Hi everyone!

We humans can mess up anything. But messing up a "digital transformation" is especially easy to do.

Now, if you don't work in the world of BIG PROJECTS, then let me tell you all about digital transformations ...

Digital transformations are all very exciting.

Leadership has a vision (and cash to spend). There's talk about "revolutionising work”, "driving efficiency", "customer-centricity”, and (of course) “innovation". Someone has made a snazzy PowerPoint with lots of mention of strategy and alignment, and there are pretty arrows holding hands. It's all very big and cool and everyone nods enthusiastically.

Yes, even you.

Except what isn't in the PowerPoint is that no one really understands how all the systems hang together. Or how your business processes have grown and morphed into something completely insane ("so you're doing all this in a SharePoint list?"). Or how your execs are arguing about the approach. And in the extremely rare occurrence where all of that seems largely under control, I have utterly no doubt that your vendors are in an extremely polite but absolutely ruthless fight for territory. The list of things that can (and often will) go wrong is very long.

So it's not that surprising that pretty much every transformation that I've ever been a part of has been some kind of train wreck.

Now, a couple of points before I continue: I'm not talking about my current job exactly (though we are embarking on a digital transformation so this is all top of mind). Instead, I'm talking in general. And secondly, despite how I might have made it sound, the ride can be a huge amount of fun, which is why I keep doing it!

Then again, I could just be insane.

Perfect is impossible

Doing transformation "right' is next to impossible. There are just too many things to go wrong. It is way too unlikely that you have the right leadership, it is too improbable that you have the right expertise in house, and there's little chance you have the right governance processes set up to be successful. And I'm just naming three absolutely critical things off the top of my head.

In a big programme of work like this your job becomes less about doing the "right" thing, and far more about minimising the impact of the myriad things that aren't quite "right". It's not that you're outright avoiding tech debt, you'd just be stoked to minimise the regretful spend. And you'd be absolutely correct to congratulate yourself on doing so.

What matters is progress. Celebrating small wins. Focusing on slow and steady improvements. And keeping yourself and your team sane.

A wider application

Which (finally) brings me to my actual point. 

I was thinking about "lessons learnt" from previous chaotic programmes of work and I realised that this wee thing we call "society" is basically showing all the symptoms of a bad digital transformation. And then some.

So, if you're like me and start the day with a not-actually-as sarcastic-as-we'd-like-to-pretend check that no one has blown up the world yet, well, I think the same advice applies. The methods that keep you effective at work in work chaos, also help you navigate the life choas. Which is to say: stay flexible, minimise regretful spend, focus on small progress, and – perhaps most importantly – take care of yourself and those around you.

Anyway, that's what I was thinking about this week. I hope in a very small way it helps.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this (or anything else), so do reply to this email, DM me on LinkedIn, or send me a letter via pigeon. 

I cannot tell you how much I like hearing from y'all!

And until next time, stay excellent! 💖
Hannah