20/20 foresight: DWG’s practical guide to futuring

Digital Workplace Impact Episode 147: 20/20 foresight: DWG’s practical guide to futuring

[00:00:00.000] – Shimrit Janes

The work of a futurist, it’s part science. So for example, all of these skills around doing the research, doing the analysis, thinking it through is science-based, rational-based. But then there’s also an art to it as well, which is then that creative side of imagining futures and imagining what story might emerge from everything that you’re seeing. So it’s a really nice blend of both science and art.

[00:00:26.610] – Nancy Goebel

Our very own Dr. David Lucas, recently published research to help DWG members engage in futuring practices. This report turned out to be quite the practical guide for understanding the distant horizons of the digital workplace. Insightfully, it draws upon the learnings from DWG’s Awards program, which has shown upon an investigation that trailblazing teams actively invest in approaches for interpreting trends and signals from the world of work and beyond. The report also takes a look at high-level frameworks for managing futuring activities. It’s also peppered with examples from organizations like Proctor & Gamble, the UK Government, and features a Q&A interview with a digital workplace futurist, who has DWG roots as one of our member alums, and that’s George Muir. My colleague, Shimrit Janes, who is also a DWG research author and lead strategist, initiated a conversation with me about the research’s findings, frameworks, and figures. She happens to be very passionate about this futuring arena as part of leadership practices. And so I hope you’ll join me now in conversation with Shemreet James. This is Nancy Goebel, your host and DWG’s Chief Executive. Digital Workplace Impact, as always, is brought to you by Digital Workplace Group.

[00:02:19.890] – Nancy Goebel

Happy listening. I’m just delighted to welcome you to our December research Spotlight. Of course, it’s part of DWG’s event series and one of my favorite opportunities to get a briefing on some of our latest research. In case the voice is not familiar, this is Nancy Goebel, DWG’s Chief Executive. I am equally delighted to have a chance to bring in my colleague, Shimrit Janes, who, of course, is not only one of our many-time published authors inside of DWG, but also one of our lead consultants. Together, we’re going to have a chance to explore some of the insights from our research entitled ‘The Road Ahead: A Practical Guide to Futuring’.

[00:03:16.670] – Shimrit Janes

Hi, Nancy. Thank you so much for inviting me back. It’s always a pleasure to speak with you.

[00:03:24.250] – Nancy Goebel

Same here. This last year has just flown by. Of course, we’ve had an opportunity to partner on not only a number of DWG events, but also several podcast conversations. And so I’m delighted to have a chance to regroup with you and have another fantastic conversation. And so, of course, the backdrop for coming together today is to talk about some of the key themes in our recent research around the road ahead, and it’s meant to be as billed, a practical guide for futuring. What’s a little bit unusual is that this research was authored by our colleague, David Lucas, I would say Dr. David Lucas. But actually, this is an area that you’ve shared some real passion for, and we decided to team up on this conversation. I thought it might be interesting for you to share a little bit about why this theme of futuring in the digital workplace strikes one of your passionate cords.

[00:04:38.180] – Shimrit Janes

Yeah, it definitely scratches an itch for me for some reason. Yes, this piece was authored by Dr. David Lucas. He is Managing Editor at DWG. He is a wonderful editor, but not many people know that he is also a wonderful researcher and author. He has a couple of PhDs in computer science and psychology so the paper that he has put together for us is beautiful. It’s such a deep dive into the topic of futuring. The reason this topic was chosen, every year we have a lovely process that our Director of Research, Elizabeth Marsh puts together for us where we list a whole load of topics that we think might be helpful for our members in the following year based on all the conversations we’re seeing and what we’re seeing emerge in the industry as well. That shortlisted down and then members vote on it. There’s also a research council made up of a couple of members as well. Futuring emerged as a topic for 2024 that our members wanted us to look into. I don’t think it’s a surprise I think there’s so much uncertainty right now. I think knowing how to navigate the digital workplace, knowing how to navigate the future of work, there’s so much uncertainty with the climate crisis, political issues, societal issues.

[00:06:00.710] – Shimrit Janes

And so how do you even begin to navigate that as a digital workplace leader? So I think having this paper, which is a really useful, not just a primer, but really a deep dive into what futuring is, what some of the frameworks are, and with some nice case studies as well. It’s really timely, I think. Then in terms of my own feelings about it, I think it’s really easy to not have hope when we look to the future. I think there’s so much uncertainty, like I said, going on, but there is a real beauty in imagining what futures we might want to emerge and what those scenarios might be, not as a case or a study of science fiction, but as what are the signals of the future that we see today? What are those seeds? And using that as a way of dreaming of potential futures. And then not just as a nice exercise, but how can we start to act today so that those desired futures emerge? So I think for me as well, the opportunity to speak through David’s research is a real honor as well for me. And I know for you, futuring is something dear to your heart as well because you do our predictions every year.

