AGILE HYBRID WORK FRAMEWORK
5 KEYS

5. DIGITAL TOOLS

Tools do not transform.
People with the right tools do.

TOOLS FOR SERVICE OF DIGITAL COLLABORATION

It’s no surprise that the fifth key to a successful Agile Hybrid Work Framework is found in the superior use of tools. Here we work with our clients to explore the capacity to meaningfully select, effectively engage, and intentionally outgrow your toolsets, pulling forward learnings and bolstering a sense-and-respond ecosystem.

“We shape our tools and thereafter, our tools shape us.” Marshall McLuhan

Tools are fulcrum mechanisms we leverage to decrease the amount of effort or increase the amount of power with which we get a job done. Selecting the «right tool for the right job» in a phygital environment is a skill of discernment (one we’re rapidly losing to algorithms and AI, by the way). When the task is simple, the choice is simple. When the task is complex, the compounding tool options are overwhelming. This speaks to the specificity with which you set objectives (key 2).

What’s most important becomes clarity around ‘what is the objective to accomplish?’ The legwork for selecting the right tool is not found in an exhaustive tool comparison, but in alignment of purpose.

Because,

"If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Abraham Maslow

La clave del éxito del desarrollo de equipos en remoto se basa en la capacidad de ser ágiles; de estar alineados con nuestro siguiente objetivo, definido como OKR. Por ello, los principios y comportamientos mencionados en la clave #1 tienen mucho que ver con la elección de estas herramientas.

 Las herramientas no están diseñadas para convertirse en un obstáculo, y si están obstaculizando la tarea, no deberían ser catalogadas de herramientas. Con el tiempo, veremos que los resultados que se han producido con dicha herramienta estarán alineados con sus deficiencias. Esto significa echar a perder el trabajo de todo el equipo.
The spirit of successful phygital teaming gains fuel by being nimble: keenly aware and tuned into the very next objective. The principles and behaviors detailed in key 1 sets the stage for leveraging tools. Tools are not meant to hinder. If the ‘tool’ you’re tethered to hinders the work you’re doing, it’s not a tool; adaptation will naturally ensue, levelling outcomes to the tool’s (dys)functionality, effectively rendering the team’s ingenuity wasted.

“Coping with” your technological limitations isn’t a game plan for success, nor a measure of your grit, it’s a fault line in your foundation. That’s why the way we think about and use tools as a digital remote team is KEY for greater success.

While the actual tool is subordinate to

A) WHY you’re using it,

B) the spirit in which it’s used, and

C) the skill of the user, some tools are better than others…

we’ll link you to some we’ve successfully experimented with. Tools don’t solve problems, people solve problems.

The interdependence of the previous keys help us see it’s not the tool that makes digital remote collaboration work, it’s the best use of tools, given the effect of establishing the other four keys.

Principles shape behaviors and attitudes that enable early adoption and experimentation. We encourage team members to embody an agnostic relationship with tools. The rigidity associated with a conditioned attachment to a particular tool perversely leads to the tool becoming the job. We lose the forest for the trees. An easy example is traditional project management. Any seasoned practitioner can attest to the ratio of time spent adding value vs updating the Gantt chart. Another timely example, spending 15 minutes getting the teleconference platform to work for a 20 minute call.

Products marketed as tools can be distractions. Be careful when seeking to outsource your thinking, communication and collaboration to a device. When the sincere, serious work of the first four keys takes root, you’ll have created the conditions for exponentially effective tool use. To demonstrate an inherent danger in ‘outsourcing’ with a tool, consider the progression from an in-person, face to face conversation … to telephone conversation (as rare as it has become) … to email. In- person, there is a rich exchange of energy, presence, non-verbal communication. By phone we lose that data, but still retain the pauses, intonation, pace, and exchange. Email or text cuts the mosaic of sensory data straight out of the equation, paling in comparison to the potential of the ‘living’ communication the language was built with.
Think carefully about what is needed, and what will erode with the use of a tool. Will the leverage you gain outstrip that cost? The way tools have pervaded both skills and thinking cautioning us to keep a watchful eye on the end despite the means, and not to confuse the two.

Prioritizing the needed outcomes lends clarity to precisely where we’re trying to get to, naturally surfacing the obstacles in the terrain before us. The immediacy of limiting our focus to exactly what’s next gives a kind of surgical assessment of the leverage needed to simplify or amplify our efforts.

The hallmark freedom and corresponding responsibility of phygital teams creates flexibility to reach for what is needed vs. what we’re (emotionally, technically or capably) bound to. One of the most exciting developments of our time is access to a limitless network of ever-evolving widgets and apps, as well as countless time honored methods, and experienced people all at our fingertips.

The drumbeat pulses a dimension of time into our tool selection, fortifying growth and learning with the built-in support for failing forward and learning fast. If the tool you and your team leverage as a means to accomplishing the end performed as needed, great: Success, good selection, now you know. If not- the boundaries of your objective and the constraint of the drumbeat will help you assess whether or not to continue. If the tool did not simplify or amplify your effort as needed, then you put that tool down and go on with the job because at a certain point (the drumbeat will tell you), adhering to a failing endeavor is watering dead plants. Given a laser focus on collaborating in time to accomplish a valued objective, the alignment that comes from these decisions is a whet that will sharpen your performance rendering your competitors obsolete.
Giuseppe Pasceri
CEO SUBITO

I can honestly disclose, due to 20 years of leadership in digital companies, that I haven't ever been so effective like in these days while I am using the PEAK framework and the support of ActioGlobal. Moving the needle for real creating value at every Gemba, doing it in the fastest way possible, with a broad consensus from the people who are working with me... well, this is a real luxury!"

Ana Reyes
INNOVATION & KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
AIGÜES DE BARCELONA

More and more people are talking about exponential technologies and how business models are changing. Agile methodologies are already a must, but the idea of only introducing scrum or kanban has nothing to do with it just as digital transformation is not only about introducing technology. ActioGlobal made us understand the true nature of Agile and digitalization as well as how to implement them in an effective, tangible, sound, and sustainable way.
No doubt, ActioGlobal you ARE a REAL team, with capital letters. Thank you so much for teaching us!

DIGITAL TOOLING
by ActioGlobal


Prioritize Objectives by OKR



Asynchronous Communication



Communication & Conversation



Agile Collaboration



Cloud Storage



Feedback and Recognition



Self-Organization



Designed by ActioGlobal at the Gemba

This digital age is shaping technology tools that as predicted, are beginning to shape us. The speed and volume of calculable data are nearly beyond human comprehension. Faster than you know, the technological tools in play will call into question the very nature of humanity. We have to understand how tools are shaping us, and how to contribute our humanity into that shaping in a time of hyper change. The hearts and minds of your team is the most invincible tool you have. This is how you can build a Agile Hybrid Work Framework.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

The ActioGlobal team recommends you to read “Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World” by Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani.

New business challenges, unprecedented business perspectives.

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