The driver for developing LINQ came from Neil’s days in his consultancy, Spatial IQ (SIQ). A local NZ authority asked SIQ to help integration between an asset management system and GIS system. SIQ reviewed an 88-page review document for a single feature in the asset management database with many opinions about data, what to capture and why/where it should be stored. The business overlooked the information lifecycle and had not connected the capture and storage of content to the value it delivered to the business.

SIQ used this oversight to build an information supply chain (ISC), developing a platform to allow the modelling of the ISC, referencing existing content in the business; what people did with it, how long work took them, how often they did it, what was created etc. Modelling the actions performed all the way to the business outcome and showing the value that creates and delivers a view of the organisation like no other.

Enter Digital Twins…

At a Gartner event, talk was of thinking about businesses from a change and transformation perspective. We realised what they were talking about was LINQ. We were creating the Digital Twin of the Organisation (DTO) without knowing it! We started using DTO instead of ISC and remain strongly aligned to the principles of a DTO.

Building LINQ

We developed a platform from a proof of concept and using a node edge visualisation tool gave ourselves 100 days to build what we then described as our MLP – minimum loveable product. Early adopters were people we had worked with previously; we cajoled them to take a look and that led to our first sale.

The development process was an iterative journey understanding the value of content being captured and delivering insights associated with our four known content types; information, action, systems and people. We responded to questions and input from our early adopters plus things we wanted to develop to build out the platform.

We were driven (and still are) by the notion of why so many digital transformation change projects typically failed. Today 70% fail to deliver the value that was expected by the business when the business case was written.  LINQ allows a business to model its current state, consider where it wants to be/how to operate (future state). This is manipulated with assumptions, speculations thrown in to see results and impact. It’s done before budget is found, any implementation done, and any roles changed.

Today, we are a team on a mission – to reduce the appalling statistic that 70% of digital transformation projects fail (source: McKinsey, 2018).

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