- How can I be agile and innovative yet maintain my corporate process?
- What about the risks, regulators and the compliance policies and procedures?
- What about my competitive advantage and intellectual property? What if my competitors will steal my ideas?
In this post, we
review how using world class project management frameworks can help you to
adapt your business strategy to deliver better results for your digital
business initiatives, independently of your company size or business sector – Keep
in mind that the definition of digital business is fluid and in constant state
of evolution.
We have an avalanche
of information that demonstrates how the digital business is changing, creating
and destroying some companies (in all sectors), and it is very clear that if
you don’t adapt your traditional mindset, strategy, people, operations, process
and methods, you may become that MBA case of how a company did not survive one
more change in the new business ecosystem.
The digital
transformation change can happen in the blink of an eye. Several years ago, the
changes and innovations came from the inside to the outside (companies -> customer).
When new products were created their movement into the market involved a slow
process and the customer input was not considered to be important.
However, now changes
and innovation come from the customer to the companies (customer ->
companies) in a crowdsourcing is a customer driven model and from creation to launch
happens in the blink of an eye.
According to Mr. Peter
Sondergaard, Senior Vice President at Gartner and Global Head of Research: “Every
Business Unit is a Technology Startup”.
“38% of
total IT spend is outside of IT already, with a disproportionate amount in
digital. By 2017, it will be over 50%,”
Mr. Sondergaard said. “Digital startups
sit inside your own organization, in your marketing department, in HR, in
logistics and in sales. Your business units are acting as technology startups.”
Gartner estimates that
50% of all technology sales people are actively selling directly to business
units, not IT departments. Millions of sales people, and hundreds of thousands
of resellers and channel partners are looking for new money flows in the fluid
digital world, and they are finding eager buyers. Although most of the
information that we read and receive from digital business is focused in two
main areas:
1.
Strategy: The model below is one good example of how to drive and build a
digital strategy plan by Forrester Research.
2.
Execution Level: Agile methods are not new and agile project
management, lean product management and agile software development practices
must be applied to drive innovation and constantly renew your business model. The
image below represents one example.
From digital strategy
to agile execution we must include one important piece; how to manage projects
and programs for digital businesses. The key question is how to create the
bridge between this TOP (Strategy) -> DOWN (Agile) and maintain the digital
transformation initiatives running (projects and product development).
We work in a world of
change and reinvention, more so than creation. As digital business demands that
professionals and companies adapt quickly, we too should be able to transform
our classic ideas and methodologies in order to deliver products and services
that will delight our customers.
But how do we deliver
digital business projects using the best practices of project management? How
do we connect the pieces? STRATEGY ->
PLANNING AND CONTROL -> EXECUTION.
Considering the main areas for any project,
let’s evaluate some important points for digital business initiatives.
1.
Project Integration Management :
a.
Definition: Processes and activities needed to identify,
define, combine, unify, and coordinate the various processes and project
management activities within the Project Management Process Groups.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: Digital business projects demand two key
actors; customers and companies that engage in the delivery and provision of
continuous feedback. Your integration process should exploit the boundaries of
your company. The link between the internal company value chain, digital value
chain and your ecosystem is crucial.
2.
Project Scope Management :
a.
Definition: Project Scope Management includes the
processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required,
and only the work required, to complete the project successfully.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: The goal is to
plan and design change continuously and in small cycles by using the adaptive
project life cycle, also known as change-driven or agile methods. These
concepts are intended to facilitate change, but require a high degree of ongoing
stakeholder and customer involvement. The scope priority must be to use a mix
of customer value added benefits (not product features), customer journeys,
innovation and technology disruption.
3.
Project Time Management :
a.
Definition: Project Time Management includes the processes
required to manage the timely completion of the project.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: It is fundamental to establish small cycles
for project completion. Most of the components of your project will not have a
clear timeline or a deadline, so define a control mechanism that will identify
the next customer interactions based on the feedback.
4.
Project Cost Management :
a.
Definition: Project Cost Management includes the processes
involved in planning, estimating, budgeting, financing, funding, managing, and
controlling costs so that the project can be completed within the approved
budget.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: The cost is a complex aspect and must be considered
in methods of pricing, buying integrated in your project / product. You can
have SaaS platform to deliver your project (i.e. slack). On the other hand,
PaaS platform is crucial to deliver your product / service. A mix of several
pricing and purchasing models must be considered, such as: T&M, Value
Added, Fixed Price, Pay Per Use, etc.
5.
Project Quality Management :
a.
Definition: Project Quality Management includes the
processes and activities of the performing organization that determine quality
policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the
needs for which it was undertaken.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: Quality is
the key pillar. Time is negotiable, but quality never is. It is fundamental to define
quality with our final customer and expect continuous change in the quality
criteria, as soon as your product begins to evolve. It is crucial to be
outstanding in your user experience and customer journey in all channels.
6.
Project Human Resource Management :
a.
Definition: Project Human Resource Management includes the
processes that organize, manage, and lead the project team.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: In the
digital business world, the traditional organizational charts are not enough. Informal
and social connections maps play a key role. You have to consider these
connections as you develop your project.
7.
Project Communications Management :
a.
Definition: Project Communications Management includes the
processes that are required to ensure timely and appropriate planning,
collection, creation, distribution, storage, retrieval, management, control,
monitoring, and the ultimate disposition of project information.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: Feedback and
small cycles of communication should involve visual interactive material rather
than e-mails, long presentations (be simple). Tools such as SLACK will help to consolidate all the
tools that a digital team will demand for project.
8.
Project Risk Management :
a.
Definition: Project Risk Management includes the processes
of conducting risk management planning, identification, analysis, response
planning, and controlling risk on a project.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: Risk must be evaluated from the perspective of
an opportunity, lesson or at least a possibility. Create risk cycles to
reevaluate the project, deliveries and products. You must integrate the risk of
the customer expectations.
9.
Project Procurement Management :
a.
Definition: Project Procurement Management includes the
processes necessary to purchase or acquire products, services, or results
needed from outside the project team
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: The
procurement process must be incremental and defined in small cycles according
to what you are planning to deliver. You could have mixed models such as: SAAS,
premises, startup and revenue share.
10.
Project Stakeholders Management :
a.
Definition: Project Stakeholder Management includes the
processes required to identify all people or organizations impacted by the
project, analyzing stakeholder expectations and impact on the project, and
developing appropriate management strategies for effectively engaging
stakeholders in project decisions and execution.
b.
Digital
Business Nuances: Includes one-on-one interviews and focus
groups with a company's external stakeholders, with a goal of understanding
external stakeholders behaviors, needs, goals and perceptions of the company
and their industry both in the broadest business context as well as
specifically online. In addition to standard marketing strategy methodologies
and questions, external stakeholder interviews for Digital Strategy may include
usability testing, an analysis of how effectively external stakeholders can use
the online assets developed by a company for their intended purposes. In digital
strategy this is used to uncover usability barriers that may prevent the online
vision being achieved.
In the past we created
methods, procedures and control processes to govern and mitigate the risk of
big company projects and operations. The digital business is not intended to
crash these methods, but the companies and professionals will be challenged to
adapt faster these models in increasingly smaller periods of time, so we must build
new communication processes and frameworks that are tailored to change at a speed
of a chameleon, not in speed of a snail.
Adapt or die? or Die
fast and learn?
"Everything
we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we
see."
I will enjoy hearing from the LinkedIn community about their digital business initiatives.
It is an enormous pleasure to have you read our post and provide some
feedback. Please feel free to connect.
[Photos and References: Forrester,
Gartner, The Dictator, ThoughtWorks]
