Industry 4.0

Last week i was at a one day conference. The conference was structured about helping companies convert to industry 4.0 or gain more traction. I was not really the target audience but i went because i saw some interesting talks. When i came there i did not know what industry 4.0 was and i got surprised by all the robotic arms in the stands. I ate my breakfast and was wondering if this conference would yield anything useful for me. Luckily it turned out that the interesting talks i had pin pointed beforehand were really interesting – also from a software engineering point of view.

Tina Moe – 7 critical leadership skills for success with industry 4.0

The most interesting talk was from Tina Moe called “7 critical leadership skills for success with industry 4.0”. Obviously when i went to the talk i did not care so much about industry 4.0. For me that part was just another context. For me it was interesting to hear what she thinks are the interesting leadership skills. She presented a way for big organisations to change into a more agile organisation. At least what we in software would call an agile organisation. I am referring to the definition of Martin Fowler (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Avs70dZ3Vlk). I was so excited that someone was trying to take the agile organisation approach for software development and tried to generalize it. I just needed to talk to her.

Her talk went really well and she had also just published a book about it. Which people bought and i did as well. People had a of questions for her – but for me none of them were that interesting. Finally later in the day i got into a conversation with her. I asked her about if she knew the agile manifesto and maybe Martin Fowler. She did not. I was confused and told her about what it was – what agile software development is also on an organisational level. She seemed very interested and could see the parallels between what she presented and what i was rambling about.

Pia Sternber Petersen – Leadership we create together in agile organisations

The last talk was about agile software development. I was ready and excited. At first i thought it was one of these Scrum or SAFe or whatever framework talks. But no, she did not even mention a framework, i think that was totally on purpose. I spoke to her afterwards and she agreed with me that Martin Fowler is a great inspiration. Now Tina and i just got a talk on what i had been rambling about to her. What a nice coincidence.

Thoughts

It is really great that the agile thinking we have in software development is getting to more people and businesses. I think the adaptability of the agile way of thinking is what businesses can see they need as the future gets more and more unpredictable. This conference about the 4th industrial revolution really got my eyes up for how fast the world is changing.

Sources:
Tina Moe – https://www.linkedin.com/in/tinamoe/
Martin Fowler – https://martinfowler.com/