My Adventures in Consulting

There are some common problems I have seen recently on digital transformation projects.   This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything that can go wrong. This list is also not exclusively the domain of the digital transformation projects only but can happen in other types of projects 1. Poor road mapping and unclear understanding of the program objectives – Not enough time may be spent early enough to truly understand the multi-year vision, develop and disseminate clear objectives/benefits to all stakeholders direct and indirect (especially if the indirect stakeholders have undue influence on the CEO).   For example I recently had a client that took almost 1 year to close the sales cycle – during that sales cycle we agreed to a 2 year multi-phase road map where B2C Web Content Management was agreed to happen in Phase 1, B2C e-commerce was in phase 2 and B2B related events (content and commerce) in Phase 3 and beyond. However once Phase 1 started there was cons...

I view change management in the Digital area through the lens of the following 5 activities 1. Process (engineering / re-engineering), 2. Org Design, 3. Training & Learning Management 4. Communications Management 5. Incentives and Adoption Management (which may or may not be part of #2 above.)   Process:   Many consulting firms can do process very well since they are familiar with it (very similar to doing any IT project and can typically be done by your existing BA's and Business Consultants).   However we need to adapt our mindsets in the digital world.   In order to truly deliver the best value for our customers we should take a comprehensive omnichannel view of the solution and also ensure that old processes and bad behaviors are not just ported over to the new world, given a coating of paint, and passed off as an improvement. At Target.com I had to ensure that the new content planning and production processes were actually BETTER...