Think independently together, be Future Wise

 

GEN (Z + X + Y+ BB + T) = ???

Can you solve this equation? This is the question that we asked our participants of Linkedinlocal Navi Mumbai meetup. The theme was “Universal Oneness”. Basically we are exploring how different generations have different outlook and how we can leverage the diversity of thoughts to build a product of the future.

The product that we were building was anything that stems from the word “glass”. The product to be built by representatives from different generations, Traditional, Baby boomers, Gen X, GenY and Gen Z.

The outcome “creativity” to the power of infinity.

 GEN(X+Y+Z +T+BB) = Creativity^(∞)

We need diversity of thought in the world to face the new challenges. - Tim Berners-Lee

The future of work #futureofWork provides mankind with unprecedented opportunities along with complex challenges. Globalisation, talent mobility, the death of distance and demographic changes have and will continue to have a profound impact on our team demographics. Our teams will become increasingly diverse. This diversity can be in forms of gender, inclusiveness, generations, ethnicity, race, ethnicity, religious- spiritual beliefs, education and more.

We would need collective intelligence, diversity of thoughts to proactively transition to the future. Why ? What are the benefits of having a diverse team?

• Identify new trends: Diverse workforce have a good representation of its customers. Such a workforce will be a better position to predict what kind of products or strategies will work, hence staying a step ahead of the curve.
• Build innovative Products: Diverse and inclusive teams can apply a broader range of knowledge and skills. They are more likely to understand the real, often unarticulated needs of the people they design products and services for.
• Improve Agility:  Diverse talent with cognitive dominance, intellectual influence, innovative thinking can improve organizational agility, the ability to renew, adapt quickly to the future.

Some strategies that I have leveraged in my projects to encourage collective intelligence and diversity are

• Crowdsourcing:  This is a sourcing model of getting work done from the crowd, usually via the internet.
• Open innovation: This is a collaborative innovation process where teams internal and external to the organization, customers, suppliers contributes to developing newer products or services.
• Open Source intelligence: This includes leveraging information gathered from public or open sources like internet, media, print or professional and academic literature. This could be leveraged for market research

     Do you think diversity can influence the outcome of our projects?

How will the #futureofPMWork will need to transform to encourage diversity of thoughts in our projects?

If you want to know how I leveraged crowdsourcing to enhance diversity for agility and innovation. Read on

http://www.pmnetwork-digital.com/pmnetwork/may_2018/MobilePagedReplica.action?pm=1&folio=22#pg24

Scribe: Nitasha Nambiar [email protected]

References;

https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/change-agility-different-cultures-10188

https://www.bmefcolleges.edu.in/uploads/v3n2sl13.pdf