Many incumbent organisations are now pursuing some form of digital agenda. Some are more focused on transforming their existing business, some are chasing new revenue sources in existing markets, and some are entering new markets with new digital models.
With these agendas typically a few years old, reality often sets in.
The initial hype has faded, projects that were launched with high expectations realise that deliverables take longer or are just harder to achieve than anticipated, and customers don’t flock to new offerings as readily as desired
This is nothing unusual, the project “hype curve” has been around for a long time and it’s no different for digital programs
What does make the difference between success and failure of a digital program, though is how an organisation responds to this reality:
- A less productive response would be to conclude that "digital didn't work" and revert to old models, shutting down the effort and shedding new capabilities such as user experience design and agile delivery mechanisms
- A more productive response is to acknowledge that change is hard and that learning is part of the process. A digital transformation is a marathon, after all, not a sprint.
One way we have been helping organisations to learn and correct is to provide periodic health checks on their digital journey, testing:
- Do we still have the right projects in our portfolio given changes in the market and given what we have learned?
- How can we accelerate projects that are on track? We are typically helping teams to accelerate these projects by more than 25%. Does the potential exist for that? Furthermore, these projects certainly need to be acknowledged, maybe celebrated
- What do we do with projects that are struggling – can we turn them around or should they be stopped after identifying lessons learned and celebrating the team for what we learned on it and for their hard work
Finally, knowing that few digital programs are perfect from the outset, wiring these health checks into your organisation to do them regularly, makes the exercise less threatening and more routine. We help your teams to build the capabilities to do this themselves.
A successful portfolio refresh can set an ordinary program up for extraordinary success. Please let us know if you’d like to talk further on this topic. You can reach us at info@pipint.com
