What Early Adopters Can Teach Us About AI

 Some good thoughts.  

What Early Adopters Can Teach Us About AI

Interview with Thomas H. Davenport   in APQC

ChatGPT burst upon the AI landscape in November 2022 with a media and market frenzy not seen since Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007. Over one million people immediately signed up to test if OpenAI’s large language learning algorithm could perform as well or better than a human at answering text-based research questions, writing a poem in the style of Shakespeare or songs like Bob Dylan, completing high school homework assignments (you can imagine the handwringing here), and much more. In many cases, the answer was yes.  

Only three months later, there have already been three major upgrades to the search and auto correct algorithm. ChatGPT4 gets the answers wrong and “hallucinates” (makes up stuff) less frequently. Competitors from Google and many others have joined the race to use AI to empower everything we do online and virtually every process we use inside organizations.

As we all know, the promise of AI won’t be actualized unless we develop a strategy, explore use cases, and operationalize the technology in our organizations. This takes organizational savvy and change management skills, which no algorithm can give you. 

Fortunately, we can learn from multifaceted experts like Tom Davenport and a decade of early adopters who have used AI to dramatically accelerate their businesses. In addition to dozens of books and articles on topics like knowledge management and analytics, Tom is co-author (with Nitin Mittal) of All in On AI: How Smart Companies Win Big with Artificial Intelligence. In this interview excerpt, Tom speaks with me about what it means to be “All in” on AI, shares some key lessons from early adopters, and provides insight into what AI will mean for the workplaces of the future.  

What does it mean to be “all in” on AI?

Organizations that are “all in” on AI are highly invested in a variety of different ways. One is that they have different types of AI spread throughout the company quite broadly. We’re talking about dozens of use cases at a minimum, but more commonly it’s hundreds or even thousands of use cases because AI is a narrow technology. It tends to support or automate tasks, not entire jobs—and certainly not entire processes. So for example, if you want to automate all customer service or all order management, you will need to assemble many different pieces of AI to have a high level of impact. 

Being all in means you’re not just using AI for optimization at the margins of your business but really changing something dramatically. In the book, we talk in terms of organizations that use AI to transform their strategy, business model, products, services, operations, or even customer behaviors—not just making small tweaks for operational improvement. 

You’re probably going to get into trouble unless you’re ethical about the ways in which you use AI. Organizations that are all-in also have a framework for ethical and trustworthy AI in place that includes guidelines, policy approaches, and governance structures. 

What led you to focus on early adopters of AI in your book?

I wrote a book called Competing on Analytics in 2007. My readers found it quite helpful to look at companies that were aggressive early adopters of analytics, and I thought that the same thinking probably applies with regard to AI. The people I was working with at Deloitte were starting to talk about the ways in which AI could help transform these big legacy companies, a lot of whom were their clients. I think the nice thing about those examples is that even if people can’t or don’t want to go all in, they respond to reading about what it’s like to be all in and what companies can accomplish if they’re really aggressive in their adoption of the technology.  ... ' 

Predictions for Knowledge Management

KM will continue to compete with digital workplace initiatives... 

Predictions for Knowledge Management   By Lauren Trees  in the APQC Blog

Lauren Trees identifies trends in enterprise knowledge sharing and collaboration, researches cutting-edge ways to improve knowledge flow, and shares the findings with APQC’s members and the knowledge management community at large.

An unexpected upshot of the chaotic 2020s is that more leaders see the connection between knowledge management and business success. Well-documented and accessible knowledge helps get new hires up to speed, develop and engage employees throughout their careers, and spur the innovation needed to evolve and respond to change. Everyone is more aware of the importance of being nimble these days, along with the disasters that can ensue when tacit or explicit knowledge vanishes overnight. (To understand why knowledge continuity matters, look no further than Twitter under the control of Elon Musk. It turns out companies do need ready expertise to operate effectively.)

KM has gained ground, but new opportunities bring new challenges (along with some old ones). Below are three thoughts about where the discipline is headed in 2023 and what obstacles it may face. But my perspective may not match yours—that’s what makes life interesting! To help us see the future more clearly, please contribute your perspective by taking APQC’s 2023 Knowledge Management Trends and Predictions survey. We’ll share the results early next year.

