Upcoming technology trends will dramatically change our way of working, how can we prepare for it?

Top strategic trends for the year 2013 according to Gartner are as follows:

• Mobile devices overtake PCs leading position as a main device accessing web. More people will access the web via mobile device than via PC. Android will be still leading mobile platform followed by iOS in 2015, but Gartner sees Windows 8 being on the 3^rd place. All of this will conclude the dominance of a single Windows platform, and therefore companies will have to support multiple platforms.
• Private cloud solutions and services will become widely used for document storage, creation and use of personalized content and become a center of our digital life. This will finish the shift from PC to mobile cloud-based web applications used by more devices. There will be no dominant provider, platform or technology for such services.
• Delivery of enterprise applications will happen via private distribution channelslike todays personal applications channels GoogleAppStore or AppleStore.
• Internet of Things (IoT) will utilize more widely embedded device sensors, positioning, micro-payments or image recognition technologies. As other devices (cars, pharmaceutical equipment, etc.) will be plugged in Internet and other communication channels (bluetooth, NFC, Wi-Fi, not cellular network) will be more used, new applications and services will emerge.
• As we use and connect more and more online devices and generate more and more data the concept of Big Data comes into game. This concept changes the architecture and combines multiple datawarehouse, datamarts, content management systems, file systems and metadata into one logical system.
• Analytics and simulations will be used to support daily decisions and actions, not just those managerially significant strategic ones. Cloud services will enable access to these reports and simulations via mobile devices, which will further increase the flexibility of business decision making.

You can read more detailed original Gartner article here.

Why do I mention these trends? The reason is simple. The increasing complexity of systems, their variability, middleware layers, vast integrations, cloud thinking and services, as well as market dynamics, granularity of services and their combinations, changing distribution channels, all of these will require big change in behavior and way of working of many IT teams, departments and technology companies. Agile and Lean principles like:

• quick and frequent deliveries with immediate customer feedback verifying the concept,
• flexible changes in project scope,
• regular and frequent collaboration of worldwide distributed teams and the importance of DoD definitions,
• integrated development and operations teams,
• visualization of complex systems and their interfaces,
• continuous improvement,
• frequent and regular disruptive innovations,

all this will become everyday necessity, not a competitive advantage. Therefore, you should not wait and start with pilot Agile and Lean implementations already today. We hope this web provides some guidance and support (articles, e-books, templates and checklists). If you miss something important, please, write it down for us.

These trends will require more external collaboration from enterprises. The core of this collaboration will become alliances, all forms of (not just online) sharing, professional networks and communities and of course, joint product/service deliveries. Lean principles will play a vital role in such a heterogeneous environment of cooperating entities having different culture, processes, experience and governance. Kaizen workshop can be the tool helping you to tune up or set the cooperation model properly.