Digital Transformation by Lindsay Herbert: An Executive Summary - The Digital Transformation People

Digital Transformation by Lindsay Herbert: An Executive Summary - The Digital Transformation People 05/08/22 17)08
gital Transformation by Lindsay Herbert:

Executive Summary
L
January 28, indsay Herbert is an Inventor & Senior
2019 (https://www.thedigitaltransformationpeople.com
Technology Leader at IBM. Having led
Advisory
services/)
many innovation programmes with
(https://www.thedigitaltransformationpeople.com)
organisations worldwide, Lindsay’s book has
received international praise for being the Brst
practical ‘how-to guide’ for achieving real (https://www.thedigitaltra
business innovation on a major scale.
Popular Now
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The Case For Digital

Transformation
An Executive
Summary:
Leading Digital
taltransformationpeople.com/authors/the- by George
al-transformation-people/) Westerman,
Read this Executive Summary and learn from Lindsay’s
Digital Transformation People Didier Bonnet
BUILD model how to deliver digital transformation & Andrew
success in Bve stages.
ries & Recommended Reading McAfee
your Digital Transformation
journey. (https://www.thedigit
This is a great “how to” guide for making driving Digital
ut The Digital Transformation People case-for-
Transformation in organisations. Lindsay Herbert has
igitaltransformationpeople.com/authors/the- digital-
based this guide on many interviews with “C” suite
gital-transformation-people/) transformation/leadi
executives at a wide range of organisations (for proBt,
digital-a-
not for proBt, academic institutions) and on her years of
summary/)
experience with the subject matter.
(https://www.thedigitaltransformationpeople.com/application-
to-join- The Case For Digital
Inside this summary
community/) Transformation
1. What is it really and is it worth the effort? The Digital

2. Build stage 1: Bridge Transformation
3. Build stage 2: Uncover Pyramid: A
4. Build stage 3: Iterate Business-
Join us for 5. Build stage 4: Leverage driven
networking ]. Build stage 5: Disseminate Approach for
& quality Corporate
resources Summary of the summary
Initiatives
to help you
(https://www.thedigit
and your 1. Vision and implementation are inseparable: executing
team on the “Why” of your business is fundamental. “Why”
case-for-
succeed in
delivers the critical changes you need to make.
digital-
digital
2. Real Digital Transformation creates an adaptive transformation/digita
transformation.
organisation, able to react to rapidly changing transformation-
Join us external environments using new processes, pyramid-

technologies, ways of work. Output includes business-
increased competitiveness, revenue and market driven-
share. approach-
3. Digital Transformation is a cliché. Beware as it corporate-
means very different things to different people in the initiatives/)
organisation and beyond.
4. Common challenges facing Digital Transformation Strategy &
include Staff and Mid-level Management resistance, Innovation
loss of revenue from non-digital customer segments, Target
customer experience inconsistencies. Operating
5. Organisations need transformation as gaps have Models &
formed in serving external customers what they want Roadmaps for
in the way they want. Change
]. All the organisation’s people are important and Senior (https://www.thedigit
Leadership support is vital to advance the and-
transformation. innovation/target-
7. Create a shared Transformation Vision and ensure all operating-
projects in the Transformation support the Vision. models-
The vision will describe your organisation’s future
roadmaps-for-
success in contrast to what it is doing today. It will
change/)
capture the biggest areas of change needed and
inspire people to address the changes needed in the Delivery
organisation. Data Asset
d. To transform; Brst, understand what is needed to Management
bridge the gaps between your organisation and the
(DAM)
people it is meant to serve. Then uncover your
organisation’s hidden barriers, assets and resources
asset-
that will build your route to transformation. Then
management-
build projects and iterate in short cycles, test with
dam/)
real users, make changes and iterate to the next
cycle. Leverage successes to gain greater access to
Strategy &
resources and scale up. Disseminate new ways of Innovation
working to ensure they become the new business as The Innovation
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usual. Management
9. Transformation programs must comprise a number Theory
of small projects that tackle People, Processes, Evolution Map
Platforms, Partnerships. (https://www.thedigit
10. Enable small, short cycle transformative projects and-
that can really contribute to the vision. Test early and innovation/the-
often. innovation-
11. Run as many projects in parallel as your resources management-
allow. Transformation often starts in the mundane: a
theory-
boring small project can be the one that leads to big
evolution-
changes.
map/)
12. Starting small encourages people. Small failures are
the safest learning tool: change is scary, and we all
want to avoid failure.
13. Enable Transformation by setting universal,
measurable cross organisational goals with real-time, Related Articles
relevant feedback.
14. Remove silos, build adaptable processes, create open
communities and make strategic investments in
platform upgrades, people and new skills, automating
and enhancing processes and forging new
partnerships
15. Use Agile and Design Thinking: Agile will allow a
cross-functional team to plan design and build
complete versions of a product in each stage of a Customer
project. Design Thinking will keep the customer at the Engagement
centre of all you do. Use Labs, Hubs, Accelerators as What is a

enablers. Social Graph?
1]. Leverage success from small projects to scale up to (https://www.thedigit
other areas and to attract the best people. Scale up to engagement/what-
big, bold cross organisation projects. is-a-social-
graph/)
The Case For Digital

Transformation
All hail the
1 – Digital Transformation – What is it really and disruptive
is it worth the effort? revolution
The essentials of Digital Transformation
case-for-
Digital Transformation is the buzzword of the moment, digital-
much discussed but not really understood. 3 common transformation/all-
misconceptions are: hail-the-
disruptive-
“We need a major budget for a Digital revolution/)
Transformation to be successful”: Some of the
most successful had low budgets.
“We have consensus within our organisation
on what Digital Transformation means” Real-
world evidence shows that this is far from the case.
“Business will revert to Business as Usual
after a Digital Transformation”: it is a one-way
trip, objective: make an organisation more adaptive to
change.
Cyber Security
Do not assume everyone Securing the

Internet of
understands the same thing when Things
they hear “Digital Transformation”. It (https://www.thedigit
security/securing-
is a powerful concept, often the-internet-of-

things/)
misunderstood.
What does REAL Digital Transformation look (https://www.thedigitaltrans

like? to-join-community/)
Digital Transformation is about Bnding the new

‘business as usual’. It takes the right people with the
right attitudes and mindsets to get there. Real Digital
Transformation is about the organisation’s ability to be
able to react to use new processes, technologies and
Learn from
ways of working.
peers, thought
leaders and
Most organisations are slow to react and bogged down.
expert
Real Digital Transformation breaks down the barriers of
practitioners
hierarchical inertia and creates real adaptability. New
for the best
devices, platforms, ways of working and processes are
chance of
tangible proof points of Digital Transformation.
success.
Digital transformation
Digital Transformation increases competitiveness,
is a complex and
revenue, market share, lowers customer acquisition cost
dijcult task. Join the
and enables lower cost. Elements of the organisation to community for quality
be tackled in a Digital Transformation in the Business resources, peer
Model
Model: how revenue is generated, customer acquisition support and expert
and retention. Customer Experience
Experience: core products, help.
how customers engage. Internal Processes

Processes: ways of
Join us
working, decision making, analysis.
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post)
“Digital Transformation” is now a cliché
Jargon is dangerous as it leads to mistakes. Digital

means different things to different groups. For
Consumers “Digital” is everything on the internet,
modern appliances such as mobile phones, Btness
watches and many more.
For Businesses “Digital” includes IT infrastructure,

communication processes and processes such as HR,
Supply Chain and others. For a CEO it means we are
doing web site upgrades to keep our investors happy

that we are keeping up. For a CMO that we are spending
more on Digital Marketing.
For a CIO that we are buying a new Customer

Management system and for a CFO that we are
automating, reducing headcount and moving work
offshore to save money. For a Digital Agency that we
will develop a new website using “Agile” without
preparing you for the ongoing change. In General, it
means that we just don’t want to fail like Blockbuster or
Kodak by ignoring the inevitable.
Digital is a democratiser
Digital gave power back to the individual. People can

attract and retain customers from their garage. Value is
created and held in new ways in a Digital world and it
disrupts our old hierarchical way of doing business.
Think Uber (a taxi company without owning a car),
Airbnb (the biggest hotel chain in the world but owns no
hotels). In addition, transparency means customers
have more powerful than ever, Social media can trash
your reputation in a day. Knowing who your customers
are and what they expect in a digital era is vital. In
Business to Business organisations, your “customers”
are the many people who interact with your
organisation, not just the decision makers in the
Business you sell to.
Digital Transformation is a struggle for us
Change is an unnatural act for most of us, particularly

change as a constant. We like the idea of change but
not the effort and risk involved. The challenge is
changing attitudes towards change itself.
Common challenges facing Digital