1.    KM will continue to compete with digital workplace initiatives

When the pandemic took off, KM teams stepped into the breach to help organizations adapt to digital work. KMers overhauled intranets, stood up Microsoft Teams sites, piloted new apps, taught people how to use Zoom and Miro, and converted in-person trainings and events to virtual. This has been a double-edged sword. KM gained brand awareness and credibility by solving urgent problems, but some stakeholders got confused about KM’s scope and purpose along the way. 

Knowledge management plays an important role in the digital workplace, but KM is not just about managing cloud-based apps and repositories.  A good KM strategy involves identifying the organization’s critical knowledge and ensuring it gets both captured in systems and transferred among people. Content management and virtual collaboration can be gateway drugs to get the business hooked on KM, but KM needs to build on that foundation with strategic solutions to protect and replicate critical knowledge. Otherwise, it may get subsumed into digital initiatives that are more about the pipes than the knowledge running through them.

2.    In-context knowledge recommendations will become more mainstream

The holy grail of KM is to deliver relevant knowledge into employees’ hands when and where they need it, without them having to seek it out. Early adopters have been pursuing automated recommendations for nearly a decade, mostly by building or configuring software that uses information about a user—job role, current projects, communities, search history, digital interactions, and so on—to surface relevant information and expertise on personalized intranet pages, in team sites or work apps, or as alerts. These systems often delivered impressive results, but they were expensive and time-consuming to get right. Thus, the technology was limited to advanced KM programs in certain industries. 

Now, tools like Microsoft Viva Topics are embedding similar functionality into mainstream enterprise content and collaboration platforms. Viva Topics uses AI so that users can click a keyword in—for example—a Teams site and instantly see key documents and recommended experts related to that term. These tools are not perfect by any means, but they are likely to improve quickly, especially if IT teams turn them on and users engage with them. Inclusion in the big digital workplace platforms makes recommendations accessible to a much broader cross-section of organizations, but KM teams will have to scramble to incorporate the technology into their strategies and ensure it works as intended. A bad experience—where recommendations are inaccurate, overly complex, or off topic—will create clutter and frustrate users.  .... (more at link)... ' 

Supply Chain Benchmarking

Important to compare to competitive uses, and changes over time and industry changes.  

Why is Supply Chain Benchmarking Important?   By Marisa Brown in APQC

Supply chain benchmarking is important because managers need to:  understand how their supply chains compare to competitors’, evaluate “as is” conditions before they can determine what to fix,  encourage innovation, compare performance across business units, and leverage data for restructuring and change.

APQC defines benchmarking as the process of comparing and measuring your organization against others, anywhere in the world, to gain information on philosophies, practices, and measures that will help your organization take action to improve its performance. Benchmarking gathers the tacit knowledge—the know-how, judgments, and enablers—that explicit knowledge often misses.

The benefits of supply chain benchmarking start with the task of collecting the necessary data and converting it into industry-standard practices and metrics. The simple—and not so simple—act of gathering key operational measures on one scorecard provides a broad snapshot of current performance. This data-gathering process can be a useful cross-functional, team-building exercise when it helps managers who are ultimately responsible for making changes better understand what needs to be done.

Benchmarking can be seen as the systematic process of searching for best practices, innovative ideas, and more productive operating methods. Strategic benchmarking helps make sure that improvement efforts and resources are directed at activities that will move the organization forward.

Comparative information that shows key performance gaps can spark change within underperforming areas and focus limited resources. Of course, any benchmarking activity is pointless if it doesn’t prompt an organization into action. Download APQC's free infographic Ensuring Supply Chain Success with Measures to begin your Supply Chain Benchmarking journey. 

How is Benchmarking Done in Supply Chain?  .... ' 

Better Storytelling

Thoughts on better storytelling

3 Ideas for Better Storytelling in Knowledge Management   By Mercy Harper  in the APQC Blog

In her role, Mercy works with APQC’s Principal Research Leads to create whitepapers, case studies, and reports. She focuses developing targeted content for a global business audience. ... 

Storytelling is the number-one way to get people to participate in knowledge management (KM). Most of the time, you can’t force people to “do KM”—and even when you can use requirements and performance goals to make KM a must-do, that’s usually not enough. KM teams need to find and promote stories that show how KM works and why it matters.

