At the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, said “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months.”. Now, far be it from me to disagree with him, but with hindsight, I’m not sure that was actually the case. There was certainly a lot of digitization, but in most industries, there wasn’t much transformation.  Technology was being leveraged to facilitate the ability to maintain stable business operations. There were exceptions – restaurants shifting to delivery for example, but for most organizations, the technology was the medium to continue with the status quo.

During the pandemic, that was the right approach. But we’re now past that, and many of those organizations have still not translated digitization into digital transformation.  Why is that? It’s easy to discount it as transformation being difficult, after all, there is no shortage of stories of failed transformations out there. But in truth, it’s a bit more complex than that. 

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I believe that there are a number of key reasons:

  • Organizations are not yet driving all strategic work from the executive level. Instead, departments are creating proposals to force fit into the strategic priorities. This makes it harder to maintain the shared vision and focus needed for successful transformation.
  • There is a lack of visibility and transparency into the work that is being done.  As a result, many executives don’t know if they are in the process of transforming – at least, not until it’s too late to correct any misalignment.
  • Difficulties in adjusting and adapting to an evolving environment occur frequently. Transforming a business takes time and effort, but it also takes the ability to shift in response to emerging threats and opportunities. If that can’t be achieved, the organization will build an environment ideally suited for a world that no longer exists.
  • Inconsistent processes, approaches, and solutions occur across the enterprise, resulting in inconsistent work methods, data management, and reporting. It’s very hard to transform an organization when you don’t have a complete picture of what’s happening.

A successful transformation requires an entire organization to be aligned on what that transformation needs to achieve.  It requires collaboration to envisage a future state that is more than simply an evolution of the current state. It requires decisiveness to commit to the work that will deliver those innovative new ways of working.  And it requires the ability to manage the entire program effectively and efficiently in an ever-evolving environment. All while delivering on the rest of the strategic priorities. That’s not easy, but it’s also not as complicated as many organizations make it.

Here are some things that you can do to improve performance:

  • Drive all strategic planning and investment decisions from the top. Don’t have executives only define the priorities, goals, and objectives.  Also have them identify the major investments that they want to see delivered, and then make an individual accountable for delivering each of those investments, along with their expected benefits.
  • Empower those accountable investment owners to define and structure the work to deliver their investments how they see fit. Working with delivery teams to establish structures and approaches that those teams can embrace will drive greater performance than arbitrary use of standard methodologies. That drives better outcomes.
  • Establish success criteria for every solution being delivered to production, and the metrics to be used to measure that success. Projects don’t succeed when they are on time, on scope, and on budget. They succeed when their deliverables enable business benefits. Those must be defined, along with how they will be determined.
  • Anticipate the need to change and adapt. Operating environments are evolving constantly and it’s unrealistic to expect work; investments; or even goals, objectives and priorities, to remain stable. Building an expectation of adjustment helps create a culture that welcomes the opportunity to change solutions to meet evolving needs.
  • Invest in appropriate technology to support centralized strategy management. Strategic portfolio management (SPM) tools integrate work from multiple teams, departments and approaches in one place. They allow for planning, communication, and collaboration, and they contain powerful reporting and analytics capabilities. This way all stakeholders, at all parts of strategy delivery, understand how their efforts contribute to transformation, ensuring that alignment is maintained.

To learn more about these, and other methods to help transform your business to optimize current and future success, join organizational change expert Andy Jordan and OnePlan’s own Jose Levy in our January webinar. They provided practical tips and answered your pressing questions.

 

Watch the full webinar here!