Day 1 - Innovation

[1] Context

[1] Why I don’t like the term‘Digital Transformation' - how a well formulated, comprehensively communicated organisational strategy is a vital underpinning of digital transformation.

[2] A structured, agile approach to digital transformation - my recommended approach to the change process [http://bit.ly/AgileTx]

[3] Digital Transformation - tech is the easy part- considering the human side of digital transformation and the need for excellent teamwork to guide the process.

[4] Foundations of digital transformation- explaining the ‘prepare’ and ‘horizon scan’ steps to get the transformation off to the best possible start.

[5] Fundamentals of Beyond Default- 2.5 minute video with the authors explaining the term ‘default future’. The page includes links to other short videos by the authors explaining different aspects of their book.

[6] Beyond Default- contemporary approach to strategy and change by David Trafford & Peter Boggis based on the belief that the purpose of strategy is to change the trajectory of an organisation, from one taking it to its ‘default future’ to one that takes it to an improved future. The default future of your organisation is the place it will end up if no action is taken, other than that currently planned.

[7] How information gives you competitive advantage- written by Michael Porter & Victor Millar in 1985 provides the basis for modern strategic thinking and information driven change.

[8] ATOS Outlook 2020 / Tech Trends - ATOS’ keywords are digital transformation, innovation and value creation, both for our own company and for our clients. Their technology radar (at the link) is a powerful way of visualising the impact of technology on organisations within different time horizons.

[9] Gartner’s Hype Cycle - a powerful way of visualising the evolution of new technology enabled business. I have been a big fan of this methodology since the early 1990s and seen it work in practice for a range of new technology from wireless e-business through cloud computing to blockchain.

[10] Horizon Scanning(GOV.UK) describing how this powerful method should be used in practice through a’Ten Commandments’ approach.

[2] Industry 4.0

[1] What is industry 4.0? (Forbes) - a super easy explanation (website and video)

[2] What it means, how to respond (WEF) The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond. Embedded (inspirational) video is at this link.

[3] WEF Global Intelligence(WEF) website of Industry 4.0 resources

[4] Digital Transformation Revolution(Medium) The Digital Technology Transformation

[5] Fourth Industrial Revolution - practices, opportunities, challenges (Petrillo et al) academic paper explaining how globalisation and competitiveness are forcing companies to rethink and to innovate their production processes following the so-called Industry 4.0 paradigm. 

[6] Challenges (Deloitte) Industry 4.0 challenges and solutions for the digital transformation and use of exponential technologies

[7] Industry 4.0 and Humanity 4.0 (TED Talks, 2018) short TED style lecture outlining Industry 4.0 from opportunities and challenges viewpoint.

[8] What is Industry 4.0 and what does it mean for you? (University of Derby, 2019) - short 2 minute video introducing the topic. Easy to understand overview.

[9] What is the Fourth Industrial Revolution?The “Fourth Industrial Revolution” is a common phrase at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. But what exactly does it mean? CNBC’s Elizabeth Schulze explains.

[10] Industry 4.0: how intelligent machines will transform everything we know (TED, 2015) -The fourth industrial revolution is upon us: machines infused with intelligence. This transformation will transform how manufacturing works today, making it 30% faster and 25% cheaper because a machine will know when it makes a mistake and will correct itself.

[11] What Is Industry 4.0 and How Did We Get Here? Lengthy video (1hour 16) of lecture from MIT associated organisation giving thorough explanation of subject.

[12] What is Industry 4.0? (IBM) - the company’s point of view and solution set with some thought provoking case studies.

[3] Process

[1] Business Process Management - useful but short three-minute overview video.

[2] process.st-Top 10 business processes - handy guide / checklist to the team common processes with checklists for what to expect from them.

[3] DTHR - Process modelling and mapping- 11 page practical guide covering the basic principles of BPM at an accessible and useful level.

[4] Innovation I - Design Thinking

[1] Design Thinking: a quick overview [Interactive Design Foundation, 2020] - concise and logical explanation of the methodology.

[2] Five stages of design thinking [Interactive Design Foundation, 2020] - concise web document outlining the key stages of the process in easy to understand and logical format.

[3] The design thinking process [Sprouts, Oct 2017] - 3 minute interactive cartoon style video explaining the processthrough easy to understand examples.

[4] What is Design Thinking? [IDEO, Dec 2018] - 2 minute overview of the process for creative problem solving.

[5] What is Design Thinking - an overview [AJ&Smart, 2020] - a 10 minute videocovering the definition of the Design Thinking, an overview of the processes, and why they're so important to innovation!

[6] Running a successful brainstorm - everyone has a different idea of what a‘brainstorm’ means in practice. This resource gives helpful advice on how to run a‘real’ brainstorm.

[7] IDEO - organisation delivering excellent courses on design thinking with excellent introductory material on their‘resources’ page.

[8] Why Design Thinking Works [HBR, Oct 18] - summarises a seven year study into fifty projects cross sectorexploring a variety of human tendencies that get in the way of innovation and describing how design thinking’s tools and clear process steps help teams break free of them.

[9] IBM Design Thinking - I learnt my Design Thinking skills with IBM, and got great value and results from applying the technique to early blockchain projects, where the client’s requirement was often vague. Very useful additions to the standard method to represent the needs of large, complex organisations and their problems!

[10] Brainstorming in three steps [IDEO] - pragmatic, actionable guidance to get your team’s creative juices flowing!

Day 2 - Technology

[1] Innovation II - Agility

[1] What is Agile? [digite] - long(ish) web page giving an easy to understand run though the key points of the methodology

[2] Introduction to Agile [black pepper SW, 2014] - 6 min cartoon style video introducing agile and contrasting it with traditional development methods.

