工作方式的十大改变，十年内你将被淘汰吗？

如今，工作和非工作之间的界限已经变得非常模糊，与二十年前相比已经发生了翻天覆地的变化。我们预测，从2010年到2020年这十年间，工作的本质将经历十个主要的变化。

针对不受其直接控制且日渐无序的环境，企业将需要制定计划，并且要适应这一情形必须要到针对这十大趋势进行一些调整。

上班干活将变得不那么按步就班，其特点表现为不确定性增强、超高连接(hyperconnectedness)、蜂群式作业(swarming，一群人就某个任务聚在一起干活，任务完成之后解散)等。到2015年，企业将有40%或更多的工作将不用朝九晚五的去坐班完成(在2010年时这一比例为25%)。

一群人一起完成任务的情况将会增多而单独干活的情况将会减少。人们将和一群与他们交集很少的人一起工作，而工作团队中将包括有不受该企业控制的人。此外，仿真、可视化和一体化技术、工作涉及每秒数据达几尧字节(YB，Yotta Byte，2的80次方个字节)，将需要对新的感知技能加以重视。

工作的性质将发生十个变化，企业将需要确定其中那一个变化将给他们带来影响，并考虑是否需要完全不同的技术管理模式。

1. 工作不再按步就班

人们所增加的核心价值不存在于可以被自动化的过程，而是存在于使发现、创新、团队合作、领导、销售和学习得以完成的非常规的过程、独特的能力、分析或互动贡献。非常规的技能(Non-routine skill)是那些我们不能实现其自动化的工作。例如，我们不能将向一个持怀疑态度的买家销售人寿保险政策的过程自动化，但是我们可以使用自动化工具来加强销售过程。

2. 工作蜂群

蜂群式工作(Swarming)是一种工作风格，其特点是由任何人快速组队的集体行动，每个人愿意并且能够增加价值。Gartner发现这一集体行动有两个现象；团队协作(而不是个人的表现)将被更加重视和肯定，并且更频繁地发生，有一种新形式的团队协作正在显露出来，Gartner将其称之为“swarming(蜂群式协作)”，以将其与之前的团队模式加以区别。团队(Team)在从前被认为是由一群曾经在一起工作并且彼此适度了解的人组成，他们通常是在同一个企业工作，归同一个经理领导。而蜂群(Swarm)则快速组成，主攻一个问题或机会，然后迅速解散。蜂群是针对对等行动(ad hoc action)要求明显增多一种敏捷反应。随着对等行动将继续取代结构化、权力集中的情况。

3. 薄弱环节

在蜂群中，如果大家要彼此了解，可能仅能通过薄弱环节来进行。薄弱环节(Weak links)，是指人们可以别人(了解那些他们将必须与之一起工作的人)那里得来的线索。他们是间接指示者，并且部分依赖于其它人对其了解程度的信心。探究一个人的个性、专业和社会网络有助于人们开发和利用强大和薄弱环节，并且，反过来，这对为了商业利益而存活和开发蜂群至关重要。

点击进入第二页：与集体一起工作+工作只有草图+自发工作+仿真和实验

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4. 与集体一起工作

他们是一群不受企业直接控制的非正式群体，但他们会影响该企业的成功或失败。这一非正式群体因为共同利益、暂时性的或历史性的事件而被绑在一起，Gartner将其定义为“collective(集体)”。聪明的业务主管洞察如何在一个不受他们控制而只能施加影响的商业链中存活下来。影响过程要求了解潜在地影响其企业的集体，以及在这些企业外部团队的主要负责人。通过集体收集市场情报是至关重要的。同样重要的是搞清楚如何利用这一集体来定义市场份额、市场、产品和各种经营策略。

5. 工作只有草图

大多数非按步就班的过程将也是非正式的。企业尽力捕捉决策中所用的标准非常重要，但是，至少在目前而言，Gartner预期大多数非常规进程不会遵循有意义的标准模式。随着时间的推移，我们相信，更多非日常工作的工作模式将会出现，验证一个较为宽松的办法来收集行动信息，但可能需要几年时间才能看到针对这一努力而做投资获得实际的收益。在此期间，对于大多数非常规进程的过程模式将仍只是简单的“草图”，需要时才生成。

