Mastering Digital Roadmaps

Struggling to turn digital ambition into real-world value? In this episode, we reveal a 10-step strategic framework to help corporate leaders, managers, and consultants master enterprise-scale digital transformation. From assessing digital capabilities to mapping transformation roadmaps and building compelling business cases, you’ll learn how to lead with clarity and confidence. Gain practical insights and tools rooted in the Digital Capability Framework (DCF) and BTM² methodology. 

📺 Watch transformation insights on YouTube → @cxofm

🎓 Advance your skills with expert-led courses → cxotransform.com

💼 Connect with Rob Llewellyn on LinkedIn → in/robllewellyn

Transcript

Today, I'm going to walk you through a structured approach to transformation. With digital transformation conversation at an all-time high, for anyone charged with their organisation's digital transformation journey... it can feel like drinking from the fire hose. This 10-step approach will help you develop a business-orientated digital transformation roadmap whilst demonstrating measurable value to your stakeholders.

Before we dive in, let's acknowledge a hard truth: 70% of transformations don't succeed. They result in extended time-lines, massive reductions in return on investment, poor relationships between the business and IT, and an experience that most would happily avoid. These unfortunate results often stem from a lack of transformation management capabilities - which are very different to operational capabilities.

The 10-step approach I'm about to walk you through addresses this capability issue because, regardless of company type or digital technologies... your capability maturity levels, will determine how successful your transformation will be, and the value it will add to your organisation. With digital capabilities defining the success or failure of any digital transformation, it's important to gain a good understanding of how your company already leverages digital technology.

Using a Digital Capability Maturity Model, a set of six digital capabilities are individually assessed to enable you, and stakeholders from IT and the Business, to determine the current level of digital maturity:

• Innovation Capability
• Transformation Capability
• IT Excellence
• Effective Knowledge Worker
• Customer Centricity
• And Operational Excellence

The six capabilities are made up of transformation enablers and business goals, providing the perfect opportunity for IT and the Business to collaborate from the outset. A simple heat map can be used to capture, communicate and analyse the as-is state of each of your six digital capabilities. This will result in six separate heat maps which can be transferred into radar charts to visualise your current digital maturity and plan for higher levels.

In the context of digital transformation, digital use cases are practical scenarios that describe how to reach a particular goal, namely the goal of maturing a digital capability. They help you close the gap between where your digital capabilities are now, and where they need to be. Because technology has a unique place in each of the six digital capabilities, multiple digital use cases can help companies improve each of them.

Using the results of the digital maturity analysis in step 1, you should facilitate the creation of appropriate digital use cases with a team made up of both IT and Business leaders.

• Digital use cases should consist of at least the following characteristics:
• Description
• Current Situation
• Value Proposition
• Benefits And you might also consider adding Risks.

Once you've defined your digital use cases, the impact of the transformation needs to be analysed and each digital use case will help you do this by illustrating why your organisation needs to change, and why it needs to change now. Understanding what can happen if the organisation does not change now, is also a key component of this step. Your digital use cases need to be classified according to their impact and the nature of their business and organisational changes. Some potential changes will solve problems, and some will provide innovative ways of leveraging new capabilities or opportunities.

Your digital use cases can be strategic or operational, or a combination of both:

• Strategic use cases need your attention to be focused on innovation, to gain competitive advantage
• And Operational use cases need your attention to be focused on solving problems such as reducing inefficiencies to remain competitive

Every digital use case will provide different benefits to your organisation, some of which will have enormous impact, and some that will help you solve minor issues. These all need to be prioritised by your team in order to define the priorities for your digital transformation.

You should define your priorities by assessing the business benefits and implementation costs of each use case and plot them onto a matrix like the one shown below:

• Quick Wins: These are Digital use cases that require little effort but deliver significant business benefit should be seen as quick-wins that can be realised rapidly
• Must Haves: Which are Digital use cases requiring significant implementation effort but also providing significant business benefits are key cases that require extra special transformation planning and execution
• Low Hanging Fruit: Are Digital use cases that are easy to implement but do not provide significant business benefits should only be realised if the resources are available and not required for a transformation initiative of higher priority
• and Don't Touch: Which are Digital use cases requiring significant implementation effort but with minimal business benefit should be sidelined – at least for now

After establishing a clear understanding of the benefits of your individual digital use cases, it is time to define your digital transformation roadmap, which needs to be agile enough to cope with future digital change. Consider a strategic timeframe to establish your roadmap duration. Then map the digital use cases that are candidates to develop into business cases, and then projects or programmes.

