Ritter The BANWAD Way: Beyond Agile, New Work and Digitalization

Management-Compass
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-7543-5023-2
Verlag: BoD - Books on Demand
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 216 Seiten

Agile Management and New Work concepts can be seen as promising trends. Or are they just passing fads whose end is already in sight? What about Digitalization? It is the basis of our lives today - both professionally and privately. But what's next? A trend toward virtual work or a revival of face-to-face collaboration? Let's take a look beyond and make a fair assessment.

The author: Dr.-Ing. Arno Ritter, MBA was a manager in the largest European organization for applied sciences and an executive in a global consulting firm. As a lecturer, he taught International Strategic Management and Project Management. Since 2015 he has been working as an independent management consultant and coach.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ritter, Arno

Leseproben

PREFACE & INTRODUCTION
When I first started looking into Industry 4.0, I often asked myself: what's revolutionary about it? Apparently, some people are successfully selling concepts by putting an "Industry 4.0" sticker on old products. Chinese groups are now coming to Germany to understand and then copy Industry 4.0. I was also allowed to train some managers. Nevertheless, some critical people emphasize that "Industry 4.0" is (only) a self-declared revolution, as opposed to the first, second or third industrial revolution. To be honest, they have a point. The fourth revolution could be understood as an extension of the previous one. Figure: Industry 4.0 – Major Industrial Revolutions: 1) A replica of Central Pacific’s Jupiter, Promontary, Utah. 2) The Völklingen Ironworks, World Heritage Site, Germany. 3+4) Mobile robots interacting with industrial robots Figure: Industry 4.0, lecture “International Strategic Management” (Ritter 2018) To be fair: Digitalization started back in World War II when the first computers were developed. In the last decades, there have been several breakthroughs and milestone developments, starting with personal computers, NC machines, PLC, the Internet, mobile devices, etc. In addition, digitalization has been an enabler for new ways of working in the industry or in the home. Do you remember Computer Integrated Systems (CIM), the spread of automation or the introduction of robots? Yes, that was a revolution in the 1970s or 1980s. Many thanks to Joseph Engelberger and the other guys! I can still remember what my dad told me about CIM. Then in the 1990s, I myself got involved with agentbased concepts like Agile, Bionic, Holonic, Genetic or Random Manufacturing Systems; not to forget Fractal Factory or Mass Customization. But at the same time, you could read articles like "CIM is alive" but also "CIM is dead". This is no joke. And there are reasons for that. Figure: Agent-based organization concepts according to Ritter (2000 & 2003) RFID was already in use in the 1990s (a technology also developed at the end of World War II), but it still lacked mobile devices such as smartphones or cheap webcams or other low-cost sensors. Now we have solutions called Cyber Physical Systems (i.e., physical agents). Autonomous Guided Vehicles and robotic systems are state of the art today. In that sense, of course, digitalization is advancing. I can still remember how tedious it was to work with computers from home. Now it's easy due to powerful WLAN, laptops, tablets and smartphones (we call it "ubiquitous" or "mobile" computing). So, we've really made progress. Great achievements! But to be perfectly honest: when I talk about a postdigitalization age in this book, I don't mean that digitalization is at an end (nor that we're turning back the wheel of history). No! I still expect to see interesting solutions with AR technology, interactive applications (e.g., movies), smart user interfaces (e.g., brain interfaces, translators) that are hopefully more accommodating to people with disabilities than before, and some other improvements in business applications. By the way, I'm not sure if my generation consists of digital natives or, say, digital pioneers. I'm not a digital hater either, even though I learned a bit about analog computing. I studied electrical engineering & automation and have worked in the field of robotics and Digital Factory. Therefore, please understand my criticism of digitalization correctly. Figure: Robot systems, see also Schraft and Schmierer (1998) Rest assured: we will see further surprises and achievements within and through digitalization. Some will be truly revolutionary; some will merely be the result of continuous development. Digitalization certainly helped us during the COVID-19 crisis, at least for the people who were able to work in home offices. However, a notable finding during the COVID-19 crisis was that digital collaboration worked well not only because of robust digital solutions such as internet connectivity, collaboration tools and secure infrastructure. It