5 Failure modes you need to think about before engaging on a Digital Transformation

A few weeks back I was sitting in a room full of Executives who wanted to know more about Digital Transformation and Critical Success Factors. It had been a long day and there had been a good level of debate, some good and some bad.

At one point in the discussion the subjects of Lean, Agile and DevOps were being raised and this is when it happened: ? Lean does not work outside manufacturing ? said an Executive. Not being afraid of the debate I asked a simple question: ? Have you tried Agile and DevOps? ? and to my surprise the answer was ? Yes ?. At that point I then simply said ? OK, so what you are saying is that you failed? ? What followed was an interesting list of examples of why Lean had not worked and examples of why Agile and DevOps were working… I don’t know if I will ever do business with this Executive but he certainly left the meeting having reflected deeper. 

Tools & Techniques vs Principles & Mindset

So why did he fail but, more importantly, why should he try again? Well, quite simply he took a Lean for Manufacturing book, liked what he read and then asked a Lean for manufacturing specialist to help him ? do Lean ? at his Organisation and here is Failure No 1: Lean is not a set of tools and techniques, it is a set of principles. Such principles are exactly the same as for Agile and DevOps and it is no surprise since both methods are just the application of Lean Principles within the Development of prototypes and Operational deployment of IT solutions.

Tactical vs Strategical

His second failure comes from the fact that he used Lean tools to fix problems. ? Why is that a failure ? I was asked. So here comes the answer: his approach was tactical. Without definition of Breakthrough ambitions the improvements made only removed defects that should not have been there in the first place. Unless you adopt some kind of ? Double the good and halve the bad ? attitude you only end up with 2-5% improvements across your value stream even if you get a 30% improvement in parts of it.

Do what I say, not what I do

When asked about his role and that of his management team we brought up Failure mode No3: ? Lean is something others do, not my team ? syndrome. If Lean is a set of principles and if Organisation aspire to become Lean then this can only happen if everyone inside an Organisation behaves in the same way. Toyota is not the only organisation that developed a holistic or ? Business System ? approach to running their Business. Look up organisations like Danaher, Ingersol Rand, Vossloh and you will see Organisations that are outpacing their competitors because they have moved away from the General Electric-like Lean or Lean Six Sigma programs that die once their inspirational leader has moved on.

Business has moved on

At this point in the conversation we got to Failure No 4 when this Executive agreed with someone saying, ? But Lean is old hat, it’s all about robotisation so we can skip the Lean step ?. At that point I asked the audience how many Organisations had embarked on a robotisation spree. OK, roughly 20% of the people in the room raised their hands. My next question brings it home: ? How many are satisfied with how it’s going? ? and here only a handful of hands still raised? ? Just because you have the next best thing does not mean you will be the next best thing ?: Look at the Airline Industry and long distance travel : Most companies have Boeings and Airbus planes and yet there are massive differences in Customer Satisfaction and profit levels. When asked why it was working for some and not for others it transpires that those who took a process approach realised their processes needed to be simplified before being automated. We did not build motorways and railway lines thinking about how yo carry something on your back so why would you build a digital business using manual thinking? When it is recognised that over 70% of process activities are non-value added, why would you want to digitise that? 

Forget what else flows

Failure mode No 5 is tricky to identify but once you do it all makes sense: I asked this simple question: ? What 3 things flow inside an Organisation? ? No one could answer as most people were stuck in their ? we are different ? paradigm. If you think that Knowledge, Decisions and Risk are the 3 things that should flow inside an Organisation how does your Company Culture help or fight against this? How do you think a ? Command & Control ? Culture will impact your desire to become Lean (or Agile if I am to use the latest buzzword)? What about simply trying to empower people? Is that any better? 

We often use the expression ? People, Process & Technology ? but often neglect that behind the word ? People ? lies Culture, that behind ? Process ? lies Flow and that behind ? Technology ? lies Efficiency. In a world where change is happening at an increasingly faster pace never has it been more important to adopt Lean Thinking, never has it been more important to focus on your Culture and never has it been important to rethink where Technology should be applied.