Are You REALLY Doing Digital Transformation?

How do you know if you are really doing digital transformation?

What are the telltale signs of a company that thinks it is doing DX, but is really just executing a series of technology projects, without any transformation of the business?

I was asked these questions recently by Mary K. Pratt, who talks every day to leading CIO’s around the world—many of whom, I suspect, fall on either side of this dividing line.

Our conversation got me thinking about what I have seen in many organizations around the world, where a lot of work takes place under the banner of “Digital Transformation,” but it looks nothing like my own definition of DX.

After Pratt and I spoke, I came up with the following list of 10 questions to help you judge for yourself…

Are you doing digital business-as-usual?

Or… are you doing digital transformation?

10 Questions to Ask Yourself

1. IT vs. Business

Is your DX being led by the IT function?

Or is it led by the business, in partnership with IT?

2. Technology vs. Strategy

Are DX workstreams organized around the technologies you plan to deploy?

Or is your DX organized around problems to solve for customers and the business?

3. Maturity vs. Business metrics

Are you judging your DX based on digital “maturity metrics”?

Or are you measuring DX with business metrics, based on a business theory of how DX will generate value for your firm?

4. Digitalization vs. New Growth

Are you investing only in digital projects that optimize the efficiency of your current business?

Or are you looking for digital to drive new growth in your core and beyond your core?

5. Big projects vs. Small bets

Are senior leaders picking a handful of large digital projects to plan and then implement?

Or are you placing bets on many ideas, using small teams to rapidly test which work in the market, and only then deciding what initiatives to scale up?

6. Planning vs. Iteration

Are you spending a long time developing a plan for digital that you expect to follow closely?

Or are you defining a clear vision of what you seek to achieve, while staying flexible and constantly iterating on plans for how you will achieve it?

7. Technical skills vs. Talent

Are you focused solely on finding people with the technical skills to support DX?

Or are you looking for people with diverse skills, backgrounds, and the mindset to drive change in the organization?

8. Top Down vs. Bottom up

Is your DX effort being planned entirely from the top by a digital leadership team?

Or are you organizing your DX to surface and support ideas for digital initiatives that come from your business units, your front-line employees, and your functions like HR, compliance, and marketing?

9. Project vs. Journey

Is your DX defined as a project with start and end dates, and a distinct budget of its own?

Or is DX a long-term journey that will influence your allocation of resources and people across the organization?

10. Knowing what to expect

Do you believe the biggest barriers to your DX will be legacy technology and funding your IT?

Or do you expect the bigger barriers to DX will be legacy culture, mindset, and old ways of working?

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Bonus Reading

You can read Mary K. Pratt’s article on CIO.com, which weaves in some of my questions, along with observations from CIO’s in leading companies.

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NYC Book Launch!

Attention, New Yorkers!

This is your last week to register for my book launch event at Columbia Business School at 5:30pm on Wednesday, October 4^th. Only a few seats remain.

▶▶ REGISTER for free at https://bit.ly/DXR-book-launch

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Keep in touch

That’s it for this week. I look forward to seeing you all next week.

Please feel free to comment, or to hit reply to this email.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and learn from your experiences driving change.

See you soon!

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