Future technology focused possibilities considering our solution

Hello and welcome to KBD’s 12^th blogpost! If we have calculated correctly, this will be our third to last blogpost. This means that course Human-Centered Product Development is soon coming to an end. We have worked very hard with this course and we have to say that it is quite a relief to know that summer is just around the corner and we maybe have a bit time to relax after a tough schoolyear. 🌞🌈

 

In the workshop of this course and on the third blogpost, we were talking about the top software trends in 2021 which were for example mixed reality (MR), blockchain, low-code development and outsourcing (DevTeam.Space 2021). Due to our topic, we looked some technology-based knowledge management (KM) trends that could help us to find useful proposals for our target organization.  As you can see from the map in the third blogpost, most of the KM trends are technology-related, and human-centered design has a huge role in their success. For example, friendlier user interfaces in KM tools, strong search engines and seamless collaboration tools are all dependent on fluent human computer interaction. 

So, as already mentioned, in the beginning of the course when it was still quite unclear what focus our topic would get, we were focusing heavily on KM trends and considering our topic this is still okay. However, as our MVP and overall solution clarified naturally during the course, we feel that we want to focus on a bit more to a technology trend that is relevant for our solution. 

First, let’s quickly have a recap about our MVP. Our MVP is a platform which would be introduced to fill in important information on a project-by-project basis. For example, who is working on the project, the project client and the technologies used in the project. Projects would have a person in charge who would be responsible for supplementing and updating the project information on the platform. The platform would also maintain information about people and their skills to make it easy to link to projects. A search function is built on the platform, which can be used to search for, for example, a project that has used a certain technology, or, for example, a person who knows how to use a certain program.

The platform would have an administrator who makes sure that the content does not spread into your hands. In addition, the platform would have the opportunity to tamper with, for example, course content. The idea of tampering would be that a “publication” that has received a lot of thumbs or likes has been perceived as useful and topical. Downstream thumbnails or dislikes could be removed from the platform by the administrator. Old projects could be archived to keep the platform clean. 

As you can see from our MVP, it is a solution that still requires a lot of manual human work. We had a lot of conversations with our case assignment firm Solita and they felt that our solution doesn’t have to be technological at all. This is the reason why our MVP is quite light, and the main idea of the MVP is that it is an easy solution that would be able to execute with a quick timeline. But as the course requires some technological aspects to be implement into the solution, we have done a lot of research on how the solution would be more technical in the future. 

The impact of the technological revolution on working life has been widely demonstrated in recent years. The factor that has significantly changed working life has been the extremely rapid development of technology. (Brynjolfsson et al. 2017) In the midst of a change in work, people should adapt to change and change their knowledge and skills to meet the demands of working life (Bughin et al. 2017). The change in work life is a phenomenon that affects every working person. Working life is evolving and changing strongly due to the development of technology, influencing in what roles people are seen in the future and how people ensure that they are necessary in working life alongside technology (Manyika et al. 2017). There are many different reasons for the change in work, the most significant of which is the rapid development of technology, especially in the field of artificial intelligence. (Bughin et al. 2017; Brynjolfsson et al. 2017; Manyika et al. 2017)

One of the technologies that has made the most significant contribution to change in working life is artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence changes the workforce, the content of work and the employer-employee relationship. (Manyika et al. 2017) Artificial intelligence and the opportunities it creates are currently hotly debated (Brynjolfsson et al. 2017), but the technology is not particularly new. The concept of artificial intelligence was introduced as early as 1956, when the first conference dedicated to the subject was held. Artificial intelligence is a field of information technology that also specializes in the development of systems representing intelligence, i.e., the performance of tasks that would otherwise require human intelligence. Artificial intelligence has the ability to complement human intelligence and increase human performance capacity. (Manyika et al. 2017)

As can be seen from the previous two paragraphs and based on several references, artificial intelligence (AI) is a huge technology trend in work life. As our solution is meant to help Solita’s employees especially in project work, we feel that the most important technology trend that could also be implemented to our solution in the future is AI. 

Thinking about our MVP solution, there is still quite a bit manual work required in order for the platform to actually work. Basically, all the information that is entered to the platform has to be uploaded there manually by a person. As the platform also maintains information about projects, used technologies, people and their skills etc., all the information has to be maintained manually by the platform’s administrator. That is a lot of work for one person. 

In the future, AI could do all those tasks that the administrator now has to do manually. As artificial intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think like humans and mimic their actions, it would absolutely be possible for our platform solution to use AI as a tool to keep the platform in order. AI would for example update the project information automatically as it can recognize what project information is relevant and which needs to be for example deleted or updated. Also, as our platform has the function of tampering (liking/disliking or thumbing up/down publications), AI could be in charge of updating the platform’s information based on the tampering. Also, as it is our main goal to keep the platform clean and easy to use, AI could archive old information. Basically, the main purpose of AI would be to make the platform’s administrators work irrelevant. This would mean that the administrator could use all his/her time on more relevant work projects, but the platform would still be in order. 

The implementation of AI would however still take time. We feel that now it would be crucial to actually execute our MVP solution to Solita and then make a lot of research about that and its user experience. If our MVP and the enhancements and improved versions of it would be successful, then it would be the time to start truly thinking about AI together with our solution. It is still very beneficial to think about what type of technology would be possible to use in the future. 

This was all for this time. We hope you had fun reading this and maybe this sparked some ideas as well. Thank you again for reading our blog, hope to see you in the next and second to last post. 💙

Lots of love,

KBD 💎

Brynjolfsson, E., Rock, D. & Syverson, C. (2017). Artificial Intelligence and the Modern Productivity Paradox: A Clash of Expectations and Statistics. National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER Working Paper No. 24001.

Bughin, J., Hazan, E., Ramaswamy, S., Chui, M., Allas, T., Dahlström, P., Henke, N. & Trench, M. (2017). Artificial Intelligence, The Next Digital Frontier? McKinsey & Company. McKinsey Global Insitute. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Advanced%20Electronics/Our%20Insights/How%20artificial%20intelligence%20can%20deliver%20real%20value%20to%20companies/MGI-Artificial-Intelligence-Discussion-paper.ashx (cited 25.4.2021).

DevTeam.Space. (2021). 10 Trends In Software Development 2021. DevTeam.Space, Blog. Available at: https://www.devteam.space/blog/10-trends-in-software-development/ (cited 25.4.2021). 

Manyika, J., Lund, S., Chui, M., Bughin, J., Woetzel, J., Batra, P., Ko, R. & Sanghvi, S. (2017). Jobs lost, Jobs gainded: Workforce transitions in a time of automation. McKinsey & Company. McKinsey Global Insitute. December 2017. Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/Future%20of%20Organiza-tions/What%20the%20future%20of%20work%20will%20mean%20for%20jobs%20skills%20and%20wages/MGI-Jobs-Lost-Jobs-Gained-Report-December-6-2017.ashx (cited 25.4.2021).