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What is digital thinking?
Digital thinking is a combination of hard and soft skills that greatly simplify life in the modern technological world.
A simple example: if you know how to use the navigator on your smartphone, then you won't need a paper map on the road. Technological progress does not stand still: today, the first prototypes of electronic passports, electronic signatures, digital payment systems without reference to physical currencies and banks appear. To take advantage of all of these innovations, you need to rethink your digital mindset.
As Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki writes in one of his books, "Thinking digitally means using technology to get a real picture."
Key features of digital thinking include:
- proactive position;
- willingness to change along with the changing world;
- orientation to the use of digital technologies in the creation of products, services, processes;
- thinking from the task of the user, client;
- adherence to the ethical standards of the digital age.
How does digital thinking relate to work?
A product-based approach to work dictates a special way of thinking and acting. An employee in the new digital paradigm must be able to make decisions at all parts of the workflow, starting from the client's request, his pains, and tasks.
Therefore, the most important criteria for professionalism in companies have become personal responsibility and the ability to operate with various metrics for high-quality processing of incoming information.
Why do employees need digital thinking?
For example, at Beeline, the transition to a product-service business model required the development of digital and product skills not only from members of IT teams.
Working in flexible frameworks like Scrum and Kanban that allow you to change products on the fly, unit economics (a modeling method that helps determine the profitability of a business by calculating the profitability of each product), and prototyping (developing draft solutions to adjust them to business tasks further) have become everyday attributes of different divisions of the company. Hackathons and a corporate incubator are the best ways to implement the most daring ideas.
In addition to basic digital competencies, employees of modern technology companies need to manage their attention - now, it is one of the most valuable resources. It is difficult for a person to perceive the huge amount of information that the developed digital environment offers.
Therefore, it is important to be able to work with large amounts of data, be critical of incoming information, and separate the necessary from the digital noise.
Another important competence is cross-disciplinarity. Many processes of the new era require a person to be an expert in several areas at once. The most elegant solutions are born at the intersection of disciplines. One striking example is the use of design thinking. It combines both a creative and analytical approach to problem-solving. It is a synthesis of many disciplines.
How does digital thinking help teamwork?
In "Beeline," for example, sessions are regularly held at which employees define team goals and outline plans to achieve them. Such events are designed to help members of the same teamwork together find common ground and establish communication within the team.
How to motivate and help employees to develop digital thinking?
Conditions for creating a corporate environment conducive to the development of digital thinking include:
Promotion of role models for employees
In this capacity, first of all, the leaders of the teams should act. Their mission is to encourage experimentation, to be digital thinking evangelists. The team will definitely reach for them.
Treating employees as customers
Offer your employees the same experience and experience as your customers. Is it convenient for your customers to use the application? Your employees should also be comfortable working with internal resources.
Motivation and feedback
Collect feedback from employees, analyze it, and don't forget about retrospectives and partnerships. Ask the right questions. All this prompts a person to analyze and work on mistakes, which leads to an understanding of what knowledge and skills need to be "pumped" to achieve great results.
Versatile and varied training
Create an environment for your employees to constantly learn new things: organize lectures, introduce a mentoring system, reward for feedback. Do not forget about consistency, benefit, and a friendly attitude in communication. The company is a friend to its employees.
How a corporate university becomes a platform for innovation
In "Beeline University," both programs allow you to develop professional skills and contribute to personal growth. This mentoring format allows employees to constantly update their knowledge and skills, necessary in a changing digital world.
In addition, the corporate university becomes a platform for experimentation and allows employees to translate ideas and find their application in the business context.
One of the brightest cases is the emergence of the department of growth and experiments in Beeline, which arose thanks to the former manager of Beeline University - the ideologist of the corporate incubator, and now the head of the said department.
Takeaway: Why are digitally minded employees more successful?
Digital thinking provides one of the key benefits for career development - a broader range of opportunities. If the company provides a supportive environment, employees can pursue more than just careers, moving vertically and acquiring new roles, working in different teams, and on different projects. By creating conditions for the development of digital thinking, the company solves several problems at once.
Firstly, it attracts new qualified and motivated professionals interested in and important to work in digital reality. Second, it builds the loyalty of existing employees who see their new work habits leading to productive collaboration and benefit to everyone.