Transformation
Staff resistance – caused by fears that machines may

do their jobs or offshoring or younger Digital Native
employees. Mid-level Management resistance –
caused by a perceived threat to autonomy and power.
Loss of revenue from nondigital customer
segments – this could be the segment of customers
engage with you in a non-digital way. I.e. those who will
only interact face to face. A Decrease in productivity
– as we divert resources to a Digital Transformation,
business as usual can suffer. Staff and Customer
Experience inconsistencies – some areas may
obviously lag as others may move forward and this can
become obvious to customers.
Focus on the “why” not the “how” of

your business when setting the target
of your Transformation program.
Target “why” not “how” with your Transformation

Program
Be clear on the target of your Transformation. Target it

to transform the “Why” of your business not the “How”.
Blockbuster doomed their transformation by prioritising
its Business Model. Blockbusters mission was “to
provide customers with the most convenient form of
media entertainment”.
Prior to online shopping, this was achieved by

customers going to a store and renting a video. Once we
moved to buying online Blockbuster should have asked
itself the transformation question relating to its mission
“How can we improve the convenience for our
customers to rent or buy Blms?”. Instead, they asked,
“How can we get more people renting from our stores?”
This failed as customers switched to online purchasing

such as Netwix. Focus on relating your transformation to
the why not the how. It is easy to be complacent when
you own a market, courage is needed as you may have
to give away some of your revenue to stop the
aggressive new-start chipping away at your market.
The 5 Stage model: Build
This book describes a model that covers the distinctive

stages that can deliver a successful Digital
Transformation. The Build model is cyclical and
repeatable. The model can be used for any organisation
(e.g. not for proBt, proBt based) and can be any size
from multi-nationals to small enterprises. The 5 stages
are:
Bridge: Bridge the gaps between your organisation

and the people it is meant to serve and the changes
happening.
Uncover: uncovering your organisation’s hidden
barriers, assets and resources that will build your
route to transformation.
Iterate: Build in short cycles, test with real users and
then make changes and iterate to the next cycle.
Leverage: Leverage successes to gain greater
access to resources and scale up. Take successful
Iterate solutions to scale.

Disseminate: Disseminate new ways of working
and processes to make the new way business as
usual.
Real transformation does have to be driven from the top.

Digital Transformation gets underway and noticed once
some successes have occurred. So, it is not solely the
Senior Leadership who are important to advance the
transformation, however, transformation will not be
sustainable without Senior Leadership support.
2 – Build stage 1: Bridge
Start by looking from the outside
The reason you need transformation is due to the gaps

that have formed internally in serving your external
customers. The purpose of Bridge is to close the gaps
that have formed between you and your customers.
Customer engagement stops internal politics taking
over – it is impossible to argue against the market
reality and what customers are saying. Decisions can be
based on what customers want and demand rather than
internal political imperatives.
The reason you need transformation

is due to the gaps that have formed
internally in serving your external
customers.
There are two types of gaps
Gaps cause dijculty for organisations due to the speed

and wexibility that Digital has enabled in the market and
that organisations need to adapt too. External: gaps
between the voice of the customer and Decision makers
in the organisation. Internal: gaps between areas of
the organisation in serving and understanding how to
serve customers. Most organisations have hierarchies
and structures that pre-date the Digital Age. Many have
Digital skills in one area of the business leading to delay
in leveraging those skills to achieve transformation.
External Gaps
Bridging external gaps
Create awareness in your senior leadership group of the

processes, Business models and technology that
Digitisation has made possible. Key leaders need to be
aligned, ready to communicate where a shared vision
around Digital will take the organisation.
Tips to make External Bridging easier
Gather insight from the market and from

Customers. Swiftly as the data dates very quickly.
Get unbiased
unbiased, external help to undertake the
research.
Don’t delegate too much to outside help. They will
leave you in the lurch when the outside help leaves.
Gain insight into the internal structure/nature of
your organisation.
Addressing external Gaps
Find out how the external gaps formed in the Brst place.
All organisations form to serve external needs. Gaps
could have formed because the organisation has acted
to satisfy shareholders and the analysts rather than
customers. Or (for example) a University that has acted
to satisfy academic staff rather than students.
Organisations are used to adapting to external

condition changes
Organisations already adapt to external conditions. An

example is a clothes retailer adapting to fashion trends.
Digital Transformation demands more of the
organisation. The clothes retailer must now adapt to
designers selling clothes directly to the public via online
shopping. Failing to align to changes in external
circumstances is the root cause of the need to Digital
Transform.
Organisations + Digital create external condition

changes
No matter what state your organisation is today, once it

did align with external conditions. The trick is to now
bridge the gaps created by the new digital expectations.
Your customers expect more because others raised the
bar using Digital Technology:
Your customers expect more

because others raised the bar using
Digital Technology. And this will not
stop, it will only get more disruptive.
Company
Resultant
Concept who
expectation
delivered
I get what I
On Demand Amazon want when I
want.
Information is
Real Time Google accurate up to
the minute.
Only I get this

Unique Air BNB exact
experience.
What I buy is
Personal Netwix tailored to my
lifestyle.
Tailored to my
Local Uber
speciBc area.
What I buy will

Effortless Apple
work, easily.
Researching the external gaps
Researching customer and consumer needs is the

foundation stone for your external gap analysis.
A) What to do
Who: Involve Senior Leaders and Employees who

engage with customers.
What to do
do: Form meaningful engagement with
customers to Bnd out what they need and value.
Why
Why: Give the organisation direct experience to what
customers want and value.
When
When: Allow enough time to engage customers
along each stage of the customer lifecycle.
How
How: conversations with real customers.
B) Objectives of the research
Investigate
Investigate/prioritise customer needs and pain
points.
Identify new business models from customer needs
and revenue streams.
Build ongoing ways for staff and senior leaders to
engage with customers and react to insights gained.
C) Questions to Answer
Does current customer experience match our market

promise?
Does our existing digital estate address current
customer needs?
How have customer needs changed since we
established our current processes?
What experiences are preferred by customers with
the sector and outside?
How can we use the elements of those current
experiences to deliver better value to customers and
our business?
D) Methods to use
Undertake secret shopper trips of your organisation.

Interview and converse with customers.
Host events where customers can discuss with you

in open forum.
Experience the digital products and processes that
customer use.
Recruit customers to diarise end to end interactions
with you.
Observe customers in your environment, your
competitors and other segments.
Spend time in customer-facing roles.
Facilitate discussion of customers who are in similar
segments.
Provide customer-facing staff with questions to ask
questions that can add to data points for research.
Pose questions for written responses Digitally i.e. on
social media your digital estate and collate the
responses.
E) Engaging with customers: key principles
When asking a question don’t lead the response,

listen.
Do not venture your opinion.
If you spot a problem, do not try to solve it
Train your people to engage. Quality questioning
drives quality research.
Assumption is the natural enemy of insight. State
assumptions upfront, test them in your customer
engagements.
Test the opposite of your assumption (the null
hypothesis).
Real insights never sit on the surface. The root of a
problem sits below the initial answers. Drill down.
Use ongoing conversations to build lasting bridges.
Insights are not a once off, external conditions
change rapidly. Ongoing dialogue will prevent gaps

reappearing.
Successful digital transformation is a matter of

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Internal gaps
Winners close internal gaps
Establishing hierarchies and standardising in order to be

able to scale production are the main drivers of internal
gaps. Silos exist between parts of the organisation that
means information will not be shared and insights
become isolated.
In an external environment where customers demand

(and receive) mass customisation, instant fulBlment,
timely information that often cuts out a middleman and
much else, the pre-Digital hierarchy internal gaps.
Hierarchies drive inward facing process. The larger the

organisation, the more the hierarchy develops in order to
maintain central control.
Hierarchies are the control

mechanism for large organisations.
In the Digitally enabled environment,
change now happens too fast for
hierarchies to be effective.
Hierarchies offer challenges in a digital world
Hierarchies form based on three principle assumptions:

Brst that people at the top are the most informed to
make the most important decisions.
Second, that change is assessed and implemented

across the whole organisation, then the model can
revert to business as usual.
Finally, that standardised offerings can be developed to

meet the needs of nearly all customers. Challenges to
Hierarchy and Standardisation in Digital Environments
are that change now happens too fast for those at the
top to assess or even know about it in a timely manner.
Also, change does not happen evenly, and different

customers will have different needs, even in the same
sector. Next Localisation and personalisation are easily
achieved via Digital Technology and standardisation is a
dated outcome.
Finally, problems will emerge in multiple ways giving rise

to differing views of root cause and thus differing ideas
of what to do and not knowing where to start gives
longer delays and inaction.
Researching internal gaps
A) What to do
Who
Who: Involve Senior Leaders and Employees who
engage directly with peers in similar organisations.
What to do
do: Form meaningful relationships with
employees in peer organisations to understand what
is and is not working in Digital Transformation. This
engagement may include skills and job exchange.
Why
Why: Give your organisation’s people insight into
what can be achieved with Digital Transformation
and the urgency.
When: Allow enough time for key members of staff
to gain insights.
How
How: Best results are via short term collaboration
with peers, consultants and others outside your
organisation.
B) Objectives of the research
Gather evidence of successful case studies that

articulate why and how your organisation needs to
transform.
Gather examples of technologies that can help you
and those that can damage you if used by a
competitor.
Gather examples of new business models, ways of
working.
Benchmark your organisation against peers and
competitors.
How are competitors meeting

customer needs better than you right
now? What business models or ways
of working would be useful that you
could leverage through digital
technology?
C) Questions to answer
How have competitors and peers adapted to

circumstances shaped by new expectations?
How are competitors meeting customer needs better
than you right now?
What technology could add business value for you or
enhance customer experience?
What Business Models or ways of working would be
useful that you could leverage through Digital
Technology?
D) Methods to use
Speak at and attend conferences for Digital

Professionals.
Connect senior leadership in your organisation to
peers in more Digitally adapted organisations.
Invite Technology experts and peers in more digitally
advanced organisations to give talks/working groups
in your organisation.
Facilitate skills exchanges and job shadowing with
more advanced peers.
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Create small projects that encourage collaboration

with peer organisations that are more digitally
advanced than you.
E) Engage experts and suppliers for Digital

Transformation
Write a good brief for the expert, poor briefs = poor

outcomes.
State your overall objective AND invite their input.
What you are trying to achieve and why.
Start small and be speciBc. Suggest a Brst step and
timeline.
Set realistic expectations. State if you are going to
others.
Closing internal gaps
To kick off we need a clear statement of what the

transformation will achieve and have senior leaders
aligned and involved. And we need a team to do it.
A) What to do
Who: Leaders and Managers across different

functions and customer-facing staff.
What to do
do: Articulate the reason your organisation
needs to transform by presenting an evidence-based
vision.
Why
Why: To win support, move ahead with a few small
initiatives.
When
When: Allow enough time to get one or two projects
underway.
B) Objectives
Identify gaps in the internal organisation that are

stopping the organisation from adapting to external
environment demand and condition changes.
Identify answers as to how the organisation would
deliver to the new external demands and conditions if
it were founded today.
Capture a “before and after” statement of what will
occur as a result of Digital Transformation. This is
the vision.
Align selected leaders to rally around the vision who
can help implement and inwuence implementation of
the vision.
What would our organisation look like if it was

founded today?
What relationships should exist between staff and
departments to deliver to current customer needs?
What processes would need to be in place to react
and adapt to changing external needs and
conditions?
Which functional leaders across the business have
the inwuence and power needed to kick of the initial
projects?
D) Tips for success
Identify champions early and use their willingness

and enthusiasm to persuade others.
Do not try and convince nay-sayers at this point.
Only share the vision with a small group at this point.
Share with those people you need right now.
Create a shared Transformation vision
A vision calls out what needs to

change internally to meet external
changes and is shared and
understood by those who need to
implement it.
Get into a “Founders mindset” to create a vision. Ask

why does your organisation exist?
If you have a true Mission Statement that should give

you most of the answer, it will be timeless and be
independent of your product stable, processes and
business model. Involve select members of your
organisation’s leadership team to create the vision.
It should be made up of succinct statements outlining

the changes to improve value for customers as well as
making delivery easier. It will clearly state the changes
needed to bring the organisation back in line with
external customer demands. Start with a draft, iterate
via sharing and revise
Objectives of the vision
Describe your organisation’s future success in contrast

to what it is doing today. It will capture the biggest areas
of change needed and inspire people to address the
changes needed to change the organisation.
Questions to answer
If your organisation was founded today, how would it

be set up to best deliver to current External
demands?
How is success measured for each area of your
organisation?
What are the common causes failures, losses and
inejciencies exist today in your organisation (by
area)?
Which internal measures of success are at odds with
great customer outcomes?
How are decisions made/measured across the
organisation?
What decision-making processes are at odds with
external conditions?
What is the cross over points in the organisation’s
current processes that lend themselves to
improvement via Digital technology?
Tip for success and how to win support for the

vision
Understand the personal goals of each leader you want

to recruit to create the vision. This makes the vision
relevant to their context. Individuals have their own area
to run, they are measured, and their primary goal is to
achieve those measures. Understanding their motivation
Brst and tailor your recruitment to meet their needs.
Start with the most powerful leaders in the organisation.
Explain fully, people bluff their knowledge about Digital
Technology. Use the “Shared” formula in creating your
vision (below).
A vision must be succinct, human-

centric, aspirational, relatable,
evidence-based and decisive.
The “Shared” formula for visions
S = Succinct: make it short, cover why and what

beneBts it will give customers and how to do it.
H = Human-centric: do not include business metrics,
technology. Relate it to human needs/wants.
A = Aspirational: transformation takes years, so the
vision needs to set a high bar.
R = Relatable: anyone in the organisation must be
able to relate to the vision.
E = Evidence: that supports why change is needed
what beneBts we will get.
D = Decisive: unambiguous about why change is
needed. Best use a “before and after” for this.
Great questions to inspire your creation of the

shared vision
Why now? What’s different now that makes change

essential?
What’s at stake? What will we gain or avoid losing?
How do we need to change? Think current vs
transformed.
What does it do for customers?
How does it change customers lives for the better?
How will it change lives for the better inside the
organisation?
Leadership needed for Transformation
The two most important jobs at the beginning are

freeing up staff time from business as usual and
removing barriers put in place by senior leaders. The
team needs: Sponsors: have the power/resource to

drive transformation efforts. Champions: those in
leadership roles who understand the need for change
and can free up time and resources to help. They must
be inwuencers as they are your advocates. Change
agent(s): A person or people who will drive the
transformation agenda.
Successful change agents are

compelling; have a strong presence
and can win people over. They have a
great internal network and are
connected to external experts. They
are up to date on technology and
what peers and the competition are
doing.
Change Agent: special notes as it is a vital role
Every major program needs a strong leader to drive it

along and maintain momentum. They must be at the
right level of seniority to be able to drive other senior
leaders. They will present an answer to the program at
all major meetings. They will remove barriers and drive
transformation, keeping it in the spotlight and front of
mind for the broader organisation.
Successful change agents are compelling; have a strong

presence and can win people over. They have a great
internal network and are connected to external experts.
They are up to date on technology and what peers and

the competition are doing. They can solve big problems
creatively.
Finally, they are committed to having the resilience to

weather storms and be calm. You should be able to Bnd
one in your organisation. In the rare situation where you
cannot, recruit one. When you do recruit a Change agent,
pay them well, don’t expect them to stay (that is why
they are good at change) and anticipate quiet sabotage
from others.
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post)
3 – Build stage 2: uncover
What is uncover?
The uncover stage shows you how to structure your

Digital Transformation. Internal problems are hard to
see from within your organisation and Uncover is all
about weshing out the barriers to Digital Transformation.
Barriers are in the organisation’s people, processes,
business model and technology. We are often blind to
our own inejciencies causing us to fall behind and
prefer to blame external change.
Tips for success
Don’t let ambition outstrip available assets. Start small.

