The Next Wave of Technologies is Almost Here (Win a Book!)

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I met Phil Simon, the author of "Why New Systems Fail: An Insider's Guide to Successful IT Projects" about a month ago. He told me that he was working on a new book that will be focused on Enterprise 2.0, cloud computing, SaaS and other next-generation technologies that are much talked about, but are not yet understood by everyone in the corporate environment. I found the idea appealing and thought that it would be valuable for you to get to know Phil’s point of view on these popular topics here at the Project Management 2.0 blog. Later on, I plan to review Andrew McAfee’s “Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges” in this blog, so it will be even more interesting to compare the two viewpoints.

Andrew: Tell us a little about your professional background. Your second book, "The Next Wave of Technologies", features lots of detailed descriptions of software system implementations and deals with various aspects of deploying new technologies. Where did you get this knowledge? Phil: I’m a recovering consultant and recently published author. I started working on enterprise applications back in 1995 while in grad school. After a brief career in corporate HR, I started moving into technology- and system-oriented work. In 2000, I became a consultant and started working as an independent in 2002. Over the course of the last 15 years, I have seen many organizations struggle with many types of technologies and applications. For years, I have spoken with colleagues about their technology-related challenges. Also, I learn a great deal from the guests on my podcasts. Finally, I do a great deal of reading on the intersection between people, organizations and different technologies. Andrew: In your book, you say that when using the term “Enterprise 2.0” you mean something slightly different from the classic definition by Andrew McAfee. Could you please give your definition of this term and say why you were unhappy with what Andy McAfee proposes. Phil: Sure. I’ll make it relatively quick. I look at intranets, e-mail and nascent attempts at ERP, CRM, BI, etc. as Enterprise 1.0. Of course, no one calls anything 1.0 at the time, right? I’m pretty sure that no one called it WWI in 1917. Only after the second did the first become WWI. It’s not that I was unhappy with McAfee’s definition. I just thought that it was incomplete. Take BI, for example. Many organizations rolled out some type of BI initiative in the 1990s, and in fact, I was able to work on a few projects of that ilk. Much like ERP and CRM success rates, however, many BI endeavors did not do what senior management initially conceived. So, to exclude things such as open source BI, mobile BI or In-Memory BI seemed incomplete. Many, if not most, organizations still have no BI tool, and early adopters are finding ways to improve their ROI on earlier BI efforts, including using BI Competency Centers (BICCs). I would just say that my definition of Enterprise 2.0 is a little broader than McAfee’s. Andrew: I see your point, and I also wanted to share my point of view on McAfee’s definition. As far as I remember, McAfee’s definition of Enterprise 2.0 focuses primarily on software systems. In my view, it’s also important to account for changes in organizational culture and practices that go hand-in-hand with the adoption of these tools. This is one of the most important aspects to consider when thinking of deploying new software. You’re a consultant, and your job in many cases is helping executives to see what and where they need to change. How would you identify the need for change in an organization? Let’s say there’s an organization where an Enterprise 1.0 system works quite well, and workers feel like they are happy with it. Do they still need to innovate? Phil: The need for change fascinates me. At times, it’s completely apparent. At other times, it’s less clear. Let’s look at the first scenario. In “An Executive's Guide to Information Technology: Principles, Business Models, and Terminology,” Robert Plant and Stephen Murrell define a legacy system as one that can no longer meet an organization’s needs. I have seen many people very happy with their homegrown systems or legacy apps because, in their view, it works quite well and they like it. That’s a far cry from saying that it meets the needs of the business. It’s hard to argue that today a clunky 1980s app without adequate reporting, e-mail, etc. meets an organization’s needs. Now, let’s look at a more contemporary system with a decent number of bells and whistles. Is the organization “set”? I’d argue that it’s hard to say. What if a SaaS-based or open source equivalent can meet the same business needs at a lower cost (both out of pocket to the vendor and in terms of employee salaries)? Isn’t the organization beholden to at least investigate what’s out there? So, with respect to innovation, the answer is a qualified yes. Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 technologies allow for so much innovation that I don’t see how you can say, “We’re set.” At the same time, though, innovation for the sake of innovation isn’t a great idea. It all comes down to whether the current apps and technologies can meet an organization’s needs. Andrew: Right. In your book you say that there are important issues that people who choose to adopt Enterprise 2.0 will face. Can you say more about this and why you think that these issues should not scare executives away? Phil: Absolutely. Let’s take two white hot technologies at the moment: social media and cloud computing. Social media makes many organizations uncomfortable because they lose control of the message. As Jay Miletsky points out in the chapter, allowing others to create content related to your brand, organization and products takes many people out of their comfort zone. Miletsky writes that "negative comments, of course, are visible and available for anybody on the network to see -- not exactly the kind of notoriety that most organizations want to be made public." With regard to cloud computing, organizations no longer have their data within the fire wall. Amy Wohl does a great job of explaining some of the security, technical and political issues that organizations face when their data resides elsewhere. Wohl writes that that "early adopters (of cloud computing) will want to make certain that the clouds they choose offer the level of security and governance they require." You’re right. These issues shouldn’t frighten CXOs. Digital music scared the record companies. Open source scares Microsoft. The point is that these vast technological changes are taking place. You can deny that they are happening, or you can understand them and how they can potentially help your organization. In a sentence, that’s what “The Next Wave of Technologies” is all about. Andrew: A considerable part of your book is dedicated to the role of IT in Enterprise 2.0 implementation. Could you please summarize the main roles the IT department should play when a company adopts a new technology? Do you agree that Enterprise 2.0 is a user-driven technology? Phil: Yes, there’s a chapter on IT, and it’s a recurring theme throughout the book. In general, business and IT need to break out of their comfort zones. IT needs to understand more of the business and, quite frankly, many business users should understand more about the role of IT and specific technologies. With respect to IT, the department and its employees are typically in a unique position: they interact with many pockets of the organization and, as such, contain a great deal of institutional knowledge. Applied correctly, IT can use this information to be more of a true partner with the lines of business. It’s hard for me to call Enterprise 2.0 completely user-driven, and I don’t think that it should be. Imagine the chaos resulting from everyone doing everything on their own. I will say this: Look at collaborative tools, such as Yammer. Like many companies, Yammer operates on a freemium model, allowing for mass adoption of the tool within organizations. In other words, IT need not to follow its traditional “top down” procurement and roll out the process for certain technologies. Adoption of a tool such as Yammer can be more organic, more “bottom up.” To that extent, yes, Enterprise 2.0 can be user-driven. Andrew: This is close to the more generic idea of blending top-down and bottom-up approaches to management. I wrote a post on it before with a main thesis revolving around the fact that an organization needs both bottom-up knowledge and top-down guidance to become adaptive and more competitive in the present economy. In my opinion, the main advantage of the Enterprise 2.0 systems is that they make organizations more transparent. I guess this is the core change that Enterprise 2.0 brings to organizational culture. Do you believe that technologies can change the way business is done? In other words, do you think that the change in technologies involves changes in processes and in the way people act at work? Phil: It’s folly to assume that a transformative technology will always leave current business processes untouched. I’ve seen organizations cling to, let’s say, “less than current” methods because that’s how they did things around there. They didn’t know another, better way. As a result, they were unable to successfully utilize their new systems and applications. Take collaborative tools, such as wikis. They have made working on international projects easier by an order of magnitude, as Jason Horowitz points out. "Wikis are an outstanding way to work remotely...allow[ing] individuals to make changes to documents on their schedule while building on the work of colleagues in other locations." Foolish is the organization that doesn’t ask fundamental questions about how Enterprise 2.0 technologies can help improve the current business processes. Andrew: Phil, thank you for sharing your point of view. It was a pleasure to talk. For our readers I’d like to note that, if you liked Phil’s ideas and want to find out more, you are welcome not only to take a look at his upcoming book "The Next Wave of Technologies: Opportunities in Chaos"; but also win a copy of it by leaving a comment on this post! The author of the best comment will get a book with Phil's signature.

