A robust framework can help you keep your digital transformation on track and connect your progress to business objectives

When it comes to digital transformation, a thorough strategy is only the beginning. You may already know what you plan to digitize and when. You may have designed digital workflows to replace your analog ones. You may even have goals, timelines, and executive buy-in. But once the process gets started, you need a way to track your progress, maintain your momentum, and achieve goals. A digital transformation framework can help.

There are two key components of an effective digital transformation framework: performance infrastructure and change management. The first helps to keep your transformation on track and moving forward. The second helps ensure meaningful, lasting change. This guide will help you design and implement both so you can reap the benefits of digital transformation.

Find the best next steps for your company in Digital Transformation: A Guide for Modern Businesses.

Building performance infrastructure

McKinsey defines performance infrastructure as the people, processes, and tools that lead to a successful transformation that delivers true value. Here’s how those three pillars work together.

People

First, you’ll need a team to direct and power your transformation. This transformation office (TO) should include high-level executives with the power to cut through red tape. Analysts from your finance and human resources departments can provide additional insight and support. This office will be the brain controlling your transformation. They will monitor transformation progress, compare it against your goals and benchmarks, and decide if and when any adjustments need to be made.

Consider hiring a chief transformation officer (CTO) to guide your organization through this time of change. If you hire them from outside the business, they’ll be able to view everything with fresh eyes. That can enable them to make tough, even drastic decisions where necessary.

Process

Digital transformation can affect —and potentially slow — every aspect of your business. For yours to succeed, it needs to work quickly and preserve its momentum. A rapid and rigorous meeting cadence can help your transformation team build and maintain that speed. That means meeting at least once a week for each workflow you’re transforming, plus another weekly meeting dedicated to an overview of the process.

Workflow meetings should keep stakeholders up to date on progress. They are also an opportunity to raise issues that employees have run into in the course of the transformation. The team can then make decisions about how to respond.

Overview meetings are where you can zoom out to a bird’s-eye view. They should aggregate the information from all workflow meetings and tie it back to overall progress and bottom-line business outcomes. The CTO and the rest of the transition office can use that to make big-picture decisions about how to adjust the transformation process.

Transition office meetings can be challenging, as different stakeholders may bring different priorities to the table. It’s critical that the CTO listen to all sides to maintain everyone’s buy-in. At the same time, the CTO must be willing to set their own priorities, answer tough questions, and outline a clear path moving forward — even when that means disagreeing with others.

Participants should approach meetings with complete honesty and transparency. Combining that with the frequency of meetings can promote closed-loop accountability. Fewer concerns will fall through the cracks, and more issues will be addressed in a timely fashion. The result should be a more complete and cohesive digital transformation.

Tools

Finally, you’ll need tools to track and report on your progress. The exact tools will vary from business to business, but here are a few broad categories that can be helpful:

• Survey tools for gauging employee sentiment around the transformation
• Project management tools to plan and track the progress of individual initiatives.
• Value capture models to determine how your digital transformation initiatives have contributed to business results.

Rather than sift through the raw data these tools produce, look for the ability to generate reports. These will make it much easier to understand your progress at a glance. By improving the accessibility of your data, you’ll power better-informed decision-making.

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Managing change

Digital transformation is about more than adopting new technologies and processes. It’s also about changing how your employees use and think about their tools. Working in one way for a long time can instill not just habits, but mindsets. These old mindsets can make it difficult for employees to see how their new tools help them succeed. For example, automatically collecting extra client information won’t help a sales team that’s never used that information before. They may not know how to leverage that info, and as a result, the business won’t see a strong return on investment.

McKinsey has identified four things employees need to shift their mindsets:

• Role models, in the form of leadership and other employees, for how they should behave and approach their tools.
• Understanding of what’s being asked of them and why.
• Confidence in the new skills they’re being asked to develop.
• Positive reinforcement of desired behavior. This can be delivered through bonuses, gifts, special shoutouts, and more.

No digital transformation model is complete without addressing how employees think and feel. Pay special attention to the feedback they give their managers to ensure they're along for the ride. You can review that feedback during workflow meetings, analyze it in your transition office meetings, and respond accordingly. Doing so can make you four times more likely to succeed in your digital transformation.

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Power your digital transformation framework with Ricoh

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