Leverage Champions, your most powerful assets at this
stage. Don’t try to plan the whole Transformation in
detail at this stage.
Transformation programs comprise of a slate of

smaller projects
To plan the projects and recognise barriers, break your

organisation down into the following parts of your
business:
People
People: staff related items including culture and
capability
Processes: all aspects of operations, including
internal and external transactions and ways of
working.
Platforms: IT capability – networks, platforms,
digital presence.
Partnerships: the wider ecosystem, joint ventures,
partners/suppliers
All organisations have internal

barriers hindering the organisation’s
ability to adapt and change
Barriers to Transformation
There are barriers hindering the organisation’s ability to

adapt and change. Identifying barriers is the Brst step to
mitigating them. Steps to Uncover Barriers:
A) What to do
Who to involve
involve: members of the Transformation
leadership group with leadership from the Change
Agent.
What
What: Identify and prioritise barriers classiBed into
the 4 parts – people, process, platform and
partnership
Why
Why: To ensure transformation plans include plans
to eliminate barriers.
When
When: This can be done in a single workshop.
B) Objectives
Identify the biggest barriers to achieving the vision

goals.
Evaluate barriers broken into people, process,
platform, partnerships.
Why hasn’t the organisation adapted naturally to keep

pace with customers and environment?
What are current attitudes towards

transformation/innovation?
What attempts have been made to transform in the
past?
What succeeded/failed in the transformation
attempt(s)?
Why did the successes/failures in past
transformation occur?
What areas of the business have the most barriers?
What areas would beneBt most from transformation?
D) Tips for success
Barriers are the things that cause frustration. Start at the

top of the organisation and work down.
E) Methods to use
Attend team meets, observe people working in

various levels/parts of the organisation.
Question what you observe, why are things been
done in a certain way?
Engage with leaders in the organisation using
material gathered in “Bridge” stage to discuss how
things could be done differently based on other
organisations.
Invite consultants, peers and digitally advanced
organisations to present to the organisation and
gauge leader and staff reactions.
Interview new employees to see what frustrates them
compared to their prior organisation and why.
Facilitate workshops with people from across the
organisation using the Transformation to Bnd out
ways the effort could succeed or fail.
Political interests, agendas and

motivations will need to be engaged
with and understood.
People as barriers to Transformation
Organisations that grow via acquisition end up with a

mish-mash of systems, processes, cultures. Digital
Technology will not transform the organisation alone.
People make that happen. If people do not have the
capability or motivation to make the transformation
happen, then it will not happen.
Political interests, agendas and motivations will need to

be engaged with and understood. People become
barriers to transformation by Missing the innovation
mindset
mindset: one that is prepared to take risks and sees
failure as learning. Providing incentive and tools to
innovate can help here.
Operating with false logic – this is where the logic is

reasoning is outdated and cannot see the new
challenge. Poor accountability – if there are
misalignments between the way people are linked to
organisational outcomes. If people are not measured on
anything tangible or measurable, they will be able to
create barriers without consequence.
Uncovering people barriers
Assess people in the organisation against these

categories (cover all levels and functions, even support
functions):
Open: are the inwuential people in the organisation

open to new ways of working?
Adaptable: do people cope well with change? This
includes self-development.
Accountable: are people at all levels held
accountable to outcomes that are impactful for the
organisation?
Process as barriers to Transformation
Uncovering the way processes works can be looked at

in categories: Functional: processes that facilitate
internal operations and external transactions. Decision
making: rules/methods that trigger decisions. Ways of
working: ways used to achieve business outputs.
Problems that can be occurring within a process
Too much consultation: this will drive progress to a

halt, too many sign-offs or meetings needed. Lack of
automation: this can make activities impossible to
measure so we do not know how well work is being
done. It doesn’t just slow process, worse it makes
ejciency invisible. Too much internal competition:
pitting teams against each other holds back innovation
because the real measures of success are external, not
internal.
Also, humans will seek the easiest way to fulBl needs so

if you are measuring staff against each other, it means
that you only must beat the other guy, not necessarily
perform well enough. Creating internal competition
ensures you a lack of internal knowledge sharing and
teamwork.
Review which processes do not meet

the requirements of a good process.
Is the process providing beneBts to
users in ways that contribute to the
success of the organisation?
Uncovering process barriers
Review which processes do not meet the requirements

of a good process. Identify what process barriers exist
and then work on the most impactful processes Brst.
That may be your end-to-end supply chain for example.
Best practice process traits:
Does the process meet/exceed industry best

practice?
Can process inputs and outputs be measured?
Is the process providing beneBts to users in ways
that contribute to the success of the organisation?
A platform is a group of IT
technologies that act as a platform
for one of the organisation’s key
functions or processes.
Platforms as barriers to Transformation
A platform is a group of IT technologies that act as a

platform for one of the organisation’s key functions or
processes. An example is the organisation’s website.
That will be made up of a Content Management System

(CMS) that may connect to your CRM and your e-
commerce platform. Replacing platforms is not easy.
Replacing a Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
platform for example always ends up harder and costing
more than originally thought. That is because we often
do not understand the current technical barriers. The 6
core functions of platforms are:
Sharing: displaying/sharing output to people or

devices
Receiving: receiving any kind of input
Analysing: processing, interpreting and calculating
any input to produce a pre-determined output.
Learning: weighing outputs from past analysis to
improve future outputs.
Managing: controlling and monitoring of any
process.
Storing: collecting any kind of input for future use.
The top common barriers in IT and digital

infrastructure
Platform Type Barrier
Systems of Engagement,
eg. Customer Inwexibility,
Management system: incompatibility and not
function is to share and user-friendly.
manage
Systems of record, eg.

Isolated, cannot receive
organisation databases:
from other systems,
function is to
poor searchability.
store/receive.
Systems of insight, eg. Unactionable

analytics platform intelligence
Common platforms problems
They can be hard to learn, slow to build on (new

releases) and slow to work (response time). Overly
complicated and under-delivering. And Bnally of
restricted scope and scale (cannot expand).
Uncover platform barriers
A good acronym to classify key factors of a platform is

FACE. Test the barriers in your platform(s) against
these:
F ast:: can the platform process quickly? Can staff

customise/change/upgrade easily?
A ccessible:: is the platform easy to use? Is there
training available
(https://www.thedigitaltransformationpeople.com/training/)?
C lever:: can the platform reliably collect data to give
useful insight and outputs?
E xtendable:: is the platform able to connect easily to
other platforms, networks and devices?
Partnerships are a major enabler of external

change. To form, maintain and track meaningful
external partnerships there need to be roles in your
organisation that have this as their accountability.
Partnership barriers
Today, change happens at a pace and scale that is

unprecedented. Organisations that win in this
environment can adapt and change externally and
internally in response to change stimuli. Partnerships
are a major enabler of external change. To form,
maintain and track meaningful external partnerships
there need to be roles in your organisation that have this
as their accountability. Types:
Timely/short term: a market opportunity arises;

two organisations collaborate to capitalise on an
opportunity.
Capability building: forming a partnership to help
an organisation build a capability. Caution here, you
do not want the capability building partner to become
too built-in to your organisation or you will be left in
the lurch when they leave.
Long term value adding: these are the most
traditional. When the purpose of the partnership is
about building an organisation’s technical capability.
Partnerships as barriers to Transformation
Too many partners, no clear oversight – having

a plethora of projects with many partners without
coordination will create friction. Which to keep, which
to close?
Pitting partners against each other – drives
price down but also trust and work quality. Beware
macho cost reduction jeopardising the quality of your
relationships.
Focussing on deliverables instead of
outcomes – there is a difference between a supplier
and a Digital Transformation partner. A partner cares
about your organisation achieving the transformation,
it is not a simple purchase, install and walk away

transaction. A procurement style focus on near term
deliverables will drive the wrong behaviour. We are
about the transformation of the organisation here
and that is the outcome that the partner should
contribute to.
Uncover partnership barriers
If the partnership is no longer the right Bt, cut your

losses early. Rate your existing partnerships against the
traits listed below:
Flexible: is the partnership changeable/renegotiable

as needed?
Transparent: does the partner share
information/resources?
Open: are you and the partner ok to engage with
other partners to bring in required resources?
Routes to Transformation
You can get there by driving individual projects linked to

your Transformation vision. Undertaking a series of
prioritised projects will deliver results more quickly than
a massive program. The routes to transformation will
become clear by undertaking Bridge to understand the
gaps between what the external customers are
expecting and the competitive environment. Undertake
Uncover to understand barriers to transformation in
your people, processes, platforms and partnerships.
Then combine your vision with what you have found via
the Bridge and Uncover stages. The prioritised projects
required will fall out of this process.
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Uncovering routes to Transformation
A) What to do
Who: Transformation leadership group, leaders for

key areas such as IT and external consultants.
What to do: Determine the outcomes needed to
achieve the shared vision. Prioritise options for
achieving each outcome.
Why
Why: To provide wexible options rather than a
prescribed path. This allows the project teams to Bnd

the best path.
When: – Start as soon as possible.
How: prioritise projects around your organisation’s
biggest chances to close gaps bearing in mind the
barriers uncovered.
B) Objectives
Identify the Brst projects to start digital

transformation by improving customer experience.
Determine where in your transformation journey you
should tackle projects that improve outcomes for
people, processes, platforms and partnerships.
Identify the right people to form the Brst project
teams.
What digital opportunities exist to transform your