6. 自发工作

Gartner在描述工作蜂群时也暗示了这一属性。自发性比反应性行动意味着更多，例如，对于新模式的出现。它也包含积极主动的工作，如寻找新的机会和创造新的设计和模式。

7. 仿真和实验

积极参与模拟环境(虚拟环境)，类似电影《少数派报告》中描述的技术，将演练(drilling)替换成电子制表中的单元格。这建议使用n维虚拟来阐述所有不同类型的数据。Agent技术将对模拟环境中的内容进行组合，基于观察人们处理这一内容来确定将哪些材料整在一起。人们将与数据相互影响，并积极利用各种参数重塑他们关注的世界。

点击进入第三页：模式敏感性+超连通+工作场所

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8. 模式敏感性

Gartner发表了基于模式战略的研究主线。商业界变得越来越善变，基于过去表现的线性模型给人们提供的对未来的可见性比以往少得多。Gartner预期，创建工作组，专门负责检测发散性出现模式，并对这些模式进行评估，对于该分裂如何完成，研发不同的场景，给高级管理人员现在更为敏感的变化，提供新的探索方法(或保护组织免于变化)，这样的企业将大大增多。

9. 超连通

超连通(Hyperconnectedness)是大多数企业的财产，存在网络的网络中，无法对其中的任意一个进行完全控制。虽然关键的供应链要素可能“写入了合同”，但也不能保证它会正确执行，即便供应链为in-house的形式也不能保证。Hyperconnectedness将导致推动更多的工作存在跨企业的正式和非正式关系，这对人们如何工作和IT如何支持或增加这一工作产生影响。

10. 工作场所

随着会议跨越时区和企业和参加会议的人几乎不认识对方，工作场所将变得越来越虚拟化，以蜂群的形式一起解决快速出现的问题。但雇员仍然有一个他们用来工作的“地方”。许多人既没有由公司提供的物理形式的办公室，也没有办公桌，他们的工作将增加并贯穿到每周的7天，每天的24小时。在这样的工作环境下，个人、职业、社会和家庭琐事以及企业事务间的界线将会消失。所以，个人需要管理因多重需求所导致的复杂状况，不论是来自新的工作环境的或来自外部(与工作无关的)的情况。那些不能管理这一潜在期望并中断超载的人将要忍受表现不佳的痛苦，因为这些超载迫使个人在过度刺激(信息超载)的状态下运作。

汤姆奥斯汀(Tom Austin)为Gartner公司副总裁兼研究员，他将在于9月15日至16日在伦敦举行的Gartner Portals，2010年内容&协作高层会议上进一步讨论社会软件和协作趋势。

点击进入：参考原文(Get ready to swarm: 10 changes to the way we work in the next decade, by Tom Austin)

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Get ready to swarm: 10 changes to the way we work in the next decade

by Tom Austin

The world of today is dramatically different from 20 years ago and with the lines between work and non-work already badly frayed, we predict that the nature of work will witness 10 key changes through 2020.

Organizations will need to plan for increasingly chaotic environments that are out of their direct control, and adaptation must involve adjusting to all 10 of the trends.

Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, 'swarming' and more. By 2015, 40 per cent or more of enterprise work will be ‘non-routine’, up from 25 per cent in 2010.

People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organisation,” he added. In addition, simulation, visualisation and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.

Organizations will need to determine which of the 10 key changes in the nature of work will affect them, and consider whether radically different technology governance models will be required.

1. De-routinization of work

The core value that people add is not in the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning. Non-routine skills are those we cannot automate. For example, we cannot automate the process of selling a life insurance policy to a skeptical buyer, but we can use automation tools to augment the selling process.