All of us share stories every day, so integrating storytelling into a KM program should be easy, right? Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. A lot of KM teams struggle to pull stories out of the business and share them back in compelling ways. To learn how KM can find and tell better stories, I reached out to two of the best storytellers I know: Miriam Brosseau, principal at Tiny Windows Consulting, and Dr. Carla O’Dell, APQC Board Chairman. They shared so many amazing insights, but these three ideas really struck me.

Three ideas for better KM storytelling:

Use appreciative inquiry to find stories

Build storytelling into process

Steal ideas from internet culture to share shorter, more powerful stories  .... "  

Knowledge Sharing Across Silos

From the APQC Blog: 

Why Knowledge Sharing Across Siloes Is More Important in 2021

Team-based collaboration got a huge boost in 2020

However, we don’t seem the same upswing when it comes to open, boundary-spanning collaboration. Less than a quarter of participants rate communities of practice, enterprise social networks, or expertise location tools as highly critical to their work, and these approaches received only small bumps in the wake of the pandemic. In the transition to virtual work, people simply haven’t turned to core KM tools as much as they might have.

Knowledge Management Adoption Still Lags

The emphasis on team- and project-based collaboration is not surprising. People’s work lives have been turned upside down, and their most immediate need—and instinct—has been to faithfully replicate what they had lost. And admittedly, daily interaction with close coworkers is essential to keeping the lights on and getting things done. 

But when employees collaborate only in pre-established closed groups, they aren’t realizing the full benefits of the tools they’ve embraced. Communities, enterprise social networks, and expertise location tools allow people to connect with likeminded colleagues regardless of team affiliation, surface hidden expertise, and seek out global perspectives. All of this is critical to the kind of innovation and creative problem solving required to respond to breakneck change. If people stay within the walled gardens of department chat, they’re leaving a lot on the table.  

The good news is that participating in a virtual community or enterprise social network uses many of the same skills that employees have honed in team-based sites. And with the mechanics of participation less of a hurdle for users, KM can focus on the incentives and cultural queues that position open channels as safe and rewarding places to engage. These aren’t easy challenges to overcome, but we have a golden opportunity to capitalize on digital trends and take open knowledge sharing to the next level. ... ' 

Technology Impacting Supply Chains

 Good thoughts, all players should examine these methods.

Blockchain and RPA Leading Supply Chain Trends in 2021  By Marisa Brown, APQC

It is worrisome to note that 1 in 5 supply chains barely survived the COVID-19 crisis. It’s vital that these organizations use the lessons learned from 2020 to proactively prepare for the next disruption (since the question is when not if there will be some future supply disruption). Check out this article, What Supply Chain Leaders Need to Know for 2021, for some advice.

I would like to acknowledge the 13 percent of supply chains that completely saved the day in the face of COVID-19. It took many people in those organizations going above and beyond the “normal” to make that happen. In talking to these organizations, I have heard about greater cross-functional collaboration, more frequent re-planning, deeper relationships with suppliers, and faster decision-making. (See Supply Chain Planning: Blueprint for Success for additional insights.) Also, it speaks to the pervasive nature of this crisis that only 5 percent of 455 respondents said their supply chains were not significantly impacted by COVID-19 (not displayed in Figure 1).  

Now let’s look at top trends and obstacles facing supply chains.  

TOP 3 TRENDS ANTICIPATED TO IMPACT SUPPLY CHAINS  

In the next three years, many different trends and changes will impact supply chains. In addition to digitization of the supply chain, here are the top three trends identified (by percentage of respondents rating it as a major or moderate impact).  

»    34% Robotic process automation (RPA) which will help improve productivity and efficiency by enabling people to spend time on more value-added activities vs transactional ones.  

»    32% An automation shift will enable more time spent on the second trend: a greater focus on environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors and issues.  

»    32% Blockchain, the third anticipated trend, can enable greater traceability and visibility, also enabling sustainability efforts.   .. " 

Getting Experts to Transfer their Knowledge

 Some obvious here, but nicely arranged.   Spent much time on the premise.   Again consider how the knowledge can be re-tested and maintained. 