[00:07:14.260] – Shimrit Janes

So it’s going to be really nice to talk this through with you.

[00:07:16.760] – Nancy Goebel

For sure. And just to pull on that last thread just a little bit. Of course, when I was sitting down last year to do the predictions for this year, one of the themes that I landed on was the idea that digital workplace leaders would start the year as chaos coordinators and finish as outriders. In thinking through the research program with input from the predictions, from the member survey, Elizabeth and team framed the idea of this piece around futuring, because ultimately an outrider sits out in front to help guide the crowd as well as steer the future of the pack, so to speak. We know that there are some amazing capabilities across the spectrum of digital workplace leaders inside of our member forum. But one of the muscles that still needs some care and attention is the idea of futuring because it is so easy to be immersed in the day-to-day. As you rightly point out, we are in a period of rapid change and uncertainty. And so building muscle that allows for an ability to see a path to the future and to create a sphere of influence that helps shape thinking across stakeholders holder groups, not only in terms of business leaders in the organization, the immediate team that’s responsible for managing the digital workplace portfolio, and of course, employees at large.

[00:09:14.830] – Nancy Goebel

Honing that skill set for digital workplace leaders is critically important. And so this is within our research construct, the first next step around enabling that transformation And if I were a betting person, I’d say there will be a follow on as part of the 2025 research to continue building that muscle and to allow for bounce back for those invariable moments that pull back into chaos coordination to be able to make those long term impacts to really steer and shape the direction of the digital headquarters. So that’s a little backstory to to add another layer to what you’ve shared, Shim.

[00:10:03.930] – Shimrit Janes

Absolutely. I think one of the things, if we look back at the awards that we’ve run over however many years now, one of the big features has been that the Trailblazing teams really invest in that muscle to interpret the signals and trends that they’re seeing today and to cast forward to forecast what that might mean for them so that they’re becoming those outriders rather than the chaos coordinators. So it’s a really valuable skill for digital workplace teams and leaders to have.

[00:10:37.170] – Nancy Goebel

We’ve given some context around why this topic. I think it is equally important to set a tone for what futuring is and why it’s an important practice for teams. Do you think we’ve covered that all, Shem, or do you think we need to drive a little bit further on that?

[00:11:01.810] – Shimrit Janes

I think we could always dive a little deeper. Invite me to dive deeper and I’ll dive deeper.

[00:11:07.030] – Nancy Goebel

Go for it.

[00:11:08.440] – Shimrit Janes

I think with futuring, the image that often might come to mind is the crystal ball or a tarot card deck, all the different ways we have of thinking about futures, or for example, science fiction, like I mentioned. But there is a science to it. It’s part art, part science. The quote from the research is that ‘futuring is the practice of envisioning and planning for potential futures, and that’s often through a systematic process that includes analysis, exploration, forecasting’. It’s not just putting up a finger in the air and seeing which way the wind might blow. It’s a really thought through process of really trying to understand what are the different trends that are happening in the external worlds to the organization that really helps balance short-term performance with long long-term planning. I think if you just focus on short-term performance, you might get caught with things coming down the line that you could have foreseen potentially, but because you weren’t having that outside view, they caught you off guard. If you’re just focused on what’s happening externally, you’re not really thinking about your own internal environment and what needs to happen in the here and now.

[00:12:19.200] – Shimrit Janes

It really helps balance that short term and long term horizon so that you can start to really have a sustainable and healthy future as an organization. I think often futurists are thought as people who come up with predictions that are saying this is exactly what’s going to happen in the future. That’s not what they do. It’s actually carefully thinking through, okay, what are some potential scenarios that might emerge in the future based on what we’re seeing emerge today. Like I said, those seeds, where might they lead us? It’s a real balance of strategic thinking and creative thinking around what might emerge. I think we’ve seen that if you, and again, back to the idea of a chaos coordinator, if you’re in the day-to-day, it can be really hard to step back from that operational mindset and to really think through Okay, what do we need to be thinking about for the next two years, three years, four years, five years? Having the skills of a futurist as a digital workplace leader just allows you to create that space to really think through, Okay, what are we seeing? You’re not dictating strategy. It’s really saying what are some of the things and possible futures that we could see emerge.

