Thanks, this resonated a lot.

I’ve been seeing similar things around me, and believe as you do successful business of the future needs to drop the old corporate chain-gang mentality, and start to use tools and techniques capable of recreating the factory shop-floor in virtual form, such that most never need to go back to the factory.

My own area of expertise is to create and roll out such Enterprise Architectural capability to physical manufacturing clients as a freelancer.

In my usual professional industry (Aerospace) it is known as Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), but has been steadily merging with other industries and disciplines including software architecture, to become Model Based Enterprise Architecture.

The pandemic seems to have been the final phase of the merger, now it is required by pretty much all technical enterprise, and involves retraining / reskilling of existing staff, and acquisition of new with the right attitude to learning.

Your post helps confirm it isn’t just my opinion. Modern technical business has to, and is moving in that direction, despite often seen individual will to resist.

I think the problem is especially acute with traditional technical specialists, and the managers of small teams of such.

The tools and skills of MBSE enable formerly non specialist Engineers to carry out much work previously reserved to specialists, and the management of those also by remote, without requiring excessive online meetings.

Now everyone simply becomes MBSE skilled, or “Model Based Systems Engineers”, and the managers of such.

Of course my criteria of success in each role is to make myself redundant.

But it is the same result if I am “unsuccessful”, again I become redundant.

(In a way, I always win, if my object was to have to work as little as possible, which of course it isn’t, I actually enjoy what I do!)

My current Bio is “Modeling makes dreams come true”.

Of course it does.

The question “Do you want to work remotely or not”, is one that needs to be asked, and answered, over and over, yet the answer never changes; “Yes” in the vast majority of cases.

For a long time in Engineering, the dream was to be able to work remotely.

Now it is reality, but products still need to fly, and fly well to stay competitive, hence real MBSE is now a “No-brainer”.

Care also needs to be taken in the few cases where something claiming to be MBSE in the past have been tried and failed, that it is realised the reason for failure was because what was being practiced actually wasn’t MBSE, it is one of those things that has to be done wholeheartedly, or not at all.

Partial MBSE is not MBSE, neither in tools, teams, nor businesses.

In for a penny, in for a pound.