Digital Transformation Program Management
Technology alone cannot create a Digital Transformation (DT) Strategy that will lead to sustainable business growth. There must be IT alignment with a market-driven DT business strategy that defines the mission, goals and roadmap for business service implementation. IT must have a shared DT mission with the business. There must be an understanding of how IT and business goals intersect and how IT will facilitate the implementation. Yet many IT organization have an internal view of digital transformation, such as a mobility or a cloud strategy and process change such as DevOps and Agile methodology, which leads to project discontinuity and a lack business alignment. A DT should be thought of as a program with a roadmap and many projects along the journey.
Many IT organizations have a Program Management Office (PMO) that can be leveraged to establish the standards for project and portfolio management to run a DT as a program. The digital transformation and modernization of platforms and IT capabilities in can be managed the context of a Digital Program Framework. The Digital Program Framework consistently manages the transformational projects through a standard methodology while ensuring the projects are aligned with the overall transformation program and business goals. These goals typically include improving digital customer experience , business capabilities and operational excellence through IT systems while improving IT Agility within the software development lifecycle and operations with capabilities for Continuous Integration/ Continuous Test and DevOps.
Within the DT Program Framework, goals and objectives need to be clearly articulated through a transformation roadmap with a communications plan. Project managers must be aligned to the roadmap and have clear lines of responsibility to coordinate people, processes, and tools for program resource management, accountability, quality assurance, financial forecasting, and program efficiency.
The following steps outline steps to create the DT Program Framework:
Roadmap and Executive Support
The first step in establishing the transformation PMO is gaining executive and management support. It is necessary to establish a transformation roadmap that captures the vision of the transformation and the people, process and technology changes needed to get there. The transformation potentially requires organizational change management with regard to roles and responsibilities.
Determine the Structure and Build the Team
The next step in building a transformation PMO is to determine the structure and develop the team. There is no prescriptive structure for the PMO. It is crucial to establish a structure that works well within your existing organizational structure, culture and software development lifecycle.
Develop and Document Standards
Once the structure and team members have been defined the PMO standards, practices, and methodologies for project management must be established. For digital transformation, it is recommended to start with activities such as customer journey maps and a technology assessment to discover current state, gaps in technology capabilities and user experience goals.
Reference architecture and IT standards are required for the digital platform. Customer experience, mobile, cloud and integration platforms must work together in a standardized way. For example, standards must be established for cloud governance to ensure security and compliance with industry regulations.
Identify Skills and Train the Staff
Once the development of project management standards and methodologies is complete, the PMO must define the maturity goals and training plans needed to reach process and staff maturity.
Measure Success and Continuously Improve
Once the PMO structure and processes are defined and communicated the Key Performance Indicators (KPI) must be defined, monitored and improved to meet the digital transformation goals. KPIs should include measures and benchmarks for business capabilities (such as ability to innovate) and IT (such as Agile and DevOps maturity).
Managing Transformation Work-Streams
The transformation program should be managed as a portfolio of individual projects with business milestones, technical and financial goals.
Without business alignment new technology like cloud computing and a mobile platform lack the continuity of a well-planned Digital Transformation and will not yield the desired business goals. Consider using a DT Program Framework and the PMO as the means to align IT with the business and run the DT as a true program.
Join our webinar on May 23rd to hear more on how to apply this framework to your digital transformation.
