Monster Transformation

Chapter 6Enter the Test Kitchen

“Digital transformation doesn’t come from a pricey PowerPoint deck. It comes from tirelessly iterating, testing and learning every single day from the inside out.”

—Brian Schwartz, Co-founder of SIZE

Transformation is filled with unknowns. Known unknowns and unknown unknowns. How will different work models impact corporate culture, productivity, and worker satisfaction? What happens if we develop the wrong product? What happens if we develop the right product for the wrong market? Or the right product and market, but our customers don’t know how to use it properly? Every company is in a continuous state of transformation, some purposeful, some unintentional. Even going out of business is a kind of transformation. There are large-scale transformations that impact the entire organization and others that impact only a group, division, or process. In this book, we have identified several monsters (barriers) that hinder successful transformation efforts.

The Lackadaisical Monster is clearly present when companies become complacent and set in their ways. Transformation occurs when needed and usually never at scale. Organizational learning might be done to check off a box to meet an industry standard or requirement or provide training to enable a new application, process, or tool, but it’s not systematic across the organization. There is no time ...