Har­ness­ing Change Man­age­ment for Dig­i­tal Transformation

Although dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion (DX) was already well under­way before 2019, the pan­dem­ic rapid­ly accel­er­at­ed the wide­spread adop­tion of new tech­nolo­gies in every indus­try. This includes indus­tries pre­vi­ous­ly assumed to be impos­si­ble to con­duct online, like max­imis­ing auto sales rev­enue and patience-focused dig­i­tal health­care solu­tions. Most organ­i­sa­tions under­stand the need to imple­ment a DX to recov­er and thrive in today’s digi­tised land­scape. How­ev­er, the unfor­tu­nate real­i­ty is that many DX pro­grammes fail despite hefty invest­ments and upper-level buy-in.

Forward-looking com­pa­nies need to ramp up their DX ini­tia­tives to main­tain an edge in the face of an uncer­tain future. How­ev­er, a lack­lus­tre DX won’t pro­vide the nec­es­sary val­ue to com­pete in a volatile marketplace.

The Miss­ing Ele­ment in Dig­i­tal Transformation

Iron­i­cal­ly, the prob­lem with most DX plans is not the tech­nol­o­gy, it’s the peo­ple. While you could pin­point sev­er­al fac­tors that cause most DX imple­men­ta­tions to fail, they all ulti­mate­ly come down to a fail­ure to change human behav­iour. To suc­ceed in your DX efforts, you must clear­ly artic­u­late, define, and com­mu­ni­cate the expect­ed out­comes and benefits.

Every organ­i­sa­tion has its idio­syn­crat­ic blend of needs, dynam­ics, and per­son­al­i­ties. So a suc­cess­ful DX will look dif­fer­ent for each one. There is no sin­gle dig­i­tal tool that will fun­da­men­tal­ly change your busi­ness. Instead, you need to start with a frame­work that con­sid­ers all the peo­ple, process­es, and tech­nol­o­gy in your organ­i­sa­tion and approach it from a change man­age­ment perspective.

How to Build a Suc­cess­ful Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Framework

Your company’s vision, mis­sion, and strat­e­gy will lay the foun­da­tion for your DX plan. To ensure that your DX strat­e­gy is guid­ed by and tai­lored to your organisation’s needs, it should be an over­ar­ch­ing and cohe­sive effort that incor­po­rates all aspects of busi­ness oper­a­tions. You can imple­ment your DX pro­gramme with either a PMO or a TMO.

A Project Man­age­ment Office (PMO) is a cen­tralised unit respon­si­ble for defin­ing and main­tain­ing stan­dards for project man­age­ment across an organ­i­sa­tion. A Trans­for­ma­tion Man­age­ment Office (TMO) is a sim­i­lar unit, but its focus is on lead­ing and man­ag­ing large-scale organ­i­sa­tion­al change ini­tia­tives, includ­ing dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion. Both PMO and TMO play impor­tant roles in dri­ving the suc­cess of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion initiatives.

A PMO can:

1. Define project man­age­ment stan­dards and method­olo­gies for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects, such as Agile, Water­fall, or Hybrid
2. Pro­vide project man­age­ment sup­port, such as resource allo­ca­tion, project plan­ning, risk man­age­ment, and project tracking
3. Ensure that project man­age­ment best prac­tices are fol­lowed con­sis­tent­ly across all dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion projects
4. Pro­vide a cen­tralised repos­i­to­ry for project man­age­ment infor­ma­tion, such as project plans, project reports, and project sta­tus updates 

A TMO will do every­thing a PMO does in addi­tion to the following: 

1. Devel­op a com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion strat­e­gy — aligned with the over­all busi­ness strat­e­gy — to dri­ve dig­i­tal matu­ri­ty and competitiveness
2. Lead cross-functional teams and coor­di­nate with stake­hold­ers to ensure the suc­cess­ful exe­cu­tion of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion initiatives
3. Pro­vide gov­er­nance and over­sight to ensure that dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tives are aligned with the over­all strat­e­gy and are deliv­ered on time, with­in bud­get, and to the desired quality
4. Con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor and assess the progress of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion ini­tia­tives and make adjust­ments as need­ed to ensure their success

Sim­i­lar­i­ties:

1. Both PMO and TMO are focused on dri­ving organ­i­sa­tion­al change and improvement
2. Both units work close­ly with stake­hold­ers across the organ­i­sa­tion to ensure that projects and ini­tia­tives are exe­cut­ed successfully
3. Both PMO and TMO play a crit­i­cal role in ensur­ing that projects and ini­tia­tives are deliv­ered on time, with­in bud­get, and to the desired quality