also worked well in the first place because teams were already well attuned to each other and simply continued to work as they always had. But the flip side of this is that new projects could not be started in some places, and the integration of newcomers sometimes failed or became very challenging. The quality of collaboration will not be sustainable or lasting ... Physical meetings or face-to-face communication cannot be completely replaced by digital approaches. People need physical interaction (maybe not what you think now), at least the majority of us. Hence, let's take a look at New Work concepts. They will fail if they rely only on technical digitalization. In this context, I remember my first job in a research and development organization. We had wonderful video conferencing rooms, but no one except us could connect because our customers or partners didn't have such fancy high-end solutions at that time. Also, there were organizations that had adopted and applied all the open-office concepts that are just now being adopted in some companies. We had had fancy spaces as well. But honestly, the majority of people don't care if the spaces are fancy or very expensive. They mostly want to work in a nice environment with good colleagues who respect and like them; they need adequate equipment, sure, but it doesn't have to be the most expensive or modern items. And not everyone likes the idea of shared desks, open space, etc. I once worked for an international consulting firm. Therefore, I understand the financial aspect of shared desks, since the consultant is, after all, supposed to work mainly on site and for a client, and the spare office space then goes unused. Hence, I have nothing against the concept of shared desks. It saves money and it is fancy to be able to book a desk in 100 countries around the world and choose a printer in India or the US. And some people - by the way - print on printers located in other continents. But if a shared desk is just a controller's idea to save money, and doesn't support a collaborative, positive work culture then it's nonsense. The same goes for open spaces. I worked as a student for a leading high-tech company in a building where three departments worked in one single room on one floor: no separate rooms or meeting areas, just the elevators, kitchen and restrooms in the middle. One of the bosses sat next to an open meeting room. No chance of having quiet or confidential conversations. Sales engineers - constantly on the phone - sat next to programmers or developers. It was a nightmare for them (for all parties). By the way, I had my test and development area in one of the four corners of that floor. People called me lucky. Same thing with shared desks. One story about this: management heard about this concept in one company and tried to introduce it; but even the change agents secured their private desks right at the start - and permanently - in the best spots, such as by the windows. But let's say that management never got honest feedback and inevitably concluded that shared desk was the best approach ever. To me, on the other hand, there's no question at all that sometimes it's more practical to have the right people work closely together for a while. It's a matter of efficiency and effectiveness. And the so-called "plateau mode" is really a powerful enabler. So, don't destroy well-functioning teams. Plateau mode is actually predestined for agile management. Nevertheless, agile approaches are sometimes introduced into organizations that are not yet ready for agility. It's not enough to send people to some trainings. Agile approaches fail when people - managers and employees - still keep their old mindset. Agile values such as courage, commitment, focus, openness or respect are often not understood or shared. Agile approaches will then certainly fail: agile development is required, but there are still too many dependencies and interfaces that do not allow for autonomy; the old way of contracting or paying is maintained, etc. There is a whole range of sources of failure. And I asked myself the question: is it really true that productivity or quality has improved through agile approaches? What about people's satisfaction? And I have to say and admit: I was proud of my project results, which I managed myself in an "old-fashioned" way during my previous stages of work life. Maybe it wasn't old-fashioned, but just successful? Since then, my friends and I have had different experiences with different clients or organizations; and not all of us felt that agile increased efficiency, productivity, quality, etc. To be honest: not all companies (or only a minority of them) did a bad job before adopting agile management. Nevertheless, some studies emphasize that agile organizations deliver or promise five times higher profits, two times faster time-to-market, and two times higher employee satisfaction (Heidelbach et al. 2020). Is this true? I am sure the positive examples are not fake news. Still, I would never have successfully executed some projects during my R&D phase with...