While approaches such as CX, Agile, DevSecOps, and a bunch more grab the headlines, and quite often only serve to further confuse Directors and Executives, don’t be afraid to get back to the nuts and bolts of business operations and talk about processes.
Ultimately a digital transformation must deliver a set of business outcomes that, to be sustainable, will require fundamental changes to the way your business operates.
Business operations at their core are delivered through a series of business processes, which are a set of activities performed in a sequence, either automatically or manually, with decisions made along the way shaping which path the activity takes next. Your digital transformation may automate many processes, but they still need to be mapped out, discussed and debated, and ultimately documented and described in a way that anyone in your organisation can understand at a glance.
Despite the advancements in modelling processes and the tools we can use, developing and ultimately publishing business processes is hard. Key processes will most likely cross multiple teams in an organisation. Teams that have different reporting lines. You will be trying to standardize ways of working in an organisation used to be autonomous and doing things ‘their way’.
When reviewing your organisation’s digital transformation, don’t avoid the conversation about business processes. It may not be in vogue, but it is the nuts and bolts that, done well, will increase the likelihood of sustained success once the program has packed up and gone home.
Has sufficient time and resources been allocated to developing and implementing your future business processes?