[00:13:37.750] – Shimrit Janes

If we look at AI, for example, if we look at hybrid work, what are the ways that they might emerge in the future and what scenarios might they create for the workplace as a digital workplace leader you might need to be thinking about today. It is really thinking through, if you think about a workplace team like you were saying, Nancy, what are the technological trends? What are some of the societal trends that might shape the future of work? There’s a real balance, again, and we see this with AI, with people not wanting to miss out on game-changing progress, so trying to make sure they’re not missing the boat with opportunities related to generative AI or opportunities related to workplace developments, but also making sure that you’re not betting big on something that might be overhyped. The metaverse comes to mind just a little bit, for example. I’m not saying that that was overhyped, but it was huge. One year, everyone was very excited about it, and then it fell by the wayside. That doesn’t mean that the metaverse won’t emerge again as something that is important for digital workplace teams to think about, particularly when you think about, for example, Gen Z, Gen Alpha, and the way that they’re gaming, for example, where they’re going to bring those skills into the workplace.

[00:15:01.280] – Shimrit Janes

But it’s almost like balancing the risk and the likelihood of something happening. Being able to build that muscle around, okay, there is a trend emerging for the digital workplace, but how can we really understand what that means for us. I think Gen AI is the perfect example of why that’s important. One of the studies that David cites in the research is that Gartner predicted that by 2028, more than 50% of enterprises who have rushed into building these huge AI models would have abandoned their efforts. That’s a lot of time and money and change fatigue for employees as well for something that might not even work. That comes almost back to the AI readiness research piece as well that DWG has just released a research report on. It’s really about balancing risk and opportunity and what might emerge as something that is really important and what might be more of a hype as well. That’s what futuring is and why it’s important for digital workplace teams.

[00:16:07.970] – Nancy Goebel

I think that’s a really helpful level set. And then to add the dimension of why that’s an important practice for digital workplace leaders and their teams as well. I think there’s one more level set question before we actually start to get into the heart of this research, and that is, how is futuring different from visioning? Because it’s very easy to confuse the two.

[00:16:36.860] – Shimrit Janes

That’s a really good question. There is a business author and futurist called Steven Millett, who quite a lot of his work is cited in the research report, and he draws a really useful distinction. He says that futuring is really about identifying long term opportunities and threats, and that’s very often looking to the outside world, like I mentioned, whereas visioning is really preparing to adapt and thrive in the world to come. That’s also more about what’s happening inside of the organization and how the organization wants to respond. He has a really helpful model that he puts together, which shows the balance between these two areas. Futuring might be looking at marketplace and technology trends. It might be looking at consumer and product service and trends. Like I said, it’s all that looking out in, so what does the outside mean for us? Whereas visioning is then what are our goals and strategies as an organization? What resources do we have? What culture do we have? What’s that internal stock take. And so the two dance together. I think if you’re just doing visioning without having considered what’s going on in the outside world, you’re operating in a bubble.

[00:17:55.510] – Shimrit Janes

And like I said, some things that are coming along on the outside world, whether a massive political change, for example, on a global scale or a national scale, you will be taken by surprise. And then all that carefully thought through internal work will have to be potentially thrown out as you then respond and have to react to external changes. Whereas if you’re just looking externally and not thinking through what’s our internal landscape, again, you’ll be caught off guard because you’re not operating in your own context. The two work together really nicely hand in I think a lot of digital workplace teams are very comfortable with visioning, so creating that mission statement, that vision statement for the digital workplace. I think, as you were saying earlier, Nancy, that futuring piece is sometimes less comfortable for them. I think this helps complete that puzzle of not just what’s happening internally, but how do we position ourselves and how do we learn from what’s happening in the external environment as well. That might just be for the organization’s industry, but it might also be on, like I said, political, economic, and societal levels as well.

[00:19:09.680] – Nancy Goebel

In our orbit, we have brought in some interesting minds to instigate conversation. I’ll throw out a few of those names. Dr. Nicola Millard, who for many years was a futurist at BT Group in the UK. Ryan Anderson, who by title has been the Head of Innovation at once upon a time, Herman Miller, nowadays MillerKnoll, and even a guy by the name of Paul Miller, once CEO and founder of Digital Workplace Group and nowadays chairman. And in our industry circles, we bill them as futurists. So I think it’s important to break down what does a futurist actually do and what makes them what they are, meaning what types of skills and competencies do they have and by extension, what does that mean for digital workplace leaders and teams? And so I’m really looking forward to digging into this.

