Chapter 1Get your top team inspired and aligned

You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

—Miracle Max from "The Princess Bride"

Three elements of successful digital transformations are foundational and universal: vision, alignment, and commitment. While these elements are important in any transformation, digital and AI transformations often don't receive the same rigor when it comes to setting targets and goals. That's a classic symptom of a business that is either treating digital as a side effort or of leadership that doesn't understand digital well enough to know what's possible.

Because digital and AI transformations have an impact on so many parts of the business, investing the time to get these foundations right pays significant dividends in terms of clarity and unified action.1

Vision

Vision is both a shared understanding of what the ultimate, high-level goal of a transformation is, and its value. Vision is more than aspiration, it's the underlying “why” and acts as the company's North Star in the transformation that provides a clear destination for all the activities and solutions outlined in the roadmap. The tactical goals and objectives for teams and the missions they work on should all point toward this common vision. Some companies choose a different term, but whatever term is used, it needs to be clear and relevant for the entire business's digital and AI transformation efforts.

What makes a good vision? Strong vision statements have some common ingredients: ...

Get Rewired now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.