Vision: Setting a Transformational Destination

In last week’s article we discovered that the primary determining factor for success in a large-scale digital transformation (DX) project boils down to one thing: preparation. Just as a trip around the world requires a significant amount of preparation, so does embarking on a transformational initiative.

The first step in preparing for a journey is to choose the destination. Without a destination, it’s impossible to know what you’re preparing for. After all, preparing to go to Norway in December will look much different than preparing to go to Florida or the Bahamas in December. Similarly, preparing to implement an ERP system will be vastly different than preparing to expand to a new market. The destination – or in the case of DX projects, the vision – dictates the type and amount of preparation needed for the project.

This transformational vision is the coordinates for the entire project, steering the direction of every activity throughout the project lifecycle. Vision unifies the team, helps prioritize decisions and resources, reduces resistance to change, and more.

However, choosing a destination is easier said than done. Most of the time, when we come into a project with a client, they don’t have a transformational vision. More often than not, they have an idea of a problem they want to fix or an opportunity they want to pursue. To drill down to the real vision and establish a clear destination for the transformative journey, we bring our clients through a series of meetings called the Business & Technology Vision meetings.

While these meetings may feel like “fluff” to eager executives, they are a necessary step designed to align leadership on the organizational priorities and determine what the focus of the transformational initiative should be. Without this alignment, the digital initiative will pull itself apart trying to head in too many directions at the same time.

Are you ready? Let’s pick our destination.

Preparing for the Business and Technology Vision Meetings

As we stated above, the purpose of these meetings is to set the focus for the transformation. To choose the area of focus that is right for your organization, you need to have a clear understanding of all active or planned initiatives, any skill gaps or personnel needs, and the cost associated with not doing the transformation. Let’s break these down.

Current or planned initiatives:

It may be that you already have projects ongoing or planned. You’ll need to gather all documentation surrounding these projects that demonstrate what the project is and why it is being undertaken. Make sure you understand their purpose or goals, whether there is a request or a proposal for an implementation partner, and any software purchases or planned purchases.

If you have previously undertaken a DX initiative, what was it and what were the outcomes? Were you successful, or were there issues that you could learn from? Look beyond the technology implementation and examine how your employees responded to the change. Was there significant resistance? If so, what were the hurdles? Were the right people with the right skillsets involved? Gather as much documentation as possible surrounding the project, the team,and the decisions that were made.

If there has been any strategic planning, make sure you gather and review the documented decisions that were made. Are there any potential acquisitions? Are you getting into a different market or developing a new product? Are you adding a new sales channel or perhaps moving to an online business model? These sorts of strategic initiatives will greatly impact the focus of your digital transformation journey.

People and Resources:

Next, you need to assess the skillsets you have today, from executive sponsorship down to business process owners (BPOs), subject matter experts (SMEs), and everything in-between. Does your team have the right skillsets necessary to execute on a large transformational initiative? If the answer is yes, do they have the bandwidth?

One hurdle CXOs experience during DX projects is they can rarely afford to take their top-performing team members away from their day-to-day operations to focus solely on a transformational initiative. It may be necessary to either augment your internal team to help free up the bandwidth of existing personnel or hire consultants to help drive the transformation alongside your team members.

Transformational Cost:

Finally, it’s important to have documentation surrounding what it is costing you to not transform your business. This will help you determine if a major transformation is necessary, or if you simply need incremental change. (Read this article to read more about incremental vs transformational change.) Should your needs be met with a smaller project or a straightforward system upgrade, by all means, opt for those solutions, as they hold significantly less risk than a transformational initiative.

However, there are instances where companies are losing vast amounts of money every day – or hour – they are not addressing a transformational area, and it’s important to identify the areas of your business that are costing you more money to not change your business than it would be to change it. For example, we once worked on a project to help a company lower their Mean Time to Recovery (MTR) for some automated machinery.

During the course of these meetings, we asked them why they felt they needed to undertake this project. The project sponsor said, “Every hour that our machines are down, we’re losing over one hundred thousand dollars.” They were literally losing $100,000+ every hour that they were not transforming their organization.

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Gathering documentation on this information will not only provide data to help align the executive team on the priorities of transformation, it will also help determine the overall timeline for this project, which will affect decisions later down the road such as scope, requirements, building your transformational team, and more.

Building a Strategic Agenda: 3 Steps to Organizational Alignment

With all the documentation gathered and reviewed, it’s time to get some time on the calendar. Since a major DX initiative will affect every area of the organization, you’ll want to include everyone on the senior leadership team. The agenda for these meetings is three-fold:

1. Align on business objectives: As a leadership team, you need to agree on what the overarching business objectives are. Is it to expand to a new market? Open a new location? Produce a new product? Increase efficiency, or lower inventory? You may need to hire a consultant to help with this type of strategic planning in order to reach agreement on the biggest challenges or opportunities the organization is facing.

2. Review and prioritize projects: With the information you’ve gathered surround all current and future projects, ask yourself: do they align with the agreed upon objectives the leadership team agreed upon in step 1? While there may be plenty of projects on that list that would be beneficial, remember that the purpose of these meetings is to narrow the focus down to what is directly aligned with the organizational vision and objectives. Use the results from step 1 to inform the priorities in this step.

3. Identify gaps: Finally, compare the current and planned projects against the business objectives outlined from the strategic planning and ask yourself what isn’t there that really should be there? Are there business challenges or opportunities that have no technology initiatives associated with them? Should you consider taking on an initiative that you had not previously thought about?

By the end of these meetings, you will have reached agreement at the senior leadership level about the priority of everything currently worked on, planning to be worked on, and not currently on the list based on the top issues/opportunities as identified by the leadership team. This will provide you with the focus for the transformation that will give you the most impact in the most important areas of your business. This focus will serve as a compass, guiding all the subsequent activities throughout the project lifecycle and ensuring that your efforts are concentrated in the right area and giving you the ROI you need to propel your business into a successful future.

Setting Your Sights: Defining a Vision for Success in DX

While the business and technology vision meetings can feel time-consuming and tedious, it’s important to remember that the efforts you are investing into understanding your organizational priorities and aligning on a strategic vision will directly impact every single activity for the DX initiative. It’s the destination on the map that helps you determine which route to take to get there the quickest with the least amount of risk possible.

Having this documented vision will also be instrumental in driving an effective change management strategy and reducing resistance to change. If people have a vision to believe in, they are more likely to be willing to do whatever it takes to get them there. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – we will cover change management strategies later.

For now, set your vision as your organization’s destination, and come back next week for tips on conducting an Enterprise Process Review, and why understanding and mapping your processes is necessary for your transformational journey.

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