From Looking Digital to Being Digital: The Impact of Technology on the Future of Work of expensive materials and complex another work-organization option: real- Developers, for instance, must get 33 systems. In the healthcare industry, new time adaptation. When a hurricane or accustomed to much faster design cycles, work processes for the management of other adverse weather event is imminent, meaning that a design may still be “half patient electronic records can be simulated for example, the 7-Eleven stores in the baked” before being developed and tested. on a computer, deployed, and updated on affected area can quickly increase their They must also understand how to design a continuous basis rather than launched inventories of batteries, bottled water, for experimentation during early iterations. once and revised only after long and other essential supplies. 34 implementation cycles. In the following chapter, we discuss Whether a company pursues just one or those and other implications in greater Combinations and multiple options for work organization, detail. As we shall see, oftentimes the that choice will have major implications for technological changes are not what implications the organization as a whole. Consider just companies struggle with most; it’s the the practice of experiment-driven design. organizational, managerial, and employee Thus far we have discussed the four Improvements in software development do changes that typically present the largest different work practices individually, not come just from speeding up traditional challenges. That’s why we say that being but we have found that companies will processes. Instead, the bigger wins come digital demands a deep shift. frequently deploy them in different from restructuring a linear process into an combinations in order to tap into the full iterative, experimental one. power of intelligent digital processes. But this necessitates key changes in Take the example of 7-Eleven. The company employee skills and managerial approaches. has deployed edge-centric decision- For one thing, the looping, iterative nature making to empower store managers, of experiment-driven design requires franchisees and employees, and those new thinking about project planning and frontline workers use their knowledge of estimating. Moreover, employees must the local market to make smarter decisions now adopt an experiment-driven mindset, about which products to stock. That has which is not always easy for those who are enabled 7-Eleven to take advantage of accustomed to conventional approaches. The bigger wins come from restructuring a linear process into an iterative, experimental one. 31 | Accenture | Copyright 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved. ©