Digital Transformation Part 4: Navigating what comes first, and next.

In Part 3, we discussed the importance of creating a flexible strategic roadmap that aligns with your business's goals and adapts over time. Now, with your roadmap in place, it’s time to delve into prioritisation - deciding what to tackle first and ensuring the success of each initiative.

Practical Prioritisation

Prioritising large-scale digital transformation projects is a crucial task. Here are key factors to guide your decision-making process:

• Alignment with Business Objectives: Ensure each project aligns with overarching business goals. Projects that solve isolated, lower-impact problems should be deprioritised.
• Business Impact Assessment: Evaluate the potential business impact of each initiative, considering factors like revenue growth, cost reduction, time & effort saving for staff and customer satisfaction.
• Cost-Benefit Analysis: Estimate the cost-to-benefit ratio of each project, considering the potential costs of doing nothing versus the benefits of change.
• Risk Assessment: Consider technical, regulatory, and operational risks. Some high-risk projects may offer significant rewards, but they need adequate preparation.
• Resource Availability: Evaluate the time and skills available across your team. Projects that can be supported by existing resources may take precedence.
• Business Readiness: Assess your organisations maturity and readiness to implement specific changes. Projects that require extensive training or high-level buy-in may need more planning.
• Dependencies and Sequencing: Identify dependencies between projects and schedule initiatives accordingly. Factor in industry events, peak business periods, and other projects.
• BAU Impact: Assess how projects will affect BAU operations. Try to implement changes during periods of lower business activity to minimize disruptions.

Shifting Priorities

Adopt a continuous monitoring and adjustment process. Prioritisation isn’t a one-time event - it needs to be reassessed based on evolving needs, opportunities and unforseen challenges. Staying vigilant to the shifts in the factors you evaluated at the beginning, competing market forces, as well as learnings from elsewhere in your change program, will allow you to rearrange your initiatives in whatever order is most advantageous at any given time.

McDonald’s provides a good example of how continuous monitoring and adjustment can drive successful digital transformation. They didn’t just set a static roadmap; they continuously evolved their strategy to meet changing customer expectations and technological advancements. This approach allowed them to introduce innovative solutions such as mobile ordering and delivery, which significantly enhanced their customer experience and competitive edge. By staying agile and responsive, McDonald’s was able to seize new opportunities and overcome challenges effectively.

Like your roadmap, your priority list must be dynamic. The order in which you are executing change and even what you are changing must shift with every new thing you learn. If you conclude a phase of transformation having done only what you set out to at the start, in the order you laid it out then you likely have not learned enough or implemented that learning along the way.

With your initial roadmap established and your first priorities clear, business change can get safely underway, with one eye on adaptation as you go. In future articles, I’ll talk about how to implement, monitor, and refine your transformation process for continued success.