{"id":272,"date":"2012-12-11T12:37:45","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T12:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cmwlab.com\/blog\/?p=272"},"modified":"2025-04-15T09:31:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T09:31:50","slug":"discovery-a-major-trend-for-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cmwlab.com\/blog\/discovery-a-major-trend-for-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Discover\u0443 a Major Trend for 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Work discovery, process discovery, best practices discovery and idea discovery are major pain points for customers calling tech research firms, and the concept of \u201cdiscovery\u201d is a significant building block and indicator of business innovation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\"CMW<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

This is one of the most compelling trends I learned at various conferences I attended during the past few weeks: this notion that business leaders seek to discover (and capture) what their teams are actually doing, how their people are getting things done (or not), and what are those bright ideas simply waiting to be developed like so much software.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201c…business leaders seek to discover (and capture) what their teams are actually doing, how their people are getting things done…\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

I find it surprising and interesting that people call research firms asking for ways to discover and track unstructured processes. Surprising because I didn\u2019t realize it was such a widespread problem (Help, I don\u2019t know what my people are doing), and interesting because I\u2019m inherently curious and I find almost everything about data to be interesting. It\u2019s a data problem because it\u2019s the result of so-called dark data \u2013 data you can\u2019t see, measure, or analyze. The \u201cwhat\u201d of a given team member\u2019s work day, remains largely unknown.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\"Get\r\n\r\n

Which might be considered fine, as long as the needed business results take place. However, what the people calling the research companies are expressing is the sense that good ideas, practices and processes could probably be discovered and re-used if they could only be captured. Here\u2019s what I mean: someone \u201cpings\u201d you on Skype<\/em> to do something. The person reaches you this way because everyone knows this is the best means to get someone\u2019s attention. \u201cEmails are the OLD normal<\/strong>,\u201d a presenter said last week. In their stead are all manner of social collaboration, of which Skype IM is a favorite.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

So, this person has pinged you, and it\u2019s important, and this request becomes your work for the week. But there is no process for it, little context, and nearly no direction or metrics for effectiveness. Plus, your manager has almost no visibility into this important thing you are doing. Your actions, and therefore any data, are dark. Multiply this by many team members and many unstructured processes, and you\u2019ve got quite a lot of \u201cOperational Intelligence<\/em>\u201d that\u2019s gone missing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

\u201c…multiply this by many team members and many unstructured processes, and you\u2019ve got quite a lot of Operational Intelligence that\u2019s gone missing….\u201d<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

Organizations can reclaim the data to contribute to this operational intelligence by capturing who\u2019s doing what (software to organize tasks<\/a>), unlimited types of content (videos, sound clips, documents, design plans \u2013 anything), all collaboration (discussion threads), and processes (workflows). They can put all of this on one workflow system<\/a>, customized as desired in the various departments and functions, and have a flexible data source storing all of it for fast changes and real-time visibility.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

As it happens, the product I\u2019m working on offers exactly this combination. That\u2019s a happy coincidence since it\u2019s my job to interact with the market about their challenges and offer them solutions. When a major concept discussed at several conferences in a month\u2019s time, and matches one\u2019s work \u2013 well, it\u2019s fun. So is making your team more effective. Check out Comindware Tracker<\/a> and let me know what you think.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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