current customer experience?
What are the major barriers to achieving your
transformation vision?
What are the immediate opportunities to start
transforming your current customer experience?
What skills and resources are you missing to kick
start your transformation efforts?
What assets can you use to undertake your
transformation efforts in the short term?
What are the costs/risks/payoffs for each
transformation effort?
What do you need to start your Brst project?
D) Methods to use
Start with Digital only channels e.g. website. This

reduces barriers.
Evaluate/score your organisation’s current customer
experience.
Invite pitches from your suppliers and partners to see
how they would approach transformation.
Customer experience is every

interaction your customers have with
you, online or oxine through every
stage of transaction over their entire
history with you. This experience will
often be longer than you have been at
the organisation.
Focus on transforming the customer experience
This sounds obvious but it is staggering how many

organisations become focussed on changing out
platforms or implementing Digital technology and
quickly lose sight of the main outcome we are trying to
achieve: to transform the customer experience.
Customer experience is every interaction your

customers have with you, online or oxine through every
stage of transaction over their entire history with you.
Gaps that have formed over the years are the reason
customers say, “this company does not treat me the way
they used too”. The customer has the history and
remembers it and that is their experience, not just today.
Transform a Customer’s experience

by solving their pain points or
enabling a desired lifestyle or helping
them meet their long-term goals.
The top 3 routes to transform customer

experience
Solve customer pain points

points: this is the most
effective way to gain traction and gain success in
your transformation program. Choose those that can
link to a business metric and be measured.
Enable a lifestyle – how might your organisation
transform the lives of your customers. How can you
Bt into and enable the lifestyle they aspire to?
Facilitate long term goals – reward loyalty. What
long term value do customers want in their lives, how
can you help?
Focus on achieving customer needs
Surviving needs – health, wealth and security.

Create routes to transformation that meet surviving
needs by helping your customers optimise their
wellness, Bnancial outcomes and safety.
Thriving needs – freedom, social status and
mental stimulation. Create routes to transformation
that meet thriving needs by helping your customers
improve sense of self, save them time and mental
energy and help them look good.
What you need to start and run your projects
Great Governance means having Transformation

leadership set goals and objectives for the project
teams to meet rather than telling them how to do it.
Transparency and regular update to senior leadership
will enable success.
Right skills and leadership level

level: you need
people with relevant expertise and inwuence. At
project level the needs become speciBc and you may
need to hire specialist consultants.
Systems for ensuring transparency: you need to
keep the relevant people informed and allow people
to see what is going on in individual projects.
Transparency is achieved via automated means as
much as possible or you will spend your time
updating reporting systems and presenting endlessly
to stakeholders. Create online space for the team to
collaborate and record progress. Use collaboration
software as much as possible, for design, project
management and other activities.
Governance is there to set goals and
empower: Empowered teams are fundamental to
success for the projects (especially when using
DevOps, Agile or Lean processes). Empower at team
level and use leadership for goal setting.
4 – Build stage 3: Iterate
Why iterate?
The right way to manage Digital Transformation is via

“Iterate”. Traditional approaches do not work. Traditional
management creates individual business cases. This is
wawed as the assumptions are unpredictable and

Individual Business cases do not stack up. If there is no
management then we pick exciting looking projects.
This is wawed as there is no underlying vision to link the
projects together or create a programmatic approach.
Enthusiasm quickly wanes as the initiatives drift along
in an aimless way.
How to iterate
A) What to do
Who: The transformation leadership group and the

project teams who are staffed with people with the
right skills and can work in projects that build, test,
learn, report and repeat swiftly.
What to do
do: Run several projects at once that will
have differing timelines that can regularly be checked
in on rather than running one mega project with a
mega schedule that no-one understands and
pretends is going well.
Why: Enable transformative projects that can really
contribute to the vision. We can check a Projects
regularly and kill it early if it is not contributing to the
right outcomes.
How
How: Use Devops and Design thinking methods to
engage customers, check in and evaluate.
B) Tips for success
Test early and engage customers using different

brands and/or with 3rd parties to prevent brand
damage.
Locate the project teams in a new space to start with.
It shows commitment to Digital Transformation.
Be ready to amend the vision and routes to

Transformation as you go, as you learn. Flexibility is
important.
C) Leading the program
Ensure you have cross-functional teams working on

iterative project structures.
Experiment with different processes and methods
and produce real results quickly. All the time learning
new ways.
The process is quick Build, Test, Learn, Improve,
Repeat. This is instead of lengthy linear Waterfall
type techniques.
Iterate is cyclical evolving with the needs and wants
of customers. So, the solutions do not go out of date.
Keep projects on short cycles. Have

them on cycles of weeks, not
months. An Agile “sprint” for
example, usually lasts two weeks.
D) Succeeding with Transformation program
Run as many projects in parallel as your resources

allow. Having many projects will ensure some
succeed quickly.
Keep projects on short cycles. Have them on cycles
of weeks, not months. You can even break a major IT
project into many small short cycle projects. Stick to
the same cadence for all projects as this helps
schedule regular reviews and embed the way of work.
Set goals for project teams and stick to them. Passes
or failures are acceptable in a cycle.

No-one’s opinion matters more than the customers.
Remember, this all being done to close the gaps
between what we do and what the customer expects.
Criteria for evaluating Digital Transformation

projects:
Customer Value: Do customers value the output of

the project enough to make it worthwhile?
Competitive advantage: Is the product offered
elsewhere and will it be attractive in market?
Business Impact: Can the business enable and
support the project output when complete?
Technical Feasibility: What is the cost and what is
the impact on existing systems?
Scalability: Can it be customised, and can it be
implemented across the organisation?
E) Trigger stages in projects – evaluate at these

points
Prototype or Proof of Concept: simple version of

a product or service to test business impact and/or
customer experience. A prototype is a design version
of a product. It will not function but does show what
the product looks like. A proof of concept is the
technical development of the product to ensure it will
work.
Alpha: an advanced prototype. Can be released to a
closed group of staff or customers for testing. This
allows for real tests of the products from a technical,
process and customer point of view.
Beta – complete version of a product or service
released to a signiBcantly signiBcant number of
customers. Can launch without major fanfare to a

small number of customers or stores or regions. This
deals with Bnal testing and lays the ground for
scaling.
Beyond Beta – as the new product or service
moves on it can continue to grow in terms of market
size, segments of customer. Continually test and
reBne. Spin-off products may emerge.
Treat these Labs, Hubs and

Accelerators with caution as they can
be viewed as irrelevant by the rest of
the organisation and seen as a career
dead end. DeBne what they do and
what is done with the output careful
F) Methods to implement Transformation

projects
Labs, Hubs and Accelerators: Centralised groups

in a space dedicated to use tools to enable Digital
Transformation. A way to collocate your best people
and tools. Hosting off-site is often done where the
organisation is quite conservative. For any of these
models to work they must be an interim step and
scaling up of the solutions emerging from the Labs,
Hubs or Accelerators must be absolutely the next
stage and envisaged from the start. Treat these
models with caution as they can be seen as irrelevant
by the rest of the organisation and seen as a career
dead end. DeBne what they do and what is done with
the output carefully.

Innovation Lab
Lab: Labs create the most cutting-edge
solutions to a broad business challenge. They are not
there for addressing individual pain points, rather
broader challenges such as new revenue streams.
Digital Hub
Hub: Generally used to upskill staff or Bx
speciBc challenges rather than the fundamental work
of a lab.
Accelerator: Used in conservative organisations or
highly regulated organisation and where digital skills
levels are low. They are often staffed by specialist
agency staff.
Internal Start-ups and external Joint
Ventures. Internal start-ups are separate from the
overall organisation and are given seed funding to get
on with the transformation project. Joint Ventures for
Digital Transformation has two organisations getting
together to meet a signiBcant opportunity emerging
from the changes in the external environment.
Setting goals and measuring success
Great goal setting. Do not get distracted by Vanity

metrics, those that look great but have little to do
with achieving Transformation. Measures that go too
granular can reduce the visibility of the overall goal
for the team. Always have a benchmark – a start
point to compare back too, otherwise, we cannot
know progress. Goals must be testable and not open
to interpretation – room to doubt or interpret results
leaves success open to debate. Typically measures
of feelings are untestable.
Great goal testing on iiterative
terative projects. Test
with real, high-value customers – leave no doubt of
the truth of the customer view or else senior

stakeholders will veto the decision. Reduce
interference by solid testing. Don’t test biased
participants; using the same customers over and
over means they know your organisation and will
taint the result. Test in real environments; testing a
retail solution in a lab environment will not give the
same result as testing it in store. If it is a mobile app,
run the test on a mobile device. Testing a “blow up”
version on a laptop is no substitute. Test with the
right number of people – cohort analysis (people with
shared characteristics) only needs 5 people. Testing
with more people will only give the same results. It
takes a lot of time and effort to conduct testing and
bigger groups take longer, time needed for
development.
Ensure goals are mapped to the

