Deliberate exponential innovation and other lessons learned

Pearls of wisdom from the AI & Intelligent Automation Network podcast episodes 106-110 include deliberate exponential innovation, automation takes flight; business and IT simpatico; quality then speed, profit transformation.

Deliberate exponential innovation

Ep. 106: Manik Patil, AIG Part II

"Borrowing the concept "blitz scaling” from Reid Hoffman- for enterprise intelligent automation- the tenants are thinking 10x so as to acheive an exponential organization, showing time to value through incremental change, and ensuring business-led intelligent automation."

In his four tenants, Manik spells out that in order to acheive blitz-speed at legacy global corporate enterprise scale- you've got to engage in incremental change. But that incremental change will lead to a 10x exponential organization ensuring you compete within tomorrow's landscape. So to borrow from Teddy Roosevelt- walk deliberately with purpose and carry an ever-expanding mindset.

Automation takes flight

Ep. 107: Fernando Nunes, MAN

“Our philosophy was always about enabling our line of business to do large things themselves, and we, of course, would have to provide an architecture, a governance and an infrastructure. We see it more like we provide the airport. Then the line of business will make the the planes to fly.”

What a cogent analogy- Fernando's CoE is the governance hub which includes key interoperable systems and technology. The lines of business create the scope of work to ensure that automation takes flight. 

Business & IT: Simpatico

Ep.108: Andrew Paris, CRH plc

"It's got to be a handshake all the way through the process. These days you can't do anything in business- certainly in the businesses I've worked with and the roles that I've had- you can't do anything without IT."

That is straightforward- don't go forward without business and IT holding hands- simpatico. Goign solo is fraught with danger- you'll not only have system integration issues, you'll have interpersonal issues. Among your problems will be wasted money, technology and politics. None of that sounds fun.

"Quality than speed"

Ep. 109: Carlone Basyn, Mondelez

"Set a solid foundation before planning and executing a digital transformation. With an influx of data comes new problems to be solved. Instilling a cloud and data strategy, setting up a consumer-centric framework, and building innovation teams out of siloed departments are some of your potential solutions. Once the foundation is set, deploying corporate culture changes, agile workplaces, and AI and ML technology gets done quicker, cheaper, and with more longevity than a quick-fix solution. Quality is not the enemy of speed- you need to be able to marry both.

Caroline carefully lays out what needs to be done. There are many steps. All of them need to be taken to acheive quality. She also touches on speed being a quality. But she mentions it at the end- once she's covered quality. Best not to reverse it.

Profit transformation

Ep. 110: Alexander Thielmann, Siemens

"With this new change- with this fleet of ships- the expectation of the board is that the ships, or the companies, make more profit. Which also means now they are looking a bit more outside the box.”

The above is structured to service the metaphor of transformation being a sea change and navigating a fleet of ships being step change of the greater transformation. It's said ad nauseum that top-level buy in makes everything easier- and in this case, if Alexander didn't have it- he'd get sea sick.