Three Pillars of Digital Transformation

A while ago I wrote on Driving Towards Digital Transformation in Federal Government with a focus on background, legislative landscape, and timing. Now, I would like to circle back with a slightly different message of highlighting the three pillars on which (IMHO) the success of the Digital Transformation can be built and sustained.

First, let's rehash a couple of things - Definition (credit to i-SCOOP, well put):

Digital Transformation – is a profound transformation of business and organizational activities, processes, competencies and models to fully leverage the changes and opportunities of a mix of digital technologies and their accelerating impact in a strategic and prioritized way.

And a quick reminder that while we use Technology as a catalyst for transformation, there are other parts of equal, if not higher, importance - like People, Policy, and Process:

This leads us to a - Problem Statement:

Technology and organizations are typically govern by a different rate of change.

Martec’s Law: Technology changes exponentially, Organizations change logarithmically

Which, in turn, helps us formulate a - Solution:

Make sure that all parts of your Digital Transformation strategy (i.e. People, Process, Policy, Technology) are moving in lockstep.

Be very careful to avoid a solutionism trap when technology goes from being a catalyst, a means to an end, to becoming an end in itself. Remember that technology solutionism creates new problem without solving old ones.

This will help when addressing issues related to the uncertainty of change, the widening skill-set gap, as well as when tackling difficulties with adopting and making effective use of new technologies.

And what are the three disciplines to help us with that?

1. Organizational Change Management
2. Workforce Development
3. Service Adoption

And these are the Three Pillars of Digital Transformation!