How KM Gets Experts to Transfer Their Knowledge  in APQC Blog

No matter what business you’re in, subject matter experts are likely in high demand. Your organization needs people with deep know-how and extensive experience to lead, innovate, and solve tough problems. But experts can’t just be islands unto themselves. You also need them to replicate and spread their knowledge by imparting it others.

It’s impossible to build an effective knowledge transfer program without engaging formal and informal subject matter experts. After all, these folks have the most knowledge to convey, especially when it comes to deep contextual understanding of the organization’s products and processes. Experts can play many different roles in knowledge transfer, but APQC groups these into four broad categories: ... 

Knowledge Management

Important thoughts, though I think it is still rarely done very well.

Lauren Trees identifies trends in enterprise knowledge sharing and collaboration, researches cutting-edge ways to improve knowledge flow, and shares the findings with APQC’s members and the knowledge management community at large.

A knowledge management strategy is useful because it gives your KM effort a concrete purpose and target to work toward. Many organizations set well-meaning but elusive goals for KM such as “to break down siloes” or “to build a more collaborative culture.” These are good intentions, but they’re too vague to craft a meaningful initiative around—after all, what does it really mean to have a collaborative culture, and how do you know when you have one? A KM strategy makes you document the step-by-step actions that will help the organization achieve its expansive KM vision, along with the inputs required and the measures that will indicate success.

Given the volatility we’re currently experiencing, you may be tempted to throw up your hands in despair with it comes to plans and targets. What’s the point, when everything will just change again anyway? But ironically, a well-defined KM strategy is more important than ever.  ... " 

If you articulate what you want to achieve with KM, you’re less likely to get blown off course by every storm. You simply adjust your tools and tactics in line with current reality while chipping away at your established goals. For example, if your communities of practice must transition to all-virtual operations, their overarching mission hasn’t changed—they’re just using different means to get to the same end. And even if communities need to assume new duties, having the strategy laid out makes it easier to shift gears without losing focus.    ... "

Supply Chain Best Practices after Crises.

Good overview in APQC regarding management after and during crisis.

Keys to Maintaining Best Practices in Supply Chain After a Crisis

As one-third of 2020 is behind us, what’s next for supply chains? What are the keys to maintaining best practices in supply chains after a crisis? The answers are tied to foundational management practices: sound data management, strong process management, a focus on future-ready skills, and enhanced digitization. In short: an acceleration of trends already underway.

Many organizations are still hip-deep in dealing with the impact of the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, with the impacts and degree of disruption varied by industry and business model. However, strong supply chains are vital to survival during the crisis and thriving after the crisis. While individual organizations may take different routes and while the crisis may exacerbate existing weaknesses in some organizations’ supply chains, the path forward to maintain best practices in the new/next normal/abnormal will have some similarities.

Sound Data Management
The number one enabler to making better data-driven decisions in many organizations is sound data management.

One regional supply chain master data manager APQC interviewed evaluated data quality, governance, and processes in his organization. “It all pointed to a lack of discipline, end-to-end process, and focus on data. Each department’s data responsibility was a small part of someone’s job. Regrettably, how that data impacted others upstream and downstream in the supply chain was not considered, nor was it understood.” His organization then created a supply chain data management program to standardize, align, and improve efficiency and quality in data management. (For more insights, read this APQC case study: Applying Supply Chain Data Management at a Large Healthcare Organization.)

Building a solid data management foundation is critical to enable advanced analytics. In APQC research into supply chain analytics, we found that almost 80 percent of organizations have seen their investment in supply chain analytics increase in the past three years. This is significant because supply chain leaders are turning to advanced analytics to help make business decisions specifically related to supply chain optimization, reducing cost, and improving customer satisfaction—and the insights from the analytics are only as strong as the data upon which they are based.  ... "

Simulation is Very Useful for Analytics Validation

I am a long time proponent and practitioner of simulation methods.   We simulated plant design and process, warehouse operations,  woodland growth and management, consumer in aisle behavior, coffee roasting,  advertising selection and delivery ... and much more.   Always a good approach to validate prescribed analytics and AI.    It needs be better linked directly to analytical solutions.

