There is a tendency to focus on technology. But without strategy, change management and communications, a lot of the benefits can be missed.

1. ©2017 Avanade Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Ruven Gotz
Digital Workplace Advisory Lead
Avanade West, Los Angeles
Ruven.Gotz@avanade.com
@ruveng (twitter/insta)
Ruven Gotz
Digital Workplace Advisory Lead
Avanade, Los Angeles
ruven.gotz@avanade.com
@ruveng (twitter/insta)

2. Why am I here?
Speaker’s Notes:
To convince you: When
you buy this cake, to also
buy the icing

3. 4
Why are you here?
I think you are here to
learn how to build
machines for productivity

4. 5
Machines for human productivity
What we insiders call
“Offices”  Workplaces
that support humans in
getting their work done

5. I am not an expert in office design
It’s really interesting to walk the exhibit all to see flooring and
security and office management vendors.. I live in the digital
world by my eyes have been opened about how the digital and
physical overlap and how thinking holistically is of-course the
best way to think about entire employee experience

6. Systems for digital collaboration
What I do know something
about is designing and
deploying Systems for Digital
Communications and
Collaboration

7. Inside AND outside the office
These extend from inside to outside the office
OFFICES ARE CHANGING – Shrinking – DO YOU HAVE A PHONE
ON YOUR DESK
Seen my office shrink from 2.5 floors to 1 – office consolidation

8. That’s my claim: So, what’s my job?
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• Consultant
• Sr. Consultant
• Enterprise Consultant
• Collaboration Lead
• Director, Collaboration (Toronto)
• Digital Workplace Lead (NY)
• Director, Technology & Innovation (NY)
• Digital Workplace Advisory Lead (LA)

9. Those were titles. But for
10
the past decade+,
my job is…
My Job is to convince skeptical clients that I can help them get
value out of a digital transformation investment
And then – to ensure that we deliver on that promise

10. …to be a story-teller
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What I am is a storyteller
I tell my clients how I’m going to help them to empower their
workforces to make them more efficient, productive and
maybe even happier. (Photo by Kaboompics .com from Pexels)

11. In the distant past…
12
In the past, my stories were
about how technology was going
to help them

12. Adoption Failure
We know that many
initiatives end up
disused or under-used
But, while my projects were successful, they often didn’t
display the results that we had hoped for at the start

13. We’ve invested in what’s good for our users…
They don’t necessarily accept or agree with our choices

14. Result: We planned to deliver this

15. Sometimes
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16. It’s not about technology, it’s about people,
tasks, journeys and engagement

17. Definition: Digital vs Digitalize
• Everything is already “digital”
• Digitalization is the transformation to a collection
of integrated digital systems
• Digital Workplace Transformation reduces
confusion and bottlenecks by bringing multiple
systems together into a
single “engagement layer”

18. Best of Breed vs. Platform
It’s hard enough to get these
systems to work, pick a
single vendor to at
least have a
fighting chance
of integration
This is a personal bias, and I
understand arguments to the contrary,
but pick a platform. Microsoft or
Google or Oracle.

19. | 20
Why is this so hard?

20. | 21
Reality is
messy,
complex
(and chaotic)

21. | 22
Dirty secret

22. | 23
Consulting
theory
≠
Your reality

23. Yesterday’s workplace tour

24. Incredible investment in this “machine”
• Meeting rooms emulate Airbnb homes
• Spaces designed for comfort, productivity
and beauty
• “On brand”
• Reflects culture

25. “Assisted living for millenials” – Kara Swisher
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26. Frustrated designer

27. No robust comms mechanism
It feels to me like a failure of strategy, change management or
current communications tools that it’s so difficult to
communicate with the people who could get even more value
from this environment if only they knew more about it.

28. So, what do we do?

29. Yesterday’s workshop
I don’t have the answer, but I have some techniques that have
proven useful in the past.
In yesterday’s workshop I presented a kind of journey-mapping
approach to selecting technology

30. Yesterday’s workshop
APPS
COLLABORATION
ACCESS
DEVICES DATA
End User
… user centric approaches to having a
well integrated, holistic experience
(with emphasis on removing access
issues as a bottleneck)

31. Yesterday’s workshop
… and the use of design thinking to iterate towards solutions
that work

32. Yesterday’s workshop
We also talked about the use of tools like Innovation
Games/Gamestorming and how useful they could be for
surfacing great ideas
This one is called ‘sailboat’

33. Yesterday’s Workshop
This one is called “Cover Story” – what would things look like
six months after launch? Imagine you were so successful that a
major magazine was coming in to do a cover story on your
project.

34. Yesterday’s Workshop
People love doing this work – and nothing works as well for
getting everyone’s voice heard and getting everyone aligned.

35. Innovation Games are
Egalitarian & Participatory

36. Results of the Design Thinking approach:
Turn Badvocates Into Advocates

37. Road mapping
Tthe results of these workshops and create a roadmap for a
phased, rational approach to DW deployment. Push HARD to
do this step.
- Summarize workshop results
- Build Gap Analysis
- Identify dependencies
- Lay out a timeline

38. Invest in
communications planning
Often shortchanged

39. Invest in Change Management
Often shortchanged!!

40. Done?
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After you’ve designed and built a DW solution that meets your
user’s and stakeholders’ needs, do you just hand over the keys
and say “Done”

41. You need to tend the garden
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• Business is changing
• Technology is changing
• People are changing

42. Build a community
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There are enthusiastic people (not
everyone!) who want to help.

43. Buy the whole slice! Build the strategy!
Large investment,
good result
Small investment,
GREAT result
Did I convince you?: When you buy this cake, to also buy the
icing
The cake is the technology investment
The icing is the investment in strategy/change/communication
The icing is the smaller investment, but has the potential to
turn moderate success into major success

44. Ruven Gotz
Digital Workplace Advisory Lead
Avanade West, Los Angeles
Ruven.Gotz@avanade.com
@ruveng (twitter/insta)
Ruven Gotz
Digital Workplace Advisory Lead
Avanade, Los Angeles
ruven.gotz@avanade.com
@ruveng (twitter/instagram)
Thank you!