[00:20:25.970] – Shimrit Janes

I think it makes it real. I think everything we’ve said so far could almost sound like, okay, but what does that really mean in real life? One of the things that has been done really beautifully in the research is David looked into a whole load of recruitment literature, including advertised positions, futuring strategists, to see what skills and activities were they expected to do. He’s then distilled that down into four key areas, which I can go through really briefly, but like I said, there’s a lot more detail in the research report. One of them is near and dear to my heart. It’s research and scenario building skills. That’s really as a digital workplace team, as a digital workplace leader, how are you in gathering data and insights across all the relevant areas that you need to be thinking about? Seeing what is happening, what’s the current awareness. There are always trend reports and research. DWG, like you said, often speak to a lot of people who can help give insights into what’s happening through the podcast, through the member meetings, and loads of other areas as well. As a team, as a leader, do you have your finger on the pulse?

[00:21:45.860] – Shimrit Janes

Do you have those research skills to really understand what is happening? And to then start to think through, Okay, the next step is, what might that mean? What scenarios and what futures could that potentially lead to? I think what’s important here as well is having the discernment to say, Okay, what’s probable, what’s possible, and what’s actually a bit of a long shot in terms of what is going to have an impact here as well. I think that the analytical side is a really important part of this as well. We then see strategic futures planning as a really important group of skills and competencies for people. This is really beginning to… It’s a little bit of the internal piece as well, but it’s saying, Okay, what is actually important for us as an organization? What are our different stakeholders’ important goals? You’ve then got that dance between what’s happening externally and what’s happening internally as well. Then really starting to apply some of the techniques that we’re going to be looking at to really identify how could we potentially get to one of these desired future states. If we have four different scenarios for generative AI, which is the most desirable for us as an organization, and what do we need to be doing strategically, and what do we need to be planning to help us get there.

[00:23:07.930] – Shimrit Janes

There’s also some really interesting work here as well around how do you create narratives and do storytelling around what that might mean as well. We then have signal and trend analysis. Signals is something you hear about a lot in futuring work. All it really means is it’s those seeds that I mentioned. Are there weak signals? Are there strong signals in the current landscape of things that are emerging? So Gen AI right now is obviously a very strong signal. Everyone is talking about it. If I try and think of maybe a weaker signal, ESG has dropped down the priority scale for a lot of people, so it might be seen as a bit of a weaker signal right now of what organizations might need to focus on, which doesn’t mean it isn’t going to be it’s important. It’s then up to you as a digital workplace team to say, even if this is a weak signal, is it part of a desired future that we want to help build towards? Again, it’s that discernment piece. Then finally, just thoughtfully leadership and knowledge transfer. As a digital workplace leader who is trying to build this futuring muscle, it’s all well and good doing the research, thinking about what the planning might be, doing the analysis, but do you have the skills to share what you’re learning within the organization, potentially outside of the organization as well.

[00:24:37.500] – Shimrit Janes

Again, this is more of the storytelling piece, the communications piece, how you’re building relationships with people so that the work doesn’t just stay in your own little bubble in pocket, but become something that can actually impact the direction of the digital workplace in the organization as well. That thought leadership and knowledge transfer is a really important piece as well, and how where you collaborate with other people within the organization and potentially outside of the organization as well in a cross-functional way. They’re the four big puzzle pieces of future.

[00:25:15.570] – Nancy Goebel

I have to say, having something like this in front of our members now feels like such an opportune time.

[00:25:27.430] – Nancy Goebel

And I say that because fourth quarter is often a time when organizations are thinking through strategic plans, a macro level for the enterprise, and then how that trickles down into individual plans for different functions, capabilities, services within an organization. Then, of course, forecasting, financial forecasting, that is, is linking into that process as well as performance management, when people get feedback on how they’ve done for the year, and then very often, first quarter will follow with development planning. So that could be gap repudiation from the performance management process in the fall, or it could be more aspirational, i.e talking about what’s needed next for the individual to help them not just survive, but to thrive in the organization in their current role and potentially even what’s coming up next for them. And so I think about these four puzzle pieces and how powerful it could be for our members to be thinking about these areas vis-a-vis their development planning for the year ahead. This really creates a practical framework to start to think through that. In fact, there’s a member from Adobe that’s our hub and on a slightly different cycle of things just given their fiscal year.

[00:27:18.820] – Nancy Goebel

I actually pulled this report out, as well as our AI readiness, when he shared that he and his leadership were being challenged to think about their development plans for the coming year. And I said, these are putting thinking ideas out there for you in a structured way so that you can think not just about what the organization needs from you, but as an industry professional, how do you continue to build and nurture your skillset? I’m excited that we’ve had this time as we have because it just feels like it’s hitting the sweet spot of the time of year, not just putting insightful information out there as a general reading tool, so to speak.

