Part 3 of 3: How to Ensure a Successful Digital Transformation Journey By: Kathy Kent Toney, President of Kent Business Solutions How many of you have implemented a major piece of new software, and in the end, you never really found out that it was worth your investment? Unfortunately, too many companies often fall into this category. There’s definitely a better way to measure project success! So, what are the best practices around that? It’s different for each company, depending on a number of variables:
There are a number of best practices, but often the best measure is the answer to the following question: Did the project meet the objectives that were established for it? But let's back up a bit. Before you can even answer this question, you'll obviously need to establish these objectives. To do that, there are several things you'll want to look at. First, it’s important to determine what the tangible and intangible success criteria will be for the project. There are three areas, or factors, to look at:
There are other factors as well: monetary, governmental and environmental. For now, let’s just look at the top three: 1. People There are several aspects to measuring success with the People piece. Having solid answers to the following questions is a great way to start:
The answer to this last question is key; overall acceptance of the future state is essential for success, once the transition is completed. You may meet all of your integration goals, but true success is based on acceptance, period. If it's not accepted by people that are using it, then there is no success. 2. Process The Process factor boils down to efficiency goals that you projected at the beginning. Once the project is complete, ask yourself these questions:
Knowing these answers is invaluable! For instance, if “no” answers have cropped up, this could indicate a need to revisit what you’ve implemented. Perhaps further improvements could be made to get closer to a “yes” on these questions. 3. Resources This really comes down to an impact that is both tangible (money) and intangible (time). When reviewing your resource goals, here are some questions to ask:
This last question is the biggest factor to look at. A deeper dive into the results could yield lessons learned that you can apply to future projects. And that leads into the next discussion point… The Importance of Feedback Loops Measuring outcomes is optimal when all three—People, Process and Resource factors— are integrated for creating feedback loops. This helps ensure that these lessons learned go into future digital design and change processes within the organization, to help achieve more positive outcomes in the future. When organizations do this, it becomes an overarching recipe for success. For example, you might receive some feedback that better process analysis was needed on the project, that if done properly, would have lessened automation rework. Or you may have learned that speaking more in-depth with someone on their role prior to the project would have also decreased rework. Being diligent with implementing feedback like this on future projects will result in other benefits as well—better forecasting of the People, Process and Resource factors. That in turn brings you back to square one—an increased ability to stay on track with budget and schedule. When it’s all said and done, ensuring you have a robust process in place to measure success will help an organization get better and better, over and over again, at everything they do. And who doesn’t want that! If missed on on the two previous blogs in this three-part series, check these out:
***** Interested in learning more about best practices on measuring success? If so, Michael Cantu’ of Accelerate and I would love to talk with you! Click here to get a time on our calendars.
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