Dif­fer­ences:

1. The PMO’s focus is pri­mar­i­ly on project man­age­ment, where­as the TMO’s focus is on lead­ing and man­ag­ing organ­i­sa­tion­al change ini­tia­tives, includ­ing dig­i­tal transformation
2. The PMO is respon­si­ble for defin­ing and main­tain­ing project man­age­ment stan­dards and method­olo­gies, while the TMO is respon­si­ble for devel­op­ing and exe­cut­ing a com­pre­hen­sive dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion strategy
3. The PMO focus­es on the exe­cu­tion of indi­vid­ual projects, while the TMO focus­es on the over­all trans­for­ma­tion of the organisation

The Stages of Change Man­age­ment for a Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Strategy

Whether you choose a PMO or a TMO, you need an explic­it trans­for­ma­tion roadmap gov­erned by your autonomous PMO or TMO that can com­mu­ni­cate the need for change and fol­low through in deliv­ery. The change man­age­ment process should be cus­tomised for your busi­ness but include the fol­low­ing steps:

Define and Analyse 

Dur­ing this phase, you’ll revis­it your organisation’s vision, mis­sion, and strat­e­gy to deter­mine if it needs to be updat­ed or re-evaluated. You’ll exam­ine how your busi­ness objec­tives are linked to the DX and define what changes need to be enact­ed to fol­low your dig­i­tal roadmap.

Plan 

Once you’ve deter­mined your needs, you can cre­ate your roadmap. Dur­ing this stage, you’ll iden­ti­fy how you can imple­ment change process­es to meet your goals as well as the sched­ule, bud­get, and resources you need. Then you’ll pri­ori­tise tasks, start­ing with the ones that will cre­ate the most fun­da­men­tal change.

Imple­ment

Now it’s time to go live. How­ev­er, this isn’t the end. Quite the oppo­site — the time and atten­tion you need to devote at this point may exceed your plan­ning time to date. Con­tin­ue to mea­sure and man­age how your work­force adopts the system.

Exe­cute

This is the point when many DX efforts fail. Com­pa­nies often plan for and adopt new tech­nolo­gies but miss the essen­tial step of ensur­ing their peo­ple are ful­ly trained in using them as expect­ed. To exe­cute well, you should define the change indi­ca­tors to mea­sure the suc­cess of your DX, such as the lev­el of dig­i­tal adop­tion. Mon­i­tor these change indi­ca­tors and respond accordingly.

Con­tin­ue to Improve

After a suc­cess­ful DX, you should cel­e­brate your change. Build on this momen­tum to cre­ate an organ­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture that embraces change. The data ana­lyt­ics of your new sys­tem will show where you can improve your busi­ness oper­a­tions. And accept­ing the chal­lenge of con­tin­u­ous improve­ment will ensure you remain com­pet­i­tive despite changes in the marketplace.

A Proven Approach to Trans­for­ma­tion Management

Work­ing with a change part­ner like Reynard can sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase the val­ue you gain from your DX efforts. Our proven approach provides:

1. A com­pre­hen­sive trans­for­ma­tion pro­gram that is dri­ven by strat­e­gy to sup­port your busi­ness vision
2. Align­ment with your company’s per­ceived needs as well as your real needs to effec­tive­ly exe­cute the strategy
3. Analy­sis and plan­ning at the ini­tia­tive lev­el to ensure all the ele­ments you need for success
4. Faster incep­tion and deliv­ery of organ­i­sa­tion­al change man­age­ment initiatives
5. A trans­for­ma­tion focus that cen­tres around your core busi­ness per­for­mance and execution
6. Con­fi­dence and secu­ri­ty that your busi­ness will realise the full finan­cial ben­e­fits and strate­gic objec­tives of your DX
7. A TMO or PMO that dri­ves con­tin­u­ous improve­ment and is ready to embrace the chal­lenges of an uncer­tain future

The human fac­tor must be at the fore­front of your DX strat­e­gy if you want to scale up. And at Reynard, our exten­sive expe­ri­ence in man­ag­ing organ­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture and change has giv­en us the insight to future-proof your organ­i­sa­tion in the ever-evolving busi­ness land­scape. Talk to one of our experts today to find out how our dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion ser­vices can help you succeed.