vision, if not they are a distraction
and not moving your transformation
forward. Ensure goals are linked to
the drivers of the organisation’s
success.
Goals checklist. Ensure goals are mapped to the

vision, if not they are a distraction and not moving
your transformation forward. Ensure goals are linked
to the drivers of the organisation’s success; what is
the biggest inwuencer of revenue or loss in my
organisation right now? Ensure goals can be
measured against the 5 points of evaluation criteria;
customer value, competitive advantage, technical

feasibility, business impact and scalability. Ensure
goals be applied at all project phases and beyond; at
Prototype as well as Alpha and Beta. Ensure goals
are measurable and empirically testable and Bnally
leave the “how” open to the cross-functional team to
describe i.e. wexible for the team to customise.
Establish minimum success criteria. What is the
lowest pass rate allowed? What is the maximum
resource allowed? Budget, resources needed, costs in
the business to incorporate the change in the
business. What are the known constraints?
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Running iterative projects
Digital Transformation management is a way of working

compared to traditional project management.
Digital Transformation vs Traditional Project

management
Item Traditional Iterative
Subject matter
Gather detailed experts
scoping over (internal and
months, Senior external)
leadership collaborate to
signs off, determine the
budget, time best way to
Planning and meet the
deliverables. desired
Suppliers quote strategic
on scope, outcomes.
responding to They quote on
their portion of the Brst
the work. iterative stage
project.
Developed in Project is
linear stages by completed in
different teams, iterative cycles
doing their part by internal
of the project. cross-
They pass their functional
output to the people and
Delivery next team to do external
their part. specialists. The
Success of the entire team is
efforts can only accountable for

be done when producing a
the overall testable
project reaches outcome for
completion. each stage.
Project
managers track
In addition to
risks,
risk, timescales
timescales and
and costs,
costs. Record
project
tasks falling
managers work
below and
in with the
report progress
team to
to senior
mitigate
leaders. When
Management barriers. When
a task has
a problem is
fallen behind
identiBed, the
signiBcantly,
team decide a
senior leaders
course of
determine a
action and give
course of
to senior
action and
leadership to
hand it down to
endorse.
the team
responsible.
Testing/Quality
checking is
done at the
end, thus there
Testing/quality
is an additional
checking and
phase called
Testing bug Bxes are
testing. The
done
product is not
throughout.
released until
testing is
Bnished and
signed off.
Project publicly Project is

launches and mostly already
Launch issues arise released when
that did not it gets to Bnal
arise in testing. launch.
The live
solution moves
Team
into next
evaluated
phase/cycle of
against
enhancements.
deliverables,
Team
Evaluation timeframe and
evaluated
costs in the
against
budget at the
business
end of the
metrics such
project
as sales
increases.
Leaders are there to set goals and

create an environment that enables
team success. They are not there to
show them how to do everything.
Rules for self-managing project teams
Never plan in detail when you can build and test

instead.
You build for Customers, not the Senior

Leadership/Board.
Test and build with your customers.
Deep planning to please internal people is a costly
waste of time.
Team consists only of the specialist skills dictated by
the project.
You need a small tightly aligned team without
governance layers merely to coordinate
communication between work streams.
Digital agencies and staff can help Bll capability gaps
and sure you get the best quality skills you need.
People on the team need to work collaboratively at
every stage. This speeds decision making and can do
the work immediately.
Be strict about capturing all insights and Bndings in
order that they can be applied elsewhere.
Checklist for starting a new project
Senior leadership sponsor must be in place:

otherwise, the project teams will never get past the
barriers. Senior leader will approve any additional
costs or resources and remove barriers.
Team members must agree the goals and
minimum success criteria: the project team
needs to have input to the minimum success criteria
and the senior leadership owns the decision.
Format/timescales of review must be agreed:
there need to be Bxed deadlines for iterative projects
to meet. Deadlines are stop points to review and
determine how to next proceed not arbitrary cut-offs
to Bnish a piece of work.
Team members must be properly equipped: the

basics such as equipment such as devices,
computers, ojce space, good video conferencing
and online collaboration tools for the team. The team
needs proper space to enable collaboration. A single
location for the core team is important. Ensure a
budget for equipment is at team level with each
member accountable. This avoids high pizza bills and
pool tables appearing from no-where. It is too easy to
spend other people’s money!
Each team member must be personally
motivated to achieve the project goals: this
includes accountability at team member level for
achievement of project goals. Incentive drives
success.
Give the team access to needed experts – skill
sets will be missing as the team is small. The team
will need access to either internal or external experts.
The project manager will be the Brst port of call for
expert requests.
Failure through trying ideas and

failing is to be encouraged. Failure
through breakdowns in
communication, process or execution
are there to be drilled down on and
Bxed. Without attaching blame.
Failure in iterative projects – the two types of

failure
First;; trying an idea that fails – this is to be

encouraged.
Second; Breakdowns in communication or process

– errors in execution, general system failures. For all of
these get to the root cause (use the team and the 5
whys) and deBne a Bx. Laying blame will lead to risk
avoidance by team members moving forward, killing the
speed and effectiveness of your project.
Proven methodologies for iterative projects
A blend of methods can be used to run iterative

projects. Agile and Design thinking are the ones most
used.
Agile is the most commonly used process for iterative

projects. Pure Agile was designed to develop software
and therefore often needs customisation. Most
commonly people learn Agile concepts, methods,
principles and then customise to their organisation.
Design Thinking is a methodology used throughout a

transformation project, putting the customer at the
centre of everything, designing solutions on what the
outside world wants rather than what the organisation
wants to provide.
What is Agile?
It is a method that allows a cross-functional team to

plan design and build complete versions of a product in
each stage of a project (known as a sprint). Sprints
usually last 2 weeks and are managed and planned by
getting the team to break down all requirements into
small chunks called “User Stories”. User Stories are

written from the end users’ perspective. Each new
feature is captured as a User Story which becomes part
of a prioritised list – a “Product Backlog”.
User stories in the backlog constitute the total

requirements of the product and represent the current
state of requirements documented for the product. Well
deBned and important User Stories go to the top of the
list. Each Bnished User Story is a completed piece of
work that has been tested with customers and can go to
Alpha and Beta for testing. By completing User Stories,
the team can keep moving through the Product Backlog
until the list is exhausted.
Why adopt Agile methods?
Agile is the best project method for facilitating

collaborative working and effective teams. Power is in
the team, empowerment and accountability are
optimised. Governance is made more effective due to
shared accountability and transparency. It easy to
accommodate change and sustain the product once the
project is Bnished. The Product Backlog is easily
maintained, and it is easy to add User Stories.
Agile is a great method for

facilitating collaborative working and
effective teams. Design thinking is
about putting the customer at the
centre of everything we do.
How Design Thinking works
In the project sequence (Build, Test, Improve, Repeat)

Design thinking is built into each part. Design thinking
starts with engaging users and observing environments.
For each stage of the project the team will use the 5
components of Design Thinking:
Discover: Focus on understanding needs and

wants. Later in the project, Discover will be used to
understand the usefulness of the product for
customers.
Dedne: Identify needs, pain points wants of
customers for the beneBt of the team. Capture and
prioritise by using customer journey maps.
Ideate: Develop creative ways to solve the pain
points, wants and needs identiBed in DeBne.
Repeating Ideate at each stage of the project reBnes
product, keeps alignment with customer needs.
Create: Creating a version of the solution that we
can test. Complexity of build varies with what stage
we are at (Prototype, Alpha or Beta)
Evaluate: Test the solution. Methods include
Guerrilla testing; the team go out and test a solution
with the public on a device.
Why adopt design thinking – what do I get?
A great way to develop ideas that will truly

transform your organisation
organisation: Taking an outside-in
approach really challenges your business model,
processes and products/services.
A plethora of tools and techniques for creative
problem solving: it is not a Bxed set of techniques.
It is a like open source; growing and offering more
tools every year. It is a movement not proprietary or

owned by a company.
It prevents tunnel vision – Using it at each stage
of an Iterative project keeps the team open to new
ideas from the outside, preventing blindness to new
options and keeps solutions relevant.
5 – Build stage 4: Leverage
Success in Iterate moves us to the next stage:

Leverage
When an iterative project shows sign of success, we are

ready to leverage that success. When you have a
successful project, check the detail of your vision and
amend if nuances arising from the successful project
make that necessary. This keeps vision fresh and
relevant.
Why Leverage
Results achieved in the Iterative projects offer an

opportunity to progress your Digital Transformation. For
example, something achieved in the Customer Service
area could expand to other areas. Capitalise on project
success.
Types of Leverage
There are two types of leverage, the project results and

the team themselves;
Use project results as leverage: show the

tangible results from a business perspective;
including proBt increases and new revenues.