2. Work swarms

Swarming is a work style characterised by a flurry of collective activity by anyone and everyone conceivably available and able to add value. Gartner identifies two phenomena within the collective activity; Teaming (instead of solo performances) will be valued and rewarded more and occur more frequently and a new form of teaming, which Gartner calls swarming, to distinguish it from more historical teaming models, is emerging. Teams have historically consisted of people who have worked together before and who know each other reasonably well, often working in the same organisation and for the same manager. Swarms form quickly, attacking a problem or opportunity and then quickly dissipating. Swarming is an agile response to an observed increase in ad hoc action requirements, as ad hoc activities continue to displace structured, bureaucratic situations.

3. Weak links

In swarms, if individuals know each other at all, it may be just barely, via weak links. Weak links are the cues people can pick up from people who know the people they have to work with. They are indirect indicators and rely, in part, on the confidence others have in their knowledge of people. Navigating one's own personal, professional and social networks helps people develop and exploit both strong and weak links and that, in turn, will be crucial to surviving and exploiting swarms for business benefit.

4. Working with the collective

There are informal groups of people, outside the direct control of the organisation, who can impact the success or failure of the organisation. These informal groups are bound together by a common interest, a fad or a historical accident, as described by Gartner as 'the collective'. Smart business executives discern how to live in a business ecosystem they cannot control; one they can only influence. The influence process requires understanding the collectives that potentially influence their organisation, as well as the key people in those external groups. Gathering market intelligence via the collective is crucial. Equally important is figuring out how to use the collective to define segments, markets, products and various business strategies.

5. Work sketch-ups

Most non-routine processes will also be highly informal. It is very important that organisations try to capture the criteria used in making decisions but, at least for now, Gartner does not expect most non-routine processes to follow meaningful standard patterns. Over time, we believe that work patterns for more non-routine work will emerge, justifying a light-handed approach to collecting activity information, but it will take years before a real return on investment for this effort is visible. In the meantime, the process models for most non-routine processes will remain simple 'sketch-ups', created on the fly.

6. Spontaneous work

This property is also implied in Gartner’s description of work swarms. Spontaneity implies more than reactive activity, for example, to the emergence of new patterns. It also contains proactive work such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models.

7. Simulation and experimentation

Active engagement with simulated environments (virtual environments), which are similar to technologies depicted in the film Minority Report, will come to replace drilling into cells in spreadsheets. This suggests the use of n-dimensional virtual representations of all different sorts of data. The contents of the simulated environment will be assembled by agent technologies that determine what materials go together based on watching people work with this content. People will interact with the data and actively manipulate various parameters reshaping the world they’re looking at.

8. Pattern sensitivity

Gartner has published a major line of research on pattern-based strategy. The business world is becoming more volatile, affording people working off of linear models based on past performance far less visibility into the future than ever before. Gartner expects to see a significant growth in the number of organisations that create groups specifically charged with detecting divergent emerging patterns, evaluating those patterns, developing various scenarios for how the disruption might play out and proposing to senior executives new ways of exploiting (or protecting the organisation from) the changes to which they are now more sensitive.

9. Hyperconnected

Hyperconnectedness is a property of most organisations, existing within networks of networks, unable to completely control any of them. While key supply chain elements, for example, may be "under contract," there is no guarantee it will perform properly, not even if the supply chain is in-house. Hyperconnectedness will lead to a push for more work to occur in both formal and informal relationships across enterprise boundaries, and that has implications for how people work and how IT supports or augments that work.

10. My place

The workplace is becoming more and more virtual, with meetings occurring across time zones and organizations and with participants who barely know each other, working on swarms attacking rapidly emerging problems. But the employee will still have a 'place' where they work. Many will have neither a company-provided physical office nor a desk, and their work will increasingly happen 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In this work environment, the lines between personal, professional, social and family matters, along with organisation subjects, will disappear. Individuals, of course, need to manage the complexity created by overlapping demands, whether from the new world of work or from external (non-work-related) phenomena. Those that cannot manage the underlying 'expectation and interrupt overloads' will suffer performance deficits as these overloads force individuals to operate in an over-stimulated (information-overload) state.

Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner fellow, will further discuss social software and collaboration trends at the Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit 2010, taking place on September 15-16 in London.