[3] Brief explanation of agile [this is agile, 2016] - 8 min video what agile is all about and how does the agile iterative adaptive approach compare with the plan driven waterfall approach?

[4] Agile 101 - the Agile Alliance have some excellent material aimed at advancing the practice of agile. My link is to the introductory material, but the site has so much to offer to anyone wanting to understand this powerful concept.

[5] Agile Posters - don’t be put off by the funky (?) name - if you are visually led,Dandy People have a wealth of useful material to help understand how Agile can change your organisation to the better.

[6] How fragile is your agile (Deloitte) short paper citing six common pitfalls of agile project teams.

[7] Explaining strategic agility - 12 min video interview where Doz & Kosonen describe the concept and how it enabled Nokia to attain market leadership position.

[8] Nokia’s failure in the mobile phone industry - 10 min video where Prof. Doz uses strategic agility failure to explain the subsequent demise of Nokia.

[9] Strategic Agility and international joint ventures - the willingness - ability paradox of family firms – in this journal of management article the authors combine the two themes of family business and international joint ventures and explore how strategic agility can overcome the emotional gap common in family firms that can inhibit Joint Venture formation.

[10] Strategic Agility: and agenda for executive IT leaders - This California Management Review article focuses on information technology leaders and their evolving strategic role at the forefront of organisations. It describes how these practitioners can build and maintain strategic agility, and it concludes by conceptualising these practices in an agenda and leadership framework.

[2] Case Studies I

[2.1] Cloud computing

[1] Cloud Computing Overview - 16 minute video explaining the core concepts of cloud computing in clear and concise format.

[2] Cloud Computing: An Overview - a 6 page PDF covering cloud models, public vs private cloud, benefits andchallenges. Easy read and well balanced too!

[3] What is cloud computing - informative extended web page by Microsoft, offering their Azure cloud on a free trial basis. Note that other cloud vendors offer similar information and offers - see [b3] & [b4] below. Very clear, concise and well presented.

[4] DataVersity; History of Cloud [Jun 2017] - looking at how cloud computing has evolved since the 1960’s to date including the various delivery models and privacy / security.

[5] NIST; Definition of Cloud Computing [Sep 2011] - THE definitive definition of Cloud from US-NIST covering the five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models.

[6] IBM Cloud (free account creation, experimentation) IBM say that their Cloud is a robust suite of advanced data and AI tools, and deep industry expertise to help you on your journey to the cloud. Anyone can sign up for free, and start to experiment.https://www.dataversity.net/brief-history-cloud-computing/#

[7] AWS Application Integration - Amazon say that AWS is a suite of services that enable communication between decoupled components within microservices, distributed systems, and serverless applications. Again, sign up and experimentation is for free.

[8] Benefits of Cloud Computing [Apr 18] - short post listing the top ten business benefits from adopting cloud technology.

[9] Cloud Data Privacy [Delloite] - offering business some pragmatic advice on this important (and often confusing) topic.

[10] NOAA Case Study [2018] - the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) makes more than 68,000 collected datasets available over AWS Cloud.

[11] Cloud Computing Tutorial [Oct 2020] - 73 minute video explaining the core aspects of cloud computing.

[12] Cloud Computing [Accenture] - comprehensive introduction to the topic in business terms.

[2.2] Mobile computing

[1] DubaiNow App - the app for all your Dubai city services giving access over 85 city services including bill payments, fuel top ups, car registration renewals, flight tracking.“How to” guide from Gulf News. Short case study from dubaipulse

[2] Evolution of the Mobile Phone - from simple to smart, mobile phones have transformed dramatically to become information and communication hubs fundamental to modern life. This explains how they got to be this advanced.

[3] eCommerce 101 - the history of online shopping: what the past tells us about tomorrow’s retail challenges.

[4] Deloitte; Mobile Consumer Survey 2019 - describing four distinct themes that offer some insight into how the smartphone is increasingly becoming the key to how we connect with our friends and family, our home, our personal wellbeing and even our entertainment. Note that other resources are available from Deliotte for (selected) other countries.

[3] Case Studies II

[3.1] Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence

[1] The art of automation - book from IBM providing leaders with an understanding of how AI-powered automation can hyper-accelerate digital transformation.

[2] Mayflower: pushing the power of autonomous navigation - the maritime research vessel Mayflower Autonomous Ship is a first-of its-kind autonomous ship — and IBM technology played a central role in bringing it to life.

[3] The evolution of process automation - IBM’s Institute of Business Value explain how intelligent automation can change how work gets done, but organisations need to balance operational efficiencies with evolutionary workforce changes. Written in 2017 and NOT one of IBV’s best . . .!

[4] Robotic process automation - (aka software robotics) using software robots to automate tasks performed by humans such as extracting data, filling in forms, moving files etc. 

[5] What is an autonomous car? - an autonomous car is a vehicle capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. This interesting short tutorial web page describes the different levels of automation and the challenges and benefits associated with getting to the higher levels.

[6] How do self driving cars ‘see’? - 5 minute animated TED talk explaining the technologies involved in making the seemingly impossible possible!

[7] Integrating Robotic Process Automation into Business Process Management - academic paper exploring the benefits of combining the two powerful approaches.

[8] One hundred year study on Artificial Intelligence (AI100) - Stanford University has invited leading thinkers from several institutions to begin a 100-year effort to study and anticipate how the effects of artificial intelligence will ripple through every aspect of how people work, live and play. This site documents the study including publishing it’s research findings.

[9] Machine & Deep Learning Compendium - a gateway, as a frequently visited resource for people of various proficiency levels, for industry data scientists, and academics. The compendium will save you countless hours googling and sifting through articles that may not give you any value.

[5] More case studies