[00:28:14.660] – Shimrit Janes

Yeah, absolutely. It reminds me, too. We co-ran Trailblazers for a group of senior leaders within DWG’s member group back in October, and it was based off of this research report. One One of the exercises we did is we turned the competencies from David’s report into a self-assessment. People within that gathering were able to go through and mark themselves low to high, how they feel they’re doing against each of these. I did it myself. It told me that I need to get much better at scenario planning, so that was a good thing for me to know about myself. But it really emerged that, for example, the storytelling aspect was something that people didn’t feel comfortable we’re all with. And so I think that will help us, just as DWGF, as we plan forward for next year, how can we help our members and our senior leaders and our Trailblazers build that storytelling muscle as part of futuring. So I think having that self-assessment as part of your development plan is really helpful. It’s nice to see it being used alongside the AI readiness paper by members.

[00:29:23.360] – Nancy Goebel

And I have to tell you, I’m even thinking about my own personal journey at the moment because, of course, Paul Miller, whom I mentioned earlier, created the first set of industry predictions once upon a time, and then passed the baton to me. About four years ago, we did predictions together, and then I’ve managed them ever since. Without even realizing it, I had to pull on all of these things in order to be able to spot the patterns and signals across the spectrum, the things that were happening in the members’ plans, what’s happening on an industry level vis-a-vis technology and consulting houses, and all the rest, and then trying to take some calculated routes for bubbling up which of those patterns and signals would stick for the year, and the list goes on. I guess I don’t think of myself as a futurist because I’m working one year at a time, typically with the predictions. But finding a path to tell a powerful story, as you know, I landed on the idea of a film reference for each year’s predictions as a way of really helping to crystallize the route ahead. And so in the first year, once I was flying solo, the idea was to reference The Wizard of Oz, where the digital workplace finally found a home, a heart, a brain, and courage.

[00:31:07.840] – Nancy Goebel

Then in the next year, this being last year, was the idea that AI was unchartered territory, in a sense, for many organizations, but that like every other emerging technology, you have to go back to the future, the next film reference. The idea is that we know what we need to do when we venture into new territory in the digital workplace. We have to be clear about purpose. We have to think about how we’re going to measure against a core set of objectives. The list goes on. Then, of course, this year shared a steampunk reference, The Golden Compass, with the idea that we’re traveling in a multiverse nowadays because some organizations are hybrid and some have called everyone back to work like Amazon, and then variations on that. Also, that makes us think about some of the values that have come back into this idea of calling people back to work, i.e. the office, and the Victorian-age vibe that that creates around command and control at a time when we’re super experimental with AI on the scene, which is the technology of the future that’s here and now. So steampunk has that Victoriana reference as well as the future technology.

[00:32:43.490] – Nancy Goebel

So you had to land on that for this year. Who knows what the future references will be, but the importance of stories and crystallizing things for people so they remember the essence of the story to guide their thinking is a skill that I’ve had to continue to hone, and I still feel like a student of the craft. Just thought it would be interesting to give a personal overlay there as well.

[00:33:09.480] – Shimrit Janes

I love the Golden Compass reference because I grew up reading Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials materials. Those stories are so near and dear to my heart. When I saw that pop through as the big theme for this year’s predictions, I had a little glimmer moment. It’s exactly that. I think we’re humans and naturally storytellers. I think a lot of us have been told that we’re not, either you’re creative or you’re not creative. We’re all inherently creative. It’s just tapping back into that. I think the work of a futurist, like I said, it’s part science. For example, all of these skills around doing the research, doing the analysis, thinking it through is science-based, rational-based, but then there’s also an art to it as well, which is then that creative side of imagining futures and imagining what stories story might emerge from everything that you’re seeing. It’s a really nice blend of both science and art. It’s fun seeing you develop those skills as well, Nancy.

[00:34:11.230] – Nancy Goebel

You can’t talk about skills without thinking through techniques. I think it would be really helpful for us to spend a little bit of time talking through elements of the research that explore different techniques for digital workplace teams and how they can adopt them as they go about their futuring work.

