1- Preparation

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According to the Harvard Business Review, “Most digital transformations fail. Various studies from academics, consultants, and analysts indicate that the rate of digital transformations failing to meet their original objectives ranges from 70% to 95%, with an average of 87.5%.” One of the main reasons for the unsuccessful digital transformation of organizations is inadequate planning dissemination and execution, including the absence of communications between the various teams involved in the planning ecosystem of an organization, and prioritizing technology deployment instead of user adoption through change management. By implementing a business architecture team or by enhancing your enterprise architecture team with genuine business architecture, planning dissemination and execution within the planning ecosystem of an organization will increase and a much higher percentage of business digital transformation projects will succeed. At the preparation level, business architects will make sure to complete these activities:

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• Identify a significant and strategic initial business problem,

• Find a supportive and dynamic business sponsor,

• Build a small initial business architecture team with a diversified background within your organization,

• Make sure to identify the targeted customer segment (persona) or main stakeholder of the digital transformation project,

• Find the high-level targeted strategies and/or goals that involve the selected digital transformation project, and

• Make sure to include resources for the planning and management of change within your organization.

 

If you have a supportive and dynamic business sponsor, you can expect to take 1 to 3 weeks to complete this step. Without any supportive business sponsor, stop there. The odds that you will succeed are very low.

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2- Current State Architecture

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Establishing the current state of your business and enterprise architecture of your business digital transformation project as honestly as possible and in a grounded manner in collaboration with your planning peers is essential.

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• Examine your customer (or stakeholder) journey or the value stream(s) of the targeted customer segment (persona) or main stakeholder of your digital transformation project,

• Describe the value proposition to be delivered including its product(s) and service(s),

• Identify the necessary participating internal and external stakeholders of the examined customer journey (or value stream),

• Find the required information concepts required to deliver value to the targeted customer segment (persona) or main stakeholder of the digital transformation project,

• List all enabling business capabilities that enable value to the targeted customer segment (persona) or main stakeholder of the digital transformation project,

• Assess these enabling business capabilities using appropriate KPIs (if available) or surveys,

• Enumerate all identified problematic low-performing capabilities of high priority that enable value to the targeted customer segment (persona) or main stakeholder of the digital transformation project,

• Find all current supporting applications, systems, and/or microservices supporting the identified problematic business capabilities, and

• Make sure to also enumerate the databases used by these supporting applications, systems, and/or microservices.

 

If your required subject matter experts are available, anticipate 3 to 6 weeks to achieve this step. Once you have completed the examination of the current state architecture of your digital transformation project, you can now proceed in elaborating and examining a few scenarios before delivering its desired roadmap.

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3- Desired Roadmap

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Before identifying the desired roadmap of your digital transformation project, the following activities will need to be completed:

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• Complete a detailed gap analysis of each one of your identified problematic capabilities by examining properties and by doing impact analysis,

• Identify all options and elaborate on at least two scenarios,

• Design a GANTT Chart for each scenario,

• Analyze each scenario based on key risk factors,

• Calculate selected financial ratios for each scenario,

• Include the total cost of ownership for each scenario,

• Make sure to estimate additional revenue and cost reductions for each scenario,

• Select the optimal scenario based on risk and financial analysis,

• Build a detailed version of your desired roadmap, and

• Make sure to include the organizational planning of all delivery changes that will need to occur once the digital transformation project is delivered.

 

If your required planning collaborators are available, expect 3 to 6 weeks to accomplish this step. To communicate the details of your desired roadmap, your business and enterprise architecture team will make sure to finally get involved in the planning of your agile solution delivery.

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4- Agile Solution Delivery.

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At the early planning stage of the delivery of the digital transformation project, business and enterprise architects will make sure to proceed with the following:

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• Build a detailed version of your desired roadmap,

• Examine and optimize the business process or lean value stream that operationalizes your problematic business capabilities,

• Using artifacts from your detailed roadmap, assist in the first draft of the description of the necessary epics and user stories to be fulfilled for the delivery of the digital transformation project,

• With each iteration of the delivery of the digital transformation project be ready to assist change managers in their feedback Analysis, resistance diagnostic, and elaboration of corrective actions, and

• Finally, make sure to measure financially and make aware within your organization of the success of your business digital transformation project.

 

The timeframe of the agile solution delivery portion of the digital transformation project is not a variable that can be controlled by business and enterprise architects.  Their involvement at this step will be important at the sporadic afterward. It will take usually over 3 months to complete this step.

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Executing some of the segments of these 4 steps to a successful digital transformation may represent a challenge for a business architecture team. You may want to learn at some point how to enhance your client-driven and profit-focus business or enterprise architecture team with either our workshops or consulting services.