Gartner gets paid the big bucks to gaze in their crystal ball and
predict how our lives are going to look down the road. They did it
again, and came up with 10 things that will change in the workplace.
I'm picking three that have impact on IT and system admins
specifically.
They started out with: "The world of today is dramatically different
from 20 years ago and with the lines between work and non-work already
badly frayed, Gartner, Inc. predicts that the nature of work will
witness 10 key changes through 2020.
"Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility,
hyperconnectedness, 'swarming' and more," said Tom Austin, Gartner
Veep. (With swarming they mean fast ad-hoc work groups to solve a
problem or work on an opportunity and then dissolve.)
Only five years from now, 40(!) percent or more of an organization's
work will be 'non-routine', up from 25 percent this year. "People will
swarm more often and work solo less. They'll work with others with
whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the
control of the organization," he added. "In addition, simulation,
visualization and unification technologies, working across yottabytes
(yeah, you read that right) of data per second, will demand an
emphasis on new perceptual skills."
From an IT perspective, you will need to look at how these changes in
the nature of work will affect you, and consider whether different
technology and management models will be required. Start thinking
mega-bandwidth to begin with. Fiber through the whole building,
anyone?
De-routinization of work. "The core value that people add is not in
the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes,
uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in
words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and
learning. Impact for IT: you will get asked for applications that
support these processes, probably in the cloud.
Work swarms. Gartner calls "swarming" a "flurry of collective activity
by anyone and everyone conceivably available and able to add value."
Impact for IT: Get ready to give everyone webcams that allows at least
six people to communicate at the same time, www.oovoo.com is a good
example. I use it myself and like it a lot. Also, they will want
conference rooms fully decked out with projectors, cameras, lots of
network drops and of course high speed wireless.
Hyperconnectedness. What they mean with that is a property of most
organizations, existing within a tight network of separate business
units, but unable to completely control any of them. For instance,
while key supply chain elements may be "under contract," there is no
guarantee it will perform properly, not even if the supply chain is
in-house.
Also, the workplace is becoming more and more virtual, with meetings
occurring across time zones and organizations and with participants
who barely know each other. Many will have neither a company-provided
physical office nor a desk, and their work will increasingly happen 24
hours a day, seven days a week. Impact for IT: First start working on
your security policy. Neither iPhone or Android are very secure
compared to Blackberry. Get ready to support end-users 24/7 and in the
weekends instead of normal working hours. Also, inevitably there
-will- be lots more laptops, iPads, smartphones and other roaming
devices first to be connected, equipped with security software,
deployed and subsequently debugged and repaired (hopefully remotely as
much as possible). Single sign-on solutions are starting to look more
and more attractive. Might also be a good idea to start looking at
software that MSP's are using for remote IT management like GFIMAX,
which can save incredible amounts of admin time:
http://www.wservernews.com/UY0HR7/100809-RemoteManagement
The full Gartner report was released here:
http://www.wservernews.com/UY0HR7/100809-World-of-Work
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: BrantKnight <siegholle@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 7:24 PM
Subject: [Skimaire High Tech] future trends in work -2020
To: siegholle@gmail.com
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Hollecrest & Associates Inc -"Turnaround Consultants"
http://www.ic.gc.ca/ccc/search/cp?l=eng&e=123456239975 .
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