Advance Your Process Improvements with Simulation Technology  in the APQC Blog  By Lochlyn Morgan  Posted in Process and Performance Management

I recently spoke with Luis Lopez, manager of process improvement at the Port of Vancouver, to discuss the role that simulation technology has in process improvement, advice on piloting simulation software, and a few lessons learned from his hands-on experience with simulation technology.

What role can simulation technology play in process improvement work?

Simulation technology plays an important role in the improvement of complex processes as it provides a non-invasive, risk-free, and cost-efficient method to identify and analyze the underlying factors that may contribute to poor process performance and evaluate potential improvements. Simulation technology is key when testing improvements in the real process can be very costly, risky or lengthy.

Simulation models also provide a great way to engage project teams in the design and development of process improvements. Advances in 3D graphics have made it relatively simple to make detailed 3D simulation models of an operational process. These 3D renderings allow project teams to quickly visualize their ideas and identify potential benefits and implementation barriers. This is why I like to say that “if one picture is worth a thousand words, an animated 3D simulation model in a process improvement project is worth a thousand pictures.”  .... " 

Smart Contracts as BlockChains Killer App?

Still quit a bit to achieve to make smart contracts clear and understandable.  Smart contracts can be embodied in any code, but code can be prone to error depending on context.   Note point on the 'intent of the code'.   The regulators are at work to make sure the frameworks will be there.  Good piece below, good links to specific legal detail.   With an emphasis on Supply Chain. 

Smart Contracts: Has Blockchain's Killer App Finally Become a Reality?
By Marisa Brown (see all posts) on  Posted in Supply Chain Management

“As the [blockchain] technology pushes the globe towards new economic models, we will only demand more from smart contracts,” Forbes, July 2018.

From the American Bar Association this September: “In the future, litigation attorneys may no longer be litigating the ‘four-corners’ of the contract, but rather expanding into the intent of the code.”

Smart contracts. We’ve been hearing a lot of hype about them in the media, but are they a business reality yet? Back in 2014, Fast Company called smart contracts “cryptocurrency's killer app.” At that time, it was all about the promise and potential of blockchain and smart contracts. The digital world was coming. And that has not changed: in APQC's 2018 supply chain management priorities and challenges research, respondents rated digitalization as the number one impact on the supply chain in the next three years.  ... "

" ... One common point of murkiness and misconception around smart contracts is that they will replace regular contracts completely. However, this is not the case. Smart contracts are subject to established contract law, and according to a March 2018 publication by Perkins Coie partner, Dax Hansen, will never replace natural-language law—even though they offer increased clarity, auditability, predictability, and ease of enforcement. With so many benefits of smart contracts, several states, including Arizona, California, Florida, Nebraska, Nevada, and New York, are working to hammer out legal frameworks for dealing with the new technology and to make it clear that these new techno-contracts can indeed have legal impact.  ... " 

Smart Contracts for Supply Chains

Still some details about exactly how.    But no doubt there will be applications using this ongoing.  Be ready for it.

Smart Contracts: Has Blockchain's Killer App Finally Become a Reality?

By Marisa Brown (see all posts) on Nov 20, 2018 Posted in Supply Chain Management

Marisa Brown's picture

“As the [blockchain] technology pushes the globe towards new economic models, we will only demand more from smart contracts,” Forbes, July 2018.

From the American Bar Association this September: “In the future, litigation attorneys may no longer be litigating the ‘four-corners’ of the contract, but rather expanding into the intent of the code.”

Smart contracts. We’ve been hearing a lot of hype about them in the media, but are they a business reality yet? Back in 2014, Fast Company called smart contracts “cryptocurrency's killer app.” At that time, it was all about the promise and potential of blockchain and smart contracts. The digital world was coming. And that has not changed: in APQC's 2018 supply chain management priorities and challenges research, respondents rated digitalization as the number one impact on the supply chain in the next three years.

But has the reality of smart contracts finally arrived? Recently, EY released its Marine Hull Insurance product offering that has been built on a blockchain architecture and is supported by the use of smart contracts. TradeLens from Maersk and IBM is a blockchain-enabled shipping solution using smart contracts that has now captured more than 235 million shipping events. So smart contracts are becoming a reality for early adopters.

But what exactly is a smart contract? How does it work? And what are the implications of using them?  ... '