[00:34:37.230] – Shimrit Janes

Yeah, definitely. I think one place to start is possibly how do you choose a time horizon? You just mentioned, Nancy, that the predictions, they’re one year at a time. This is a massive topic of debate for people who think about futuring. There’s no definitive answer for it. So Steven Millett, who we reference just a little bit back, talks about 10 years, for example. He says 10 years is long enough to suspend your operational thinking and really think through, Okay, long term, what are some of the things we need to be thinking about? However, when we’re talking about technology in the digital workplace, that 2-5 year time horizon is actually much better to be thinking about. It helps you keep a pulse check on technology and have a better idea of Okay, what might be emerging that we need to really be thinking about now, especially if you think about budget time scales and how long it takes to plan a project. That 2-5 year time scale feels a lot more reasonable. It’s something that Nicola Millard mentioned as as well, back in that Trailblazers session that we did in October. And George Muir, who used to work for IKEA and used to be a member of ours as well and who was interviewed for this research paper, is now billed himself as a digital workplace futurist.

[00:35:59.850] – Shimrit Janes

He draws a distinction between a business roadmap, which might have roughly a three-year time horizon, and a business future, which might be about 15 years ahead. He says that for the digital workplace, yes, you might be only thinking technology and road mapping is more three years to the future. But if you’re really thinking and dreaming big as a whole for the organization, 15 years is more the time scale you want to be thinking of. I think for digital workplace that three, two to five years time scale for futuring is probably going to be a lot more useful and practical and comfortable rather than dreaming too far ahead. I think that’s just a helpful level point when we talk about activities and dreaming ahead. What we then have in the report is there’s a whole host of different techniques and approaches that you can start to use as for futuring. I’m not going to go through every single one because our time is limited and there’s eight buckets that David sets out. But I will just pick, I think, a couple of them that are really helpful. One is trend analysis. I’m sure lots of people have heard of doing a PESTLE analysis.

[00:37:17.560] – Shimrit Janes

That’s political, economic, societal, technological, legislative, and also environmental. Looking out into the landscape, the external landscape, and looking down each of those verticals, what is happening, what does that mean for us? When we think through the digital workplace, what are the implications? Again, environmental. I mentioned ESG as a potentially weak signal at the moment. But if are working for an organization where they’re really trying to think through their environmental impact. If you’re looking at externally, what’s happening with the climate crisis, what’s happening with different regulations around environmental expectations, what does that mean for you as the digital workplace? How are you thinking through your environmental impact, but also how is the digital workplace supporting the organization and its own environmental goals? Our ESG paper, for example, gets really deep into how that relationship between ESG and the digital workplace works together. That’s an example of trend analysis. Another that is helpful is horizon scanning. That’s really looking for early signs of change in a market or in the environment. Again, it’s those little seeds that are emerging and starting to be planted and have shoots that aren’t huge trends right now, but are just starting to sprinkle through that might be important in the future.

[00:38:47.170] – Shimrit Janes

There’s a really helpful model called the Three Horizons method for that, which goes into detail in the report, but it really looks at what are the pockets of the future that we’re seeing today. It’s not something that suddenly emerges out the blue in the future, but we see the threads of the future today. Getting used to that horizon scanning would be really helpful. If I just maybe pick two more, I think, from approaches. One is expert judgment. And Nancy, you mentioned, for example, bringing in Ryan and bringing in Dr. Nicola Millard as well. We aren’t always going to be the experts of every single thing. So how can we harness experts within particular areas to come in and help us see what is happening. Really bringing in those people into the digital workplace, into the organization, and hearing what they have to say, or if you can’t get access to them, at least making sure you’re listening to podcasts or reading reports that they’re putting out really helps you with that expert judgment as well. Then I think one final one is scenario planning. It really is, like I said, people typically pull together four different scenarios.

[00:40:01.240] – Shimrit Janes

Based on everything that you’re reading and seeing, if you forecast that forward, what might that mean for the future? It’s something that DWG does, for example, in our 2030 research. We’ve said, given all these different trends that we’re seeing, what might the workplace look like in 2030? And paint some different scenarios as well. That’s really where that storytelling skill comes in handy and imagining, okay, What would a completely AI-enabled remote-first workplace look like? Let’s imagine what that might be. Let’s instead also imagine that everyone has been called back into the office. What might that look like? It’s really helping build those scenarios. This is, okay, which for us as an organization is actually the most desirable, given everything we’re seeing in the external environment, everything in our internal environment, which do we want to be building towards? Then you start doing visioning and your road mapping to say, Okay, let’s try and make this future a reality. There’s some ones that I think are detailed in the research report that are really helpful to know. Like I said, there’s also this creative aspect o futuring. There’s the 2030 report that DWG put together, which really dreams forward and thinks through, okay, if we look at intelligence, capability, beauty, and space for the workplace, what would they mean for a workplace in 2030.

