The Future of Consultancies - Futurity Works

Thoughtworks is a global software consultancy providing technology solutions to solve complex problems. They help clients strengthen their core technology, scale with flexibility and create seamless digital experiences to achieve business goals.

Client:

Industry:

Software Consultancy

How might we help consultancies attain a competitive advantage, through transforming their current work practice?

Attaining a competitive advantage by  transforming the design thinking mindset and practice within the company

My team and I were asked to understand and use Thoughtworks as a test bed to identify the possibilities of the future of consultancies, given that change that is everlasting, and businesses aim to stay ahead of their competition. We thought about the preferable future environment in which they can exploit their existing capabilities and explore new capabilities.

We started to conduct desk research to understand the trends, challenges and project cycles of software consultancies, as well as the topics we were interested in regarding the industry. The brief was quite broad, so we let our research and findings help uncover the problem to solve.

Understanding the Problem

We were uncovering the landscape of consultancies. The 3 tiered relationships between different parties such as B2B, B2C and internal organisational dynamics. Simultaneously, we interviewed 15 employees from various departments to understand more about their roles, the dynamics between teams, challenges they may have faced at their workplace, and any market changes that they foresee, that should be taken into consideration.

Outputs

  • User personas

  • Future thinking concepts

  • Service experience

  • Business & Strategy

After several in person and online research sessions, we identified 4 major issues. 

Problem-solving: TW was known for being delivery oriented, and for solving problems at the tail end of systems. 
Quick fix: They opted for quantity more than quality, and had been solving quick problems, such as malware issues. This had unintended long-term consequences, as their position in the market was that of a delivery oriented solution provider, whereas they desired to be part of the discovery and strategy process as well. 
Reactive: With a focus on short term quick fixes, TW did not realise that they were losing opportunities to lead, instead of following and being reactive. 
Misalignments: Some of the employees were eager to bring change to the existing practices in order to adapt to the emerging needs of clients but there was clear misalignment between the upper and lower management.

Key Insights

Opportunity Analysis through Rapid Prototyping

Based on our findings, we created some low-fi concepts, and tested them with our client heads. To ensure a balanced perspective, we also involved creative heads from the departments who were eager to bring about change. This form of rapid prototype helped us quickly adapt our solutions and land on a co-created vision for Thoughtworks.

We uncovered 4 underlying issues

Monotonous work structure

Absence of hands-on practices

Lack of creative initiative

Poor storytelling ability while pitching to clients

It was clear that a deeper and more fundamental approach was required to create a sustainable shift in TW’s approach to their work, if they wanted to position themselves as a strategic consultancy and be more proactive to prepare for their future.

Futurity Works aims to create adaptability towards the future, helping businesses prepare for emerging needs of clients and unlock imagination for future scenarios, through a hybrid engagement modality. We want to ensure that our model is sustainable and flexible for the long run.

Futurity Works is a 2 pronged solution for consultancies such as Thoughtworks, Futurity Hack and Futurity Lab.

Introducing Futurity Works

A future driven hackathon, Futurity Hack helps employees take a break from their day to day work, and enter a creative space, where they collaboratively imagine, challenge and break the boundaries. Aiming to equip consultancies with strategies, such as storytelling to attain more purposeful projects, through a future-driven mindset with in-person coaching and comprehensive toolkits. The project teams will be encouraged to do the session with clients after practising it internally to showcase their strategic foresight and build confidence with clients.

Part 1 - Futurity Hack

Click on video to play

This is an overview of the Hackathon. First, research topics are crowdsourced from within the company. Thoughtwork employees found their ongoing projects mundane and had the desire to work on topics they were more passionate about. Hence, this idea of crowdsourcing poses as an excellent opportunity for them to do so. For example, participants could wish to work on Healthcare in the year 2050.

Once determined, the workshop is set. Participants are then introduced to the toolkit.

FUTURITY HACK TOOLKIT

  • Embrace Uncertainty

    Next, participants go through the 5 key stages during the workshop.

    Research (Systems thinking), Future Scenarios (Sense of wonder), Creative Challenges (Slice of life), Create Strategy (Creative meaning) and New Nomals (Creative tension)

  • 1. Research and 2. Future Scenarios

    The research cards and templates prompt participants to think more holistically, encouraging them to think beyond technical aspects and create a larger spectrum of their ecosystem

    Future scenario cards are meant to help build speculative possibilities for the areas participants are keen on. If they need further probing to think creatively, they can use the cards.

  • 3. Challenges and 4. Strategies

    Working towards the future might be challenging. Through role playing, participants have the opportunity to become their clients, users or disruptors. This will help identify possible challenges with their scenarios, refine user needs and think firmer.

    Forming a strong strategy is key for consultancies. After firming their future scenario and identifying challenges in the present, participant will use the strategy cards and templates to identify which strategy can help them attain their future goals. Provided are 4 different strategies - Adaptability, Prevention, Transformation and Sustainability.

  • 5. New Normals and Evaluation

    Additionally, knowing a mindset shift does not come easy, in times of an imagination block, these unique questions will help provoke creative tensions amongst participants to help unlock their empathetic and creative side. My favourite is the Silent Conversations, where participants have to use only visuals to communicate their ideas to each other. Others could be about understanding the moral of relationships through the connection between objects.

    Finally, it is important to measure the impact of the strategies that birthed from the hackathon. Participants come together to identify and priortise their strategies.

Part 2 - Futurity Lab

The second part of the service proposition enables longevity and ensures the strategies arising from Futurity Hack are consolidated and stored for further reference.

Futurity Lab is a intelligent collective platform, allowing consultants/employees to share their strategies across the company, as well as with clients when required. It also aims to auto consolidate data into categories, based on common themes, such as technology trends, behaviour changes and market trends.

We are aware that no transformation comes without challenges. The executive plan is built taking these challenges into consideration (below)

Prototyping and Validation

We organised 2 validation sessions to test our idea with employees at Thoughtworks. This included a spread of roles to ensure we account for the various types of employees. We tested for the usability of the service as well as how well it can be incorporated into their everyday work practice and whether they can see the value of instilling future design thinking. As the lead facilitator of the hackathons, I was focused on adapting as we gathered feedback and my other team members participated in generating future scenarios with a given topic, e.g. what will hospitals look like in 2040? 

 We garnered positive feedback on the toolkit and worksheets. We were told they the content and play was very intriguing and could inspire them to come up with interesting scenarios through interactive discussions. Futurity Works was presented to multiple external stakeholders as well, and we received a lot of interest from the likes of Ministry of Justice and other industry players.

“I think this service can help build long term relationships with our clients and increase the value of the solutions we provide.” - Engineering Lead, Thoughtworks