Demonstrating results builds general pride in the
company and is just showing how great the project
team is. Demonstrate via results how the project was
faster/more effective vs prior methods. Compare
project statistics from the iterative project and a
project that used traditional methods.
Use team achievements as leverage: these are
important, they show the beneBts of the project in
terms of greater productivity and ejciency, less
effort and more job satisfaction. Team achievements
are compelling for other people. Demonstrate how
the design elements were more effective than prior
projects. Show how collaboration led to
achievements that are better than before.
Demonstrate how Morale improved statistically;
fewer sick days, less time spent on supervision, more
effective governance, faster turnaround times. Show
any Brst-time achievements or Brst time as working in
a new way and new customer groups engaged with
or new insights from customer groups not known
before.
Use project results and team

achievements as leverage to attract
more resources and expand the
projects.
Threats to leverage against
Many programs end after the exciting Brst phase. The

initial energy burst will dissipate unless you leverage
and fast. People will view the project as a one-off, done,
Bnished and now return to business as usual. Here are
the threats to mitigate against:
People with a vested interest in working in the

old ways: show them how in a non-threatening way.
Ramming your results down their throats will lead to
sabotage.
Unmitigable barriers – eg. a digital platform that
does not integrate is a barrier to offer online services
at scale. The initial project will be deliberately simple
and stand-alone to ensure there is something to
show. Integration is a known and necessary step.
Leave to the next stage as it is an unmitigable barrier
at the start.
Risks of major change: major restructures and
other changes will threaten your transformation.
Continually listen and adapt to changes where
relevant or else your major changes will not work.
Key things to do in the leverage stage
Start big, bold projects: Cross organisation

projects need leverage to make them happen and
proven ideas from iterative projects will help them to
start. The second type of big bold project changes
the organisation in a big way i.e. moving from selling
one-off transactions to subscription-based models.
Scale to new markets, location or business
areas: Any new offering you have developed needs
to be tested in new markets. Use past successes as
leverage internally go to the place you should deploy
next. Go to the next place that buys into the idea.
Attract new talent and high-value

partnerships: Build internal skills and capabilities in
Digital ways of working/technologies. External
change means you need this capability and you can
attract better partnerships if you have some
capability yourself.
How to leverage internally
People need to understand the potential of your

approach to Digital Transformation. Steps for internal
leverage:
Choose your audiences carefully

carefully: select
measurable goals, engage with them in ways
appropriate to them. It may be that you need a
speciBc manager to provide resources or another to
provide inwuence. Choose well. You may need People,
Resources (equipment, money), Access (permissions
to access customers or others), Buy in (support for
business cases).
Be effective in engaging people: be consistent
and prominent in how you engage (i.e. a single email
address for the project), have a clear call to action, be
relevant to those you engage.
Assign resources and ownership to make it
happen: ensure you have leaders accountable for
delivering components of the transformation.
Use an iterative approach to test methods: all
organisations are individual. Each will have best ways
to engage internal audiences that Bt the organisation.
Think of them as customers in terms of customised
approach.
Learn why other projects failed: learn why
unsuccessful attempts did not work. Which barriers
blocked a project?
Use ofcial recognition: awards, stories,
recognition in high proBle places.
Undertake presentations: roadshows, talks,
presentations, all about the project(s). Ensure the
roles in the team where aspirational but achievable.
Cover how the project(s) relate to the audience’s area
so they can see what the impact would be if they
started a similar project.
Create shareable assets: videos, case study write-
ups. Include some entertaining material within the
content. Make videos short. Shareable assets will
effectively communicate what the projects are all
about and how they are working. Ensure they are
cleared for external consumption as they will be
leaked.
Run events: hackathons, drop-in sessions,
workshops and tours Match the event to the
audience. Hackathons are for technical people for
example.
Create collaboration spaces: online forums and
blogs. Physical collocation spaces can be an area in
the ojce. These make the calls to action and
purpose really clear to all.
Beware self-praise when promoting

project results externally. The aim is
to demonstrate to your customers
that you are hearing them and
adapting to their needs.
How to leverage externally
Audience goals are more straightforward than internal;

the calls to action can be more direct as the politics is
not as important. Be ready to anticipate/prevent
internal backlash: a purely external focus will leave
internal staff feeling left out as they read about the
external engagements in the press rather than hearing
about it via internal presentation. Be ready to counteract
added competition and external scrutiny; real
performance improvement attracts imitators.
Competitors may market more or even cut prices to
meet the new threat you represent.
Run promotions: show how it benedts the

audience, not a self-congratulatory “look at us” show.
Run events: research the one that brings in the
precise audience you are trying to attract.
Undertake articles/interviews: be as targeted as
possible when choosing where you want your
success to be seen. Think about how permanent the
public record is.
Create digital assets: well-designed video and
material is great if the material is excellent.
Otherwise, it will be ignored.
Use HR: current job ads, information used to recruit
people
(https://www.thedigitaltransformationpeople.com/connecting-
talent/) all can show you are working in a different
way and will be noticed by the market. Customers are
employees too and they will see what you are doing
and the type of capabilities you are attracting. It is
tangential evidence of your transformation.
Successful digital transformation is a matter of know

how and access to the best talent. We connect you to
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6 – Build stage 5: Disseminate
Why disseminate?
The purpose is to drive data-driven ways of working and

decision-making into business. The aim is to connect
to customers and the outside world thereby adapting to
change and opportunity in the external market. Also, to
collaborate effectively to produce great results and
Bnally to achieve collective goals that drive internal and
external gains and help drive the organisation’s mission.
The benedts of “Bottom Up” control vs “Top

Down”
In digitally native organisations staff are empowered to

adjust the organisation to customer needs. The
Leaderships job in these organisations is to stay out in
front and spot upcoming threats and opportunities and
bring in new talent and specialist skills as required.

Digitally native and Digitally transformed organisations
are “bottom up” in style. This facilitates change to
happen easily and quickly.
Top down management control needs an organisation’s

leadership to spot changes communicated upward via
reporting, interpret actions and send out instructions.
Once those instructions have been carried out and
results occurred and feedback given, then the
organisation can see if it made the right move. This
process is simply outdated and slow.
In digitally native organisations staff

are empowered to adjust the
organisation to customer needs. The
leadership’s job in these
organisations is to stay out in front
and spot upcoming threats and
opportunities and bring in new talent
and specialist skills as required.
Creating the adaptive organisation
A wock of sparrows will change direction instantly to the

threat of an eagle. One sparrow moves, triggering a
reaction from the rest of the wock. Each sparrow knows
just how much to move and maintain distance from
each other. This is the output of a complex adaptive

system not a single dominant bird. It is the ultimate
bottom-up adaptive model.
To create a successful Adaptive organisation:
Implement Universal goals

goals: they incentivise
collaboration and eliminates competition.
Drive real-time, relevant feedback
feedback: by the time
you have created a report it is out of date. Real-time
feedback loops help people adjust their actions and
behaviours. Track behaviours of customers test new
solutions and monitor reactions. Think of “googling”
real-time data with the query you want right now
rather than waiting for reports that date as soon as
written.
Simple processes and specialist skills
skills: enable
the opportunity for people to act independently whilst
keeping within the intent of the group (like the
individual sparrow). The more descriptive and
detailed the instructions/processes then the more
likely you are to create robotic teams. Flexibility
encourages initiative.
Transformed vs Traditional Organisations
Traditional Transformed
Trait
Orgn. Orgn.
Leaders:
reward cross
Leaders: organisation
create different behaviours.
goals for each Staff: Work
area. Staff: hard to achieve
Universal Goals Only work hard overall goals as

incentivise enough to not it gains them
cooperation be criticised, reward.
stay in conBnes Cooperate with
of your silo’s others outside
goals. their skillset as
helps achieve
goals quickly.
Leaders: allow
Staff: work to
staff to self-
complex
manage and
processes.
self-organise.
Simple Work in Bxed
Staff: self-
processes and roles and
manage by
specialist skills hierarchy.
following
to enable Manage and
simple
achieving goals oversee all day
processes that
to day activities
achieve the
including
organisation’s
approvals.
mission.
Leaders:
briefed on Leaders:
internal connect to
performance changing
and external information
opportunities wows and
from traditional feedback.
reports. Staff: Enable the
Real-time
handed organisation to
feedback loops
information by adapt to real-
to enable agility
leadership on a time change.
need to know Staff: connect
basis. directly to
Feedback given relevant data

