Digital Transformation Step 5: Digital Strategy / Roadmap Implementation
To successfully implement the digital roadmap, organizations should therefore utilize three management concepts:
- Project management: the planning, monitoring and execution of the entire digital roadmap, including its individual initiatives and projects.
- Change management: actively guide, communicate and support organizations and their employees in the change process of digital transformation.
- Digital leadership: inspiring employees in the digital age with a people-centered leadership and rewarding corporate culture.
Project management encompasses the planning, monitoring, control and completion of a project. It also regulates all the steps that are necessary to achieve the project goals. Project management systems regulate the appropriate procedure. This requires role descriptions (e.g. project leadership), methods (e.g. project control), templates (e.g. project status report), process descriptions (e.g. for the handover of work packages), and management systems (e.g. ISO 9001 or 27001).
Change management is a process for preparing and implementing organizational change. The more strategies and projects change the basic conditions in the organization, the more the managers and employees must change as well. Change management is an instrument for steering change processes in the organization in which stakeholders are actively involved. A change management process often includes strategies to help teams implement an organizational change step-by-step, introducing the change as a pilot project in one part of the organization or to ensure support for key stakeholders before introducing a new initiative.
Digital transformation requires a new leadership culture. In particular, increasing digitalization requires a stronger focus on people in order to get employees excited about the digital roadmap. If you want to convince and motivate your team, you need to develop a collaborative leadership style:
– instead of domination and control, digital leadership is about networking and trust.
– instead of demanding performance, options are offered. Digital leaders should see themselves, first and foremost, as facilitators, mediators and networkers.
The focus should increasingly fall on people and on their needs. It is important to establish consistent corporate values and a corporate culture that offers trust and security. This is one of the core tasks of digital leadership. It serves to create an environment that builds team spirit, shows them the common goal and, at the same time, leaves enough room for self-development.
In the next and final blog post, a summary of digital transformation development and implementation steps and tools will be provided – together with the success metrics for digital strategies.
Strategy questions for the digital age:
1: Did your organization proactively identify and address implementation barriers and risks?
2: Do frameworks/plans for the three implementation success factors of project management, change management and digital leadership exist?
3: How does your organization support cultural change and digital skills development?