When cloud-first workplace technologies emerged in the early 2010s, it seemed clear to me and many others in the IT operations field that we were entering a new era of enterprise technology — one where our employees' devices and our corporate systems would all be connected through intelligent cloud platforms, and where organizational data and productivity tools would largely operate from centralized, managed cloud services.
The modern digital workplace was essentially a new operational platform, and a large part of my role as Director of Infrastructure Operations at the time was to evangelize this new platform to business unit leaders and department heads, so that they could start embracing the new generation of connected, cloud-enabled workplace experiences.
At the time, the single most common objection I would encounter was that so many organizational leaders simply did not want to believe that cloud-first workplace technologies both enabled and necessitated a very different approach to managing, deploying, and supporting our internal infrastructure operations. So many stakeholders insisted that their traditional on-premise approaches, and their established waterfall methods of procuring, implementing, and maintaining IT systems, were still perfectly adequate.
The second most common objection I would receive when explaining this new digital workplace architecture was, "this sounds promising, but we cannot adopt this approach because our organizational data is too sensitive to be managed through cloud-based platforms, and our compliance requirements are too stringent for remote work capabilities."
Now, we understood that not every business function would immediately transition to cloud-native operations, but it seemed evident that organizations would still want to leverage cloud-first technologies to enhance and streamline their internal workplace experiences.
This was a significant factor in my decision to focus extensively on digital workplace transformation methodologies. I felt compelled to articulate how fundamentally different internal infrastructure operations could and should be when leveraging cloud-first platforms to discover, deploy, and deliver modern workplace solutions.
Fast forward to today
I observe remarkably similar dynamics with AI-powered workplace technologies and intelligent automation platforms.
The single most common objection I encounter is that "yes, these AI-driven workplace tools represent impressive technological capabilities, but nothing fundamentally changes in our operations. We still need to manage and deploy workplace technologies much as we always have, and AI-powered features are essentially just additional functionality layered onto our existing systems."
The second most common objection I hear is that "these intelligent workplace solutions are intriguing, but our organization is not suitable for probabilistic automation because of our regulatory requirements, and we simply cannot implement technologies that might produce unpredictable results or that we cannot thoroughly test across all operational scenarios in advance."
Much of my recent work has focused on addressing this first objection, with significantly more analysis and guidance forthcoming.
I genuinely understand the very human tendency to want to believe that your professional role and your established expertise remain secure and relevant, but there truly are substantial differences when discovering, deploying, and delivering AI-enhanced workplace solutions — particularly if you want those intelligent workplace capabilities to be perceived by your organization as genuinely transformative and valuable.
What I believe is coming
I believe there are very significant changes approaching our field, affecting the structure of IT operations teams, the roles within infrastructure organizations, and how those teams discover, deploy, and deliver workplace solutions.
Regarding the second objection, which I addressed in recent analysis of intelligent workplace implementations: I am not attempting to minimize concerns such as algorithmic unpredictability or data governance challenges. I am working to demonstrate that strong IT operations teams can and do employ appropriate methodologies and controls to mitigate these operational risks effectively.
Organizations can either begin working to implement these intelligent workplace capabilities themselves, or continue to believe such transformation is not feasible for their environment — until a more agile competitor demonstrates to their talent pool and stakeholders a dramatically superior workplace experience that drives both productivity and employee satisfaction.
I am fully aware that, as has always been the case, some organizations — particularly those with agile operational cultures — will move quickly and strategically to capitalize on these new technological opportunities, while other organizations, especially large enterprises with substantial legacy infrastructure investments, will find justifications to deny or resist these transformations. Such is the nature of our industry and organizational change management.
The lesson from successful early adopters, like Microsoft's own transformation to cloud-first operations (it was rough if you did BPOS), serves as an excellent example of recognizing the genuine opportunity that new enabling technologies provide well before most organizations understood the implications — and then successfully navigating the technology adoption curve as stakeholders began to recognize the operational and strategic value of modern digital workplace capabilities.