Depending on the outcomes of the previous steps, your roadmap could well be made up of digital use cases that will deliver value towards achieving improvements in ... customer centricity, effective knowledge worker, operational and IT excellence. Designing your roadmap will require input from a broad set of stakeholders so be sure to invite them to your work-shops. 

Remember that you are plotting digital use cases onto the roadmap, each of which eventually requires a business value. If you're wondering why technology projects are not being mapped, remember that transformation is about the business, so you should map the digital use cases, which provide business outcomes. Don't get tempted into creating a technology solution focused roadmap.

You need to develop a persuasive business case if you want each of your ideas to go anywhere, and your primary goal is to help people decide whether to invest resources. Business cases need to be developed for every digital use case that you would like to realise, and they should capture and describe the value of the planned investment, and how the initiative will provide a convincing return on the investment.

It's important that the benefits described in the business case should then be tracked and managed through to actual realisation... providing stakeholders at every step of the transformation journey with confidence in the decision they made to support your business case. Your business case is the vehicle that clearly demonstrates the value you are able to provide. Faced with the inevitable stakeholder dynamics, your business case needs to be water-tight and so convincing, that it would be difficult for anyone to stand in its way.

Components should include:

1. An Executive Summary
2. Business Need Statement and Analysis
3. Project Overview and Options
4. Schedule
5. Impact
6. Risk
7. Financials (Costs and ROI)
8. And a Summary of Options and Recommendation

It's essential that you use a structured approach towards your digital transformation and leverage a strategic management tool that's designed for the purpose of digital transformation.

This guide draws upon the Digital Capability Framework (DCF) which is a strategic management toolset that enables transformation executives to obtain clarity about what maturity level their organisation has in terms of six digital capabilities, what maturity level they wish to achieve, and how they plan to do that.

The DCF consists of these four building blocks:

• Digital Capabilities
• Digital Capability Maturity Models
• Digital Use Cases
• and Digital Transformation Roadmap

Each building block consists of its own tools and body of knowledge, which particularly in the case of building block 1, is extensive. While considering the latest digital technologies, it's important to keep in mind that these technologies are enablers of business transformation. When you've drafted a transformation roadmap and business cases, a business transformation management approach is required to ensure your transformation is approached in a holistic and integrated manner.

The Business Transformation Management Methodology (BTM²) integrates closely with the DCF and provides an integrated and holistic approach to the orchestration of the entire business transformation effort. BTM² is comprised of four phases known as:

• Envision
• Engage
• Transform
• And Optimise

The methodology integrates discipline-specific technical and methodological expertise from transformation-relevant subject areas. It's an extensive body of knowledge - over 300 pages - that addresses the following nine business transformation management disciplines:

• Meta Management
• Strategy Management
• Value Management
• Risk Management
• Business Process Management
• IT Transformation Management
• Project and Programme Management
• Organisational Change Management
• And Competence and Training Management

Although not detailed in our guide today, this step involves executing your transformation plan using the methodologies selected in previous steps.

Deepen your understanding through recommended reading:

1. Digital Enterprise Transformation
2. This book is a solid reference for everyone involved in digital transformation, and ideal for C-suite executives and senior managers.
3. A Handbook of Business Transformation Management Methodology 
4. This book provides the body of knowledge for the holistic and integrative Business Transformation Management Methodology (BTM²) used within the Digital Capability Framework. 
5. BTM² provides an emphasis on the balance between the rational aspects of transformation and the underestimated emotional readiness of employees to absorb and accept transformation initiatives.

So let's recap the 10 steps:

1. Digital Capabilities Assessment
2. Digital Use Case Mapping
3. Benefit Analysis
4. Business Priority Assessment
5. Digital Transformation Roadmap
6. Business Case Development
7. Strategic Management Tool Selection
8. Business Transformation Management Methodology Selection
9. Orchestrate The Transformation
10. And Acquire Knowledge

By following these steps, you'll create a business-orientated digital transformation roadmap that delivers real value to your organisation.