in annual HR wows. I.e.
driven customer
performance feedback.
reviews.
How to scale innovation
Disseminating transformation is about embedding the

principles that allow your initiative to have success.
Successful dissemination will see more people to
WANTING to work in a new way.
The organisation’s common goals

must resonate with people and be
mission led – how will the
achievement of the goals achieve the
organisation’s mission? The goals
must be linked to customers
changing behaviours and needs.
Disseminate by Establishing goals and rewards

for innovation
A change in mindset has taken place within the Iterative

project teams who experienced what it can do for
customers. Knowledge outside the group is now
needed. Establish 3 new operating principles for your
organisation:
Set universal goals: People need to see that the

projects are directly related to customers and an
organisation guided by Universal goals. The
organisation’s common goals must resonate with
people and be mission led – how will the
achievement of the goals achieve the organisation’s
mission? The goals must be linked to customers
changing behaviours and needs. The goals must be
contextually appropriate; posters will look like high
level, corporate market speak, unrelated to the
current reality. Instead, share the goals speciBcally
with markets you are taking them too
Prove your support for innovation: Experiment
with new technology. People need to see what
support is in place to help them achieve their role
now it is more wexible. The support must answer:
how do I access equipment, developers, designers.
How do I get training on Agile, Design thinking? How
do I engage customers? Think about the
authorisation and access you will give people.
Establish authorisation by formalising approval for
doing cross-functional work. Simplify processes for
working with external parties. Ensure that processes
are in place that when success is achieved
recognition is rewarded/communicated. Establish
access and tools and resources for innovation. They
may be centralised in an innovation lab or digital hub.
Ensure individual recognition and
accountability: People Need to know that if people
put in more effort, they will be rewarded. Innovation is
hard work so track and reward contributions. Track
individual contributions by using the iterative
approach – each team member is responsible for a
part of the project. This must be measurable and so
the employee can have a measure of what they

contributed to an iterative project. Reward hard work
– and have innovation metrics in each person’s
individual plan.
Disseminate by acting
Remove silos – scale the iterative team model:

Cross-functional teams work better than
departments of people with similar skill sets. When
teams are the right blend of skills, they are better
equipped to achieve goals.
Build adaptable processes: Make accessible the
elements that made the solution successful to help
new teams; processes, libraries of assets; code
libraries, document templates and more.
Train: When the team is ready for it or it will be
wasted.
Create open communities: ensure those
interested in building their skills can interact with
peers who have the relevant skills.
Leaders need to have the courage to

make the strategic investments that
will make the transformation work.
Investing in growth
Leaders need to have the courage to make the Strategic

investments that will make the transformation work.
This includes major platform upgrades that enable
real-time data gathering and analysis. People and new
skills: deciding which staff changes are needed. I.e.
changing an outsource team to be employees.
Automating and enhancing processes: this is the

Brst investment to make, then tackle hierarchy – the
signoffs and unneeded hurdles. Forge new
partnerships: Bnd new technology partners you don’t
yet need but will become very useful.
Scale the cross-functional team model
Start with the iterative teams: those already working on

transformation projects. Build on those teams.
Customise iterations to the nuances of your
organisation and understand approaches used by other
successful organisations.
Scale by establishing hexible systems
Flexible systems are needed for each digital discipline.

Examples of wexible systems are systems for Customer
Experience, Design, Devops and insights (see table
below).
Core principles and rules for hexible system

design
Legal and security: speciBc legal/security

parameters you must stay within. This varies with
your IT policies and regulation in the industry. Apply
to the iterative approach you are employing.
Values and culture: how your organisation wants
to be perceived by the market. Often corporate values
are in corporate speak and could in use by anyone.
So, it is around aligning your projects to what the
values really mean.
Identity and Brand: how the organisation wants to
be perceived and what should we must ensure is
embedded in all interactions with customers. What is

the personality of the organisation?
Flexible systems are about more than the IT
IT:
they rewect the needs of a market and how the
organisation will react to change.
Specialists and team members must be
involved
involved: Involve the team in establishing systems.
Systems are toolkits/resources to support the
iterative teams and they must be vested in them.
Don’t plan too far in advance
advance: create the systems
needed for your immediate innovations, not the
whole transformation.
Flexibility comes from open/modular
frameworks
frameworks: each part must be standardised and
wexible.
Consistency comes from standardisation
standardisation: this
allows your teams to customise for their projects.
Standardising is not about prescribing everything, it is
identifying the core principles.
Flexible systems need to be in place

and have Customer Experience,
Design, Devops and Insights in
scope.
Systems to
Digital Areas of
help support
Discipline work
new teams
Tips and
Engage with processes for
customers to incentivising
understand and helping

pain points. users.
Engage with Subscriptions to
Customer
customers at software for
experience
each iterative testing simple
cycle. Create prototypes.
user wow Access to an
diagrams to online platform
help to share user
developers. wows across the
organisation.
Templates and
guidelines for
creating
storyboards.
Shared asset
Translate ideas libraries and
into visuals. guiding
Interpret the principles for
brand into brand elements.
interaction Licences to
Design behaviours and design software.
layouts. Ensure Software for
Bnished creating user
solutions meet interfaces and
design animation.
standards. Platforms to
host
masterwork and
processes for
quality
checks/updates.
Libraries for
code sharing,
Identify right communities for

technologies to support.
enable solution. Platforms for
Write code to processes for
enable features documenting
and functions. features and
DevOps
Work with bug Bxing.
existing IT Software,
platforms to environments
deploy new and standards
solutions for testing and
quickly. deploying and
hosting new
solutions.
Customisable
Monitor real-
dashboards to
time data and
monitor live
detect changes
data capture.
in success of
Software,
existing
process and
offerings.
guidelines to
Gather and
capture test
interpret results
Insights data.
from
Subscriptions
effectiveness
and access to
of new
online platforms
offerings.
that can monitor
Assess the
external
wider market to
organisations to
detect signs of
monitor for
change.
change.
‘Digital Transformation’ by Lindsay Herbert is available

from Bloomsbury and booksellers worldwide
http://amzn.eu/9qfpESQ (http://amzn.eu/9qfpESQ)
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gital Transformation by Lindsay Herbert:

The Case For Digital

1. What is it really and is it worth the effort? The Digital

Join us external environments using new processes, pyramid-

centre of all you do. Use Labs, Hubs, Accelerators as What is a

The Case For Digital

Do not assume everyone Securing the

is a powerful concept, often the-internet-of-

What does REAL Digital Transformation look (https://www.thedigitaltrans

Digital Transformation is about Bnding the new

how customers engage. Internal Processes

“Digital Transformation” is now a cliché

Jargon is dangerous as it leads to mistakes. Digital

For Businesses “Digital” includes IT infrastructure,

doing web site upgrades to keep our investors happy

For a CIO that we are buying a new Customer

Digital gave power back to the individual. People can

Digital Transformation is a struggle for us

Change is an unnatural act for most of us, particularly

changing attitudes towards change itself.

Common challenges facing Digital

Staff resistance – caused by fears that machines may

Focus on the “why” not the “how” of

Target “why” not “how” with your Transformation

Be clear on the target of your Transformation. Target it

Prior to online shopping, this was achieved by

This failed as customers switched to online purchasing

The 5 Stage model: Build

This book describes a model that covers the distinctive

Bridge: Bridge the gaps between your organisation

Iterate solutions to scale.

Real transformation does have to be driven from the top.

2 – Build stage 1: Bridge

Start by looking from the outside

The reason you need transformation is due to the gaps

The reason you need transformation

There are two types of gaps

Gaps cause dijculty for organisations due to the speed

Bridging external gaps

Create awareness in your senior leadership group of the

Tips to make External Bridging easier

Gather insight from the market and from

Addressing external Gaps

Organisations are used to adapting to external

Organisations already adapt to external conditions. An

Organisations + Digital create external condition

No matter what state your organisation is today, once it

Your customers expect more

Only I get this

What I buy will

Researching the external gaps

Researching customer and consumer needs is the

Who: Involve Senior Leaders and Employees who

B) Objectives of the research

Does current customer experience match our market

Undertake secret shopper trips of your organisation.

Host events where customers can discuss with you

E) Engaging with customers: key principles

When asking a question don’t lead the response,

change rapidly. Ongoing dialogue will prevent gaps

Successful digital transformation is a matter of

Winners close internal gaps

Establishing hierarchies and standardising in order to be