MySite in SharePoint) The Office 365 Groups are beginning to show another very promising option for social collaboration. Choices must be made: SharePoint, Yammer, Office 365 Groups or Outlook + Skype - which solution is the right one for a particular need? 'External Sharing' as a combination of SharePoint and OneDrive can be a good model for collaboration that spans across organizations.

And finally a comment that pertains to our own activities: we believe that in light of the aforementioned developments, the understanding of consulting must also change. Of course there will always be a need for selected consulting and introduction projects. What is new is that companies will also acquire consulting advice as an on-going service. The age of the Cloud requires that services are provided to customers on a continuous and on-going basis: What new functions make sense for the customer? What new solutions should the customer be evaluating or implementing? I am looking forward to that change.

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What agile project portfolio management looks like

Agile project portfolio management: Not a buzzword, but an integral part of large companies. The "IT Project Portfolio Management" conference was held in Berlin at the end of June. Rarely has there been a time when I took away such a clear message after the end of the two days. To be sure, there were more than 20 presentations and workshops that discussed a variety of experiences and projects. But each presentation and discussions brought forth the same important insight: Companies and their project portfolios must become more agile.

Agile project management at the company level

Agile processes for managing individual projects have become a fixture in project management. For most large companies, it is simply a question of volume: at some, only 10 - 15% of projects are organized using agile processes, while many others already manage more than 50% of their projects in this way. Of strategic relevance however is the question of what agile project portfolio management can look like at the company level. The following design options can be considered from CS' point of view:

No full planning of budgets and resources (especially with regard to the now immi-nent annual budgets) Smaller but more frequent adjustments to portfolios Transfer of "Design-to-Budget" approach to project portfolio management: fewer details for project specifications, instead budgets are allocated to specific themes, initiatives or "products" (the latter also, and especially, in the IT area) At the forefront are the respective benefits, i.e. which budgets are allocated to the various target benefits? This can be done using business cases, which are then used as a basis for prioritizing the budgets A consideration of dependencies not (just) in the projects but rather more considera-tion of the dependencies between the projects: how are these dependencies included in prioritization and decision-making preparations? More focus on communication and information exchange between projects

Agile companies need the right employees

Surprisingly, virtually all presentations ended up emphasizing the same point: additional employee skills will be required in the not so distant future. They include new innovation- and project-relevant qualifications, such as "Data Scientists" who derive business models and business contacts from big data information inventories. But most of all, agile companies need employees that have been socialized in a highly-responsive environment. It is one reason why large companies including Daimler and Microsoft invest in start-ups, namely to "inject" their employees into their own workforce. Without these external 'disturbances', the company's own corporate culture would not be able to respond as quickly to new meta skills such as radical customer focus or the permanent and constructive scrutiny of business models. The example "internal crowd-funding" illustrates the combination of both worlds: a certain portion of the e.g. IT budget is virtually distributed among the employees. They can assign their own budgets to projects of their choice, and thus generate the portfolio that is most promising from their own point of view. Very valuable information.

Agile is the new normal

It is not just projects that are agile. In the future, the focus will be on making project portfolio management more agile at the company level, and in turn empower those employees in the company who will implement the agile transformation.

PS: Does this have you thinking about what might be in store for your own PPM? Benefit from the largest free PM benchmarking process undertaken by the Technical Universities Berlin and Darmstadt; there is still time to register for the 7th MPM study at www.multiprojectmanagement.org.

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