A Digital Transformation Maturity Ladder Model
When it comes to digital transformation, a lot of disciplines need to come together. This is complex. They don’t all seem to come together from the start. There seems so be some kind of evolution in digital transformation in which an organization goes through phases, insights, crisises. There seems to be a ladder that needs to be climbed in which progressive insight leads to new challenges. I look at this from a designer’s perspective. Design can add a lot of value on this journey. But not all steps are equal and if I look at these phases, I see design offering value in different ways in the different phases. But before I dive into the ways design can add value in all these phases, I wanted to check if this ladder of digital transformation makes sense to you. So please have a look at it and let me know if this is an adequate representation of the journey that digital transformation is.
Here is the model I came up with until now:
The digital transformation ladder model consists of 7 stages that are all categorized by a view of the world. It builds up, so you take the insights from one stage with you to the next until you reach the top of the ladder and digital transformation is complete. Let me just quickly walk you through each stage.
Stage 1: digitization
What I see around me is that digital transformation typically starts with the idea that it’s about technology. So the first thing most organization tend to do is focus on technology. Practically this means digitization of existing products and services. Existing platforms or custom built technology is used to create a new version of products and services that can be accessed and or used through digital technology. Benefits are scaleability, efficiency and new opportunities for business transactions.
This is a technologic way to see digital transformation.
Stage 2: user experience
The next insight that I see coming up after this phase is that the user experience of the digital products and services is crucial to its success. Simply digitizing is not enough. The bar for the user experience is high and getting higher by the minute. Standard, out of the box applications are typically not enough to differentiate the offering and create a competitive advantage. They offer general middle of the road experiences that can be good for a lot of purposes. But creating an engaging value proposition often requires a custom user experience design. The benefits here are a competitive value proposition.
This is a user experience design way to look at digital transformation.
Stage 3: assumptions
Creating an engaging user experience at first seems to be about a beautiful user interface. But the next stage is defined by the insight that that is not enough. Typically a lot of assumptions are made that don’t necessarily are true for users. Even a beautifully designed user interface can fail if it doesn’t solve fundamental user needs in a meaningful way. In this stage, organization start to question their assumptions and testing them to arrive at more engaging solutions.
This is the lean startup way to look at digital transformation.
Stage 4: processes
The next stage is about humans. Not just the users, but also the people working in the organization. In this stage, organization recognize that delivering state of the art user experiences requires the people working on that delivery to have a flexible mindset, a prototyping mindset, a minimal viable product mindset, a cross-functional mindset, a user-centered mindset. Processes like Agile are great ways to instill these mindsets and create the needs for people to develop new skills. Without the right processes in place to create the necessary mind- and skill-sets, delivery of excellent digital products and services is not possible. The organization starts to change. Typically this starts in innovation projects.
This is the Agile way to look at digital transformation.
Stage 5: strategy
In this stage, organizations learn that digital strategy is not something you can think up and implement top-down. The possibilities and impossibilities of technology needs to influence the strategy. The learnings from the user research and the agile projects needs to feed into the strategy. Strategy, tactics and operations needs to flow into each other for digital transformation to work. To leverage digital technology, strategy has be emergent. Not based on assumptions but on actual insights that come from doing projects. Feedback loops need to include adjusting the strategy. In this phase, strategy becomes something that is designed in iterations, constantly being re-designed based on progressive insight.
This is the strategic design view on digital transformation.
Stage 6: continuous state
At some point, organizations realize that digital transformation is not a project or a collection of projects but a continuous state. The new reality asks for constant adaptation, not a one-time change. The organization needs to constantly learn and adjust.
This is the learning organization view on digital transformation.
Stage 7: digital core
Finally, organization realize that in order to flourish in the new reality of the digital world, digital needs to be at the core of the organization. To make the best use of the possibilities of digital technology, the organization needs to be re-designed around technology and not the other way around. Digital native companies don’t need digital transformation because they are designed around digital technologies. For non-digital-native organizations this is the state they have to achieve. It’s no longer thinking up what you want to do and then figure out how digital technology can support that. The winners in the digital game start with the opportunities of digital technology and figure out how they can succeed in existing business sectors. Businesses like Uber, AirBnB and Spotify are not technology companies. They are transport, travel and music companies but with technology at the heart. And that makes all the difference. They organize around digital technology. They are digital at the core.
This is the business design view on digital transformation.
Feedback?
Does this make any sense? Does this model create a valid framework to think about and organize digital transformation? This is a first sketch that I want to use as a framework to think about how design can add value to digital transformation journeys.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, don’t forget to hit the clap button so I know I connected with you. Let me know what you think in the comments. I will dive deeper into the topics of Design Leadership in upcoming articles. If you follow me here on Medium, you will see them pop up on your Medium homepage. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn to see new articles in your timeline or talk to my bot at dennishambeukers.com :) You can also find me on Instagram.
