The background to the AI and CX Customer Agility Framework is that it is based upon the working history of Karl A L Smith from the 1980’s to the present day.
Karl had two key strands to his interests at school, Art and Design although he enjoyed programming in Binary and Hexadecimal on the BBC B computer. At home he created a massive portfolio of materials that enabled him to gain a place at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design, then in Chislehurst now in Greenwich where he studied a Design Foundation Course.
Karl trained as a Product Designer (Three Dimensional Design degree) at Middlesex University, Cat Hill, London and was interested in the human component of design and how designs are adapted to be functional for humans.
Fundamental to my work in designing for human experience is my early experiences of human augmentation in supporting what the world describes as disability. When I was eight (1970’s) my father was involved in setting up a respite centre for the families of disabled children. It was the first time I’d seen technologies that support people in doing what I take for granted and it changed my perspective on technology and what it means to be human.
“I’m not interested in Technology; I’m interested how Technology evolves our human experiences”
Looking back, it was clear from an early age that I accepted all people, recognised individuals and gained the realisation that everyone had strengths and limitations. Through my design training at school, college and then university I was able to frame questions about; what does it mean to be human? Ergonomics and Anthropometrics is what started me on questioning why technologies were not measurable against who uses them and their physical, emotional and intelligence limitations. If that’s offensive think about it, everyone has limitations they also have strengths, certainly I have benefited by having to work harder with reading and writing than others through being able to make connections others cannot see, I’m not special just different. Excerpt from Designing for Human Experience by Karl A L Smith, 2020.
Post degree Karl worked as a design engineer before becoming involved in strategic military projects. He had questions about what was then called Usability and wondered why there was no solution component, that part is now called User Experience or UX, but Karl worked in this area before that naming existed. Karl then worked in User Experience for many years cultivating knowledge in Enterprise Architecture and SDLC to ensure he better understood why and how experiences are made in technology systems.
In 2001 Karl started his blog with the sub description Human Knowledge Belongs to the World (published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence) which was for a few years used by Academic institutions as a source of case studies on Usability, Accessibility and User Experience. Around 2003 Karl had become interested in Agile but did not try it until 2004 discovering that the team dynamic did deliver a better way of working. In 2006 Karl created a training course called Agile World that combined Agile and UX into a single operational design that included insights he had gained from his membership of the Web Analytics Association (Bay Area, now closed) to consider work flow metrics. He launched this through a company he set up in the USA and UK which would be renamed Agile World in 2020.
In 2011 he was hired by Accenture to build and launch a User Experience capability globally for their Mobility division and also became Head of User Experience for UK and Ireland. He was also instrumental in relaunching the Accenture Financial Service vertical by using his Innova8 process to describe Innovation Hubs. Essential in that innovation was to colocation of Visual Designers with User Researchers / User Experience solutions people. When he was head hunted by Wipro Limited latterly becoming a founder of Wipro Digital (reusing Innova8 process) he added Creative Technologists to the team mix to ensure clarity around technical limitations and opportunities with user requirements.
From 2015 to the present day Karl has focused on Organisational Design and creating startups for clients. One such startup was Decision Point AI ® which is a Bayesian Network, quantitive data and qualitative data based AI for what is commonly known as Advance Analytics or Predictive Analytics. Taking everything he learns including his earlier practices of Business Process Reengineering, Agile, Human Centred Design for Enterprise Transformation, HR Transformation Finance Transformation etc that culminated in the creation of the Customer Agility Framework.
The AI and CX Customer Agility Framework is being shared by Agile World ® Incorporated through the Agile World Institute ® in the public interest for the furtherance of effective value delivery in organisations.
