It's all about strategy, tactics and execution. The digital transformation journey starts with an idea - which then becomes the goal. But, putting a strategy in place to achieve the required outcomes demands the right tactics and execution.
Firstly, it is necessary to disrupt the status quo: change existing knowledge and turn it into a new, creative idea - basically deciding on the need to innovate by taking an idea and turning it into a digital product or application that will add value to the business. This requires intuition and imagination. Then, model the idea by devising a business case to decide if it is worth taking forward, and if everyone is happy with that, apply it successfully. Right-shifting towards a more agile business environment is required.
So, the challenge is to build this great new idea into a digital product, but to do so quickly and get it to market fast, so the company can reap the benefits sooner. The process needs to be quick, and most of all, it should be automated, to obtain speed; in other words, to be agile. Systems are learning to sense - and respond - while managed by humans.
The digital transformation conversation revisits fundamental knowledge of the business - looking at ways to disrupt or digitise - either of which requires speed to respond to changing markets.
This is the biggest challenge faced by business. It requires doing things differently, and mostly, it requires a new culture. Speed equals an agile approach.
Stuck in the mud
So, what is the elephant in the room? Resistance to change.
The biggest barrier to moving forward and attaining agile is that companies are battling to wrap their heads around what seems to be an enormous task - companywide transformation. So, what do they do?
The answer is they procrastinate. Businesses that feed off delays, excuses and procrastination are generally overweight and increasingly burdened with legacy systems, processes and people.
Procrastination is nothing but corporate cholesterol. If companies do not shed it, they will die from it. Businesses need to become lean and agile.
The most difficult part of implementing a lean and agile transformation strategy is there is very little to change except the actual company.
As this is not always an easy task, a framework has been developed - actually many - but the one under discussion is the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which speaks to both lean and agile.
SAFe is a freely revealed knowledge base of integrated patterns for enterprise-scale lean agile development. It is scalable and modular, allowing a company to apply it in a way that suits its needs. SAFe was created specifically for corporate environments with traditional hierarchies, traditional methods and archaic approaches.
SAFe is a model that gives answers needed as well as how to go about them.
Procrastination is nothing but corporate cholesterol.
It provides a solid, proven-to-work framework that drives the correct behaviour top-down to heal companies engaged in a palliative approach, ie, treating the symptoms only and failing to address the causes.
Where to start?
Unquestionably, the starting point is with reiteration of the role of the project management office (PMO). With the rise of agile there is often a misunderstanding that agile replaces PMOs - are scrum masters and agile coaches the new best buddies of project managers? Or are they the end of PMOs?
The truth is the governance of a PMO cannot be replaced. But, let's face it, PMOs can create noise - with knowledge areas, change boards and over-engineered governance. Agile asks for less governance, but higher levels of accountability and an empowered team. More coaching, less managing, is required. Agile environments tolerate zero noise at team level. It requires C-level management to not just be involved, but to be in the trenches - they have to actively drive their costed value streams in detail.
This is a different way of working that requires a change in people and culture, and even more dauntingly, right across just about every area in the company.
Originated by the late Peter F Drucker - regarded as the founder of modern management - no matter how well thought-out the strategy is, if the company doesn't have the culture to support that strategy, it will not come to fruition. It means many business leaders have underestimated the power of culture and failed in their new strategies because of it.
Culture, the way things are done, is one of the biggest challenges in a company when it comes to adopting new ways - agile/lean/creative thinking - to embrace disruptiveness.
My next Industry Insight will outline what businesses can do to implement agile across the entire company landscape.
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