MARCH 20249 picture of being able to set up, support, and maintain those solutions cannot be understated. As a builder, you will need to ensure solid partnerships to support these solutions or have your own in-house skills to be able to answer customer questions around these solutions.I offer four recommendations on how a Value Statement can help shape technology projects you want to pursue:1. Start small. We have a tendency to want to `boil the ocean' and go big first. Prove out the concept first which will limit your investment, validate whether your team and customer will embrace the product or technology, and give yourself some data points other than hype outside of your environment. Narrow the focus at first, but tie it to a larger vision if necessary.2. Don't be afraid to bring in outside expertise. Having worked across multiple industries in the past, I know companies have a tendency to believe "we do it differently than everybody else". While that might be true to some degree, that can also tend to be a recipe for ballooning costs and complexity. Leveraging external experts to provide some guidance and input may provide a perspective that narrows down scope and focus while still maximizing the effectiveness.3. Keep the Value Statement front of mind throughout the entire process. Why are we doing this? Does this feature or function or capability specifically relate to the Value Statement we are pursuing? If not, challenge why. Don't steer away from the Value Statement. 4. Have a thorough plan on how the product, service, or solution will be supported long term early in the project. Do not wait until after the product has launched to figure this out, as that is a recipe for disaster. Have a stakeholder, owner, and support structure in place before you start pilots, proofs-of-concepts, or small-scale rollouts. One final consideration: As we delve further into Smart Technology and the realm of BIM, Robotics, Touchless Tech, Health Tech (smart toilets!), Exercise tech and beyond ­ all of this starts to force questions over data ownership, data privacy, and data protection. The natural tendency is to push it all to the consumer, but when we are providing the infrastructure and maybe some of the services, we need to be careful and cautious as to how to ensure we don't inadvertently put ourselves in the middle of this privacy DMZ.That's not to say we shouldn't innovate or offer these services. On the contrary, I am a huge proponent and fan of doing exactly that: innovate and experiment. But I am also a fan of walking that fine line and managing that delicate balance between value and opportunity and asking the question, "is the juice worth the squeeze?". WHETHER YOU ARE DOING A TRIAL, PROOF-OF-CONCEPT, OR A FULL-BLOWN DEPLOYMENT, IT IS BENEFICIAL TO HAVE A VALUE STATEMENT TO RALLY AROUND
< Page 8 | Page 10 >