[00:41:32.070] – Shimrit Janes

Again, it’s that blend of science and art, that blend of science and storytelling. If I look at the work that Paul and I, Paul Miller and I did on Nature of Work, that’s another example of the creative aspect of futuring. It says, What if? I think this is part of the beauty of this. It’s almost a what if exercise. What if we saw the organization as a forest, as a metaphor for the future?What does that mean for the workplace? You can then start to tease out what those what ifs might be and work backwards for how we might get there. There are some really beautiful toolkits out there as well. I think if you’re willing to play a little bit, There’s a group of people who put together, for example, a collective imagination practices toolkit, which has all kinds of different exercises and tools that help you think through what could the future be. There’s it depends how comfortable you are with that collective imagining piece. But I think as well as, like I said, the research of making sure you’re doing your horizon scanning, you’re listening to your experts, some of these more creative tools will also help with that storytelling piece.

[00:42:45.710] – Shimrit Janes

And so I think that’s another useful muscle for teams to start to develop.

[00:42:50.450] – Nancy Goebel

And in the spirit of supporting that muscle building, of course, in the show notes, we’ll make sure that not only we have a link to this research report for our members and an excerpt for our wider circles, but also we can include Digital Workplace 2030, a link to the book, and I’m really looking forward to having a play with this collective imagination practices toolkit. I actually decided to save it until after this session and then wrap it as a gift to myself on the other side, and I’m sure others will as well. We’ve been a little conceptual, supported by different frameworks. The other thing that I think would be really helpful would be to talk through some living examples of what a futuring project might look like for our audience. Because, again, as storytellers, we need to help bring things to life and examples, much like film references can do just that.

[00:44:08.520] – Shimrit Janes

Exactly. One of the things set out in the research is David references a technology futurist called Jason Pittman. He has four steps for organizing a futuring project, which David has adapted for a digital workplace team. I can really quickly talk through some of those steps and then speak to an for example from IKEA that’s included in the research as well. I won’t spend too much time on this because like I said, it’s all detailed in the research report. But the first is observation. Again, are you scanning for those changes or trends in the energy space using a variety of methods. The next step after that is analysis. Really evaluating what you’re seeing in terms of how likely are they to emerge. You can look at previous trends, how likely Again, the metaverse is an example. If the metaverse was to emerge again as a trend, okay, what happened last time? What’s likely to happen this time? Looking back as well as forward is really helpful in that analysis piece to really understand how that what you’re seeing might emerge. It then goes into inference. They are the educated guesses of what might then happen in the future, knowing that the actual future is going to be uncertain. But again, it’s just thinking through, okay, based on everything that’s happened in the past, what we’re seeing today, what might happen in the future.

[00:45:37.890] – Shimrit Janes

Then putting together your scenarios. Like I said, four is roughly the average of how many different scenarios someone might put together, and then really reporting. So going again to communicating what it is that you have found. That’s a really quick example of how a future project might flow. But one of the case studies in the research, and this has been through interviewing George Muir, like I said, who worked for IKEA, is some work that he did when he was in the organization, which was about visualizing the future IKEA workplace. He was really tasked with thinking through, how do we make IKEA a better workplace? The futuring process that he developed is really intended to be disruptive and innovative, but also grounded in reality and grounded in the business case and accepted working standards. There’s no point having a beautiful vision of what might happen if it’s so far removed from reality that the organization is never going to do it. Again, it was that dance of the long term and the short term. A starting point that they had is they first of all, created a virtual organization, a cross-department silo. Again, that cross-functional approach to really understand what the different needs were of the organization.

[00:47:04.400] – Shimrit Janes

They really developed this process called Visualize the Future IKEA Workplace. They developed a capability model that said, Okay, these are the eight areas across people, process, technology that we know are important for IKEA to be thinking about. They then created a maturity model down each of those capabilities as well. What they then did is they really developed those scenarios. They looked externally, they did workshops, they created proofs of concept, they created loads of different models and had research to really think through where do we want to get to. As an organization, they really did visualize, and he says it was a mixture of scenarios and storybooks. They would have, Okay, let’s imagine IKEA in the community, let’s imagine IKEA in the forests. Let’s imagine IKEA in the cities, and how will that help us create a more sustainable human-centered work model, and what might that mean for us as an organization. It was a real blend of visioning and futuring that then helped the organization reach this point of a capability model that they could measure themselves against, create a roadmap for, and decide which of those futures they want to be moving to. It’s a really nice example of what this might look like in reality for an organization.