Leadership 5 min read

From Big Data to Actionable Progress Insights: Instant Progress Infographics

Wrike Enterprise was designed to help large organizations manage their workflows more efficiently. Actionable Progress Insights is the flagship feature of this new user plan that adds even more control and visibility into the work progress. The new reporting engine crunches millions of work activity records and provides essential project data in the form of gorgeous infographics. As your projects grow, tracking work progress by sending e-mails and taking notes at meetings becomes increasingly more difficult. And you don’t need to! Now you can see where your project stands at any time and find answers to the critical questions about its status with Wrike's Analytics. How do you estimate a realistic project completion date? Take a look at the Performance Chart. What are the trouble parts in the project? What tasks require immediate action? Identify them in an instant on the Current Status chart. Are you keeping track of milestones and goals like a quarterly plan? The baseline chart shows how far you are ahead of or behind the planned schedule. How did the performance of your employees evolve over time? The Work Progress Chart shows you the week-to-week work results of each team member. Let’s take a closer look at how this feature makes reporting and progress-tracking a stress-free experience. Actionable Analytics provides you with key indicators for your project progress. It serves as a powerful tool for management and stakeholders, saving you time collecting and analyzing the most up-to-date project data. Tasks overview, performance over time, changes in the schedule, the work progress of each team member -- all these parts help you capture the full scope of a project’s health. Progress infographics are available for any project you have in the Wrike Enterprise account. Simply click on the chosen folder and select the Progress Insights view at the top of your workspace. Current Project Status This chart is a great starting point for monitoring your progress. After a quick look at the key project metrics, you are able to reveal trouble parts and know where to narrow your focus. The tasks digest gives you a quick visual of task statuses in the folder. By seeing the important, overdue and unassigned tasks at a glance, you can take immediate action. Milestones remind you about an approaching landmark to your project's completion. Duration of all tasks in the folder and total number of tracked hours are helpful stats for allocating time and workload. The top 3 performers (those with the most completed tasks) are highlighted, so local productivity heroes always get noticed. Project Performance Chart Tracking work progress has never been this convenient. On the chart you can see how the project’s performance has evolved over time. So you can identify peak and low productivity periods and estimate more realistic completion dates. You can even create historical reports with the data up to two years old. This infographic comes especially handy when you want to estimate realistic project completion date, because it allows you to adjust the project plan knowing the REAL work pace of your employees. Baseline Chart When you need to pinpoint how your actual progress compares to the original plan, check the baseline chart. You will always know if a project is ahead of or behind the schedule and can look at what changes were made to the plan and by whom. The stroked bars indicate the baseline and the multi-colored bars reflect actual task statuses in the folder. For example, the baseline chart is helpful when you need to evaluate your performance on the quarterly plan and share the changes with the stakeholders.Work Progress Chart Tracking employee’s performance? Wondering how to allocate the workload in the most optimal way? Take a look at the Work Progress chart. This visual displays the top five people with the most number of completed tasks and indicates their stats on active, completed and overdue tasks. The graph on the right visualizes how the task structure of each team member has evolved over time. You can then easily pinpoint productivity ups and downs, identify a project’s top performers, or simply note those who need a little more motivation. In addition, you can look up the work progress of EACH user by clicking on the "Show all users" button. With this new, impressive Enterprise feature, insightful data is available at any organizational level at any single moment. Now you can make decisions much quicker, always having solid insights on hand. Wrike Enterprise comes with many more features to empower your team’s performance. Don’t miss such updates as user groups, custom calendars, extended admin rights and branded e-mail notifications!

Leadership 7 min read

The Four Disciplines That Propel Companies Forward

The Wrike Way is a tried and true methodology built from the insights we’ve discovered partnering with thousands of industry leading companies. Here’s a breakdown of the four disciplines of the Wrike Way along with best practices your team can start implementing today:

News 5 min read

Citrix Agrees to Acquire Wrike

I am excited to announce that Wrike has agreed to join the Citrix family to create the next frontier in the digital workplace revolution. This partnership could not happen at a better time, given the market shifts in 2020, the much-anticipated transition to the "Next Normal," and the exponential growth in the demand for work management solutions. Why Citrix? The Citrix mission is to empower people to do their very best work. Wrike’s mission is to help you do the best work of your life. Sound similar? When the missions align, the stars truly align, and there can’t be a better match of the minds. That is why I am extremely thrilled to be embarking upon this journey with Citrix. We are two companies committed to defining the best future for work, and we will make great strides working as one. Better together Being a part of Citrix will enable us to accelerate our mission. Together, Wrike and Citrix will build the workplace of the future to empower employees to achieve their best. Citrix delivers a frictionless experience for employees through unified, secure access to work resources. Wrike brings teams, data, and applications together in a digital platform. By combining the power of a unified workspace infrastructure and collaborative work management, organizations can accelerate business results by enabling employees to focus on the work that matters the most. A market shift 2020 has permanently changed the way we work, and the office as we know it will never be the same. With large-scale remote working and the shift to digital, organizations are facing the pressure to keep employees productive and engaged. This has led to quantum leaps in digital transformation initiatives. Further, organizations are concerned with employee burnout and digital fatigue. To succeed in this environment it is critical to enable employees with the tools they need to be productive wherever they are and whatever the context. We will bring more than a decade of innovation in this space to help the industry ease into the next normal. Unified workspace infrastructure + CWM = The workplace of the future With pioneer investments in AI technologies by Wrike, this is a marriage of innovative leadership that delivers the vision of intelligence and automation needed to build the workplace of the future. Over the last several years both companies have innovated feverishly to drive digital innovation. A leader in multiple categories of workplace technologies, Citrix offers end-to-end offerings to enable and empower the modern workforce. By joining hands with Wrike, Citrix will now be able to offer a complete solution that optimizes productivity across all aspects of work. Win-win for our customers As we step forward in this new phase of our journey I am extremely grateful to our customers who have helped us get here and supported us all along. This is exciting news for our customers for many reasons. First, as part of the Citrix family, we will be able to scale our product and accelerate our roadmap to deliver capabilities that will help our customers get more from their Wrike investment. We have always listened to our customers and have built our product based on their feedback - now we will be able to do more of that, faster. Second, we will now be able to empower and partner with IT departments by enabling cross-functional workflows, connecting with the systems across the organization and becoming the single digital workspace. Wrike has established a strong customer base with business users, and Citrix has built deep relationships with IT customers, enabling us to bring two ecosystems together. As the market moves toward the connected enterprise, the time is ripe for a partnership like this to enable the vision for hybrid workspace. The joint solution brings incredible value to both business users and their IT departments that support this new hybrid ecosystem. The path forward This partnership also brings exciting possibilities for the market at large. More than a decade ago, we saw a huge opportunity in the Project Management space. We wanted to take an innovation that was largely restricted to a few mature practitioners within the organization, and unlock its potential for every single employee whether they were technical or business users. In this endeavor, we created the Collaborative Work Management category that changed the face of work for all types of users across every department and use case. Last year, as we navigated our customers through the transition to remote work, Wrike became the core part or digital workplace. As one of our customers very eloquently put it, “Wrike is our new office.” Now we are seeing an even more powerful opportunity to take the enterprise to the next level by connecting and automating workflows to create an intelligent digital workspace. This next step in our journey is a very promising one for the entire Wrike ecosystem, one made possible through the commitment of our employees, the support of our customers, and the conviction of our investors. We are proud of the advancements made in collaboration with our most recent investor, Vista Equity Partners, who enabled us to accelerate our growth and innovation to advance Wrike’s mission and prepare us for this new chapter. Now, by partnering with Citrix, we want to expand the value of collaborative work management from thousands of organizations to hundreds of thousands. Today, CEOs, CIOs, CMOs, and CHROs are grappling with the second wave of transitions coming up in 2021, and I hear a lot about the hybrid workspace. 2020 was not easy but helped us validate that collaborative work management is indeed the backbone of the future of work, whether that’s in-office, remote, or a mix of the two. As we embark into 2021, we are ready to help the market navigate this next transition and unlock the workspace of the future to hundreds of millions of users. Looking forward to the next wave of innovations as part of the Citrix family.

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The Next Wave of Technologies is Almost Here (Win a Book!)

Andrew Filev

The Next Wave of Technologies is Almost Here (Win a Book!)

Andrew Filev

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From Big Data to Actionable Progress Insights: Instant Progress Infographics

The Four Disciplines That Propel Companies Forward

Citrix Agrees to Acquire Wrike

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