The future of work and the “two pizza” rule

Being a WordPress Agency

The workplace is changing, and for the better. Old-fashioned business practices are being disrupted by innovative, agile approaches to working.

Nowadays, bright people need organisations less than organisations need them. This is the paradox driving change.

This core driver is making companies re-think how and where they do work and probably presents the biggest change in the workplace since the creation of centralised factories during the early part of the industrial revolution. This is big.

  • Centralised departments are shifting to distributed (smaller) teams – typically geographically spread across the globe and many timezones. Hiring talent is no longer restricted to local areas.
  • The 9-to-5 is under threat as employee quality of life and always-on services demand a different schedule to dated working-hours. Productivity gains of 25% plus are not uncommon when this approach is employed.
  • A hyper-connected, flat hierarchy is replacing management layers, silo’ed departments and “us and them” mentality. Invention and innovation now comes from all parts of the enterprise and is shared openly. There are no more bosses, or titles – just ad-hoc micro-teams coming together to deliver services and then dissipate.
  • Traditional offices are being usurped by location independence, digital nomads and co-working. Driven by the cloud, there is just no need whatsoever to force staff to attend a fixed office space with all the attendant cost and time overhead. Where do you go if you really want to get some work done?

The change is monumental and the dinosaurs in this space are struggling to deal with the speed of change and disruption this is causing. As these old organisations grow, so does their complexity, which results in higher costs, slower delivery and less innovation. It kills them.

The Cloud is the enabler.

We started our move to the cloud nearly 10 years ago and realised very quickly that the cloud is not a “feature” – it’s a way of thinking. It’s not enough (and also rather short sighted) just to use the cloud to deliver services in to a single office. In fact, that misses out of the largest benefit of the cloud – distributed information.

In 2010 we became 100% cloud-based. That is to say, we removed all the physical and geographical barriers inherent in a location-specific business model. In 2015, that means we employ state of the art co-working spaces, have teams based across the globe and can service client needs from anywhere.

When is this coming?

Now. If you’re not an early adopter then you run the risk of finding yourself extinct in a matter of a few short years. A new breed of disruptive businesses are going to steal your lunch, and your bed. Watch out.

This post was inspired by Jacob Morgan’s excellent article on “The future of work” and the two-pizza rule makes reference to Jeff Bezos’s belief that if you can’t feed a service delivery team with 2 pizza’s then it’s too big. We like pizza a lot so our teams are micro-sized!