[00:48:29.110] – Nancy Goebel

Well, I remember the IKEA story very well, once upon a time. In fact, I was the member advisor for IKEA when all of this came into fruition. You might be surprised to hear that it coincided with DWG building the first formal benchmark for the industry, i.e, what was affectionately known for many years as the digital workplace maturity benchmark. And so there are elements of the thinking that are represented here that actually were brought into our collective thinking as we designed the maturity benchmark with members, not just IKEA, but quite a few others some years ago. We’ve since spun off the maturity benchmark to the digital workplace management benchmark with the idea that the capabilities side is addressing by things like our digital communication channels, benchmark, digital collaboration tools, modern intranet management. But the digital workplace management side of things is all about the care and feeding of the digital workplace portfolio, ecosystem, whatever language you’d like to use. It is meant to bring together the practical with the ambition side, and the ambition is what helps fuel the future thinking. It can be a really powerful companion piece for this future in research when you think about this backstory vis-a-vis IKEA.

[00:50:11.490] – Shimrit Janes

I remember as well being in Scotland many moons ago and meeting George Muir for the first time and hearing that IKEA story. I think it’s a real part of the history of DWG, so it was lovely to have him part of the research as well in his new role as a futurist.

[00:50:27.500] – Nancy Goebel

I guess we’re starting to get close to the end of our time together. I’m wondering if maybe we should start to challenge this group and others who’ll be listening at their leisure to come away with some thinking points to take away from this conversation and the research. If you cast the lens of digital workplace leaders and teams, once again, what might those things be, Shimrit?

[00:51:02.540] – Shimrit Janes

I love a question rather than an answer. I think questions are really powerful because they help people think through, what does this mean for my context, and to really apply their own expertise. And David has adopted that approach in the research as well. He has around eight questions that he’s posed for teams to ask themselves. I’ve just picked out three, I think, to end with. So I think the first is, is the team alert to emerging trends or changes in the technology and workplace domain. We keep coming back to this, but I think it’s such a key part of futuring is, do you know what is going on in the environment outside of your bubble? There are so many different organizations providing their analysis on what’s happening. DWG is one of those. We have the predictions that you put together. If you’re a member, you have access to so many different pieces of information of what’s happening in the industry, bringing thought leaders in, what’s happening in other organizations throughout the year. I think just finding your sources is a really important part of this if you’re going to be doing your futuring work. I think a second one is, as we were saying before, does the team have the right knowledge and skills for future I think really looking through those capabilities and doing that self-analysis will help you see where are you individually and as a team strong, where maybe could you have a bit of investment in developing those skills or even hiring bringing people in who have those skills as well is a really important piece.

[00:52:34.300] – Shimrit Janes

Then I think, finally, which future in practices and models best align with your digital workplace strategy and approach. Not every single model, not every single methodology is going to be the best one for you. I think really thinking through critically which technique, which model is helpful for us is really important. There’s a great example of this where the Three Horizons model is used a lot and it’s in the research paper. It’s all about looking for the future across three different horizons. But economist Kate Raworth, who wrote Doughnut Economics, which I recommend everybody read if you haven’t read, has a thought through, yes, the Three Horizons model is fantastic, it doesn’t ask you to look backwards. She’s extended the model looking backwards to say, okay, but how did we get to where we are today to then be able to forecast? I think being critical with the models you’re playing with and thinking through how do I adapt them to my context is really important as well. I think those three are three of the big questions for teams to think about, really.

[00:53:41.430] – Nancy Goebel

I think that’s incredibly helpful. The three that you’ve chosen to hone in on in this conversation are a great starting point for our members and others who will have a chance to eavesdrop on this conversation down the line. I think we’ve just about hit max on our time together. This moment has just flown by. Of course, Shimrit, I always welcome opportunities to have a chat with and this was not disappointing. In fact, this was such a rich overlay of your thoughts in positioning some great insights as presented by Dr. David Lucas. And so thank you so very much for sharing your insights and wisdom with us. And no doubt we’ll have more such conversations in the year ahead. But for now, I have to say a big thank you. And certainly this has been an inspiring conversation. So thank you for that.

[00:54:56.700] – Shimrit Janes

Thank you so much, Nancy. And thank you to David. It’s such a It’s been a great piece of research. It was an honor to be able to dive deep into it and share some of the insights today. So thank you.

[00:55:08.830] – Nancy Goebel

Digital Workplace Impact is brought to you by the Digital Workplace Group. DWG is a strategic partner covering all aspects of the evolving digital workplace industry, not only through membership, but also benchmarking and boutique consulting services. For more information, visit digitalworkplacegroup.com.