Digital Transformation Payday

CHAPTER 7Reaction Mechanisms/Process: Agile Done Wrong Can Be a Very Effective Tool of Value Destruction

Instead of working on the required ingredients of a clearly defined winning strategy (Lafley and Martin 2013)—which will be elaborated later—or getting a clearer understanding of the previously discussed reactants/scope, I have recently seen practitioners shifting more and more to focus on reaction mechanisms, that is, the transformation process.

No matter what you may hear or read otherwise, without a clear strategic vision, target state, and scope in mind, this is definitely not a winning idea. All too often, the business buzzwords of the day, like agile, hybrid, dual‐speed, or bimodal, which originated from software and IT development practices, are applied and implemented without proper understanding and without consideration of their potentially dangerous and digital transformation payday decelerating implications, when rolled out incorrectly or incompletely. I can only recommend ensuring you have carefully understood their strengths, limitations, and most importantly their prerequisites for success. Only then can you prevent the root of value destruction from strangling your digital transformation program from the outset.

Waterfall Is Not Dead Yet, But It's About to Be Retired

Before we dig deeper into these process buzzwords, let me make one thing clear based on experience: What is often disrespectfully denounced as waterfall in digital transformation practice today ...