5 things that need to change in your transformation framework, today!

Technology, every day, is charting into the unknown. The outcomes of technology applied are changing the business context almost daily. Regulations are changing. Interaction models are assuming newer archetypes. The point of care, service, payments, and sales are evolving daily. While the definition of transformation remains the same, the interpretation changes fast. The way we shape our transformation frameworks needs to change to keep up. The people, the thinking, the approaches, and most importantly, how we govern and monetize need to be reimagined. We have to move from step-by-step incremental thinking to leapfrog thinking at scale. Five things that need to change right now are summarized below.

Let's not?reinvent the wheel,?they said! Then we learned to fly and built a hovercraft, and we have been experiencing teleportation on the science fiction silver screens. Maybe someday, for real. All of this takes us from point A to point B. But we can get there faster now because someone said the wheel may be reinvented. The wheel may not be the best thing since the Big Bang. The first step of change to keep up with the times is to?pivot to a reinvention of the wheel, viz., zero-based thinking?for every problem.?The core objectives of transformation have to be bold, be a reimagination, and present a reconstructed paradigm.

Machine-first thinking?is an essential aspect of the way technology affects our lives. Our approach to analyzing problems, building solutions, and implementing and adopting must be machine first. For the longest time, the limitations of human behavioral unpredictability have restricted transformation. With the increasing adoption of technology, the interaction models are more homogenous than we would like to believe. Therefore, continuous analog-to-machine interpretation and?automated customers?are becoming mainstream. Accordingly, the transformation approach must respond to this through a machine-first lens to problem discovery and problem-solving.

New skill sets are required?to imagine, build, and sustain this new paradigm. The linear thinking of lean, six-sigma, and other brick-by-brick methodologies are gradually becoming artifacts of history that one must read and learn about but have limited application in practice. We need people who can reimagine an end state as the starting point of the process. We need people with bold ideas, unconstrained thinking, and unencumbered from chains of "what-has-been-will-be" to lead the flying formation.

Incremental Benefits are the axe that is the death of true innovation. The new world needs?business cases that transcend the effort-reduction equations?limited to belly-button costs. We need to discuss experience, monetization, and ecosystem regeneration in articulating the case for change and shaping the business case for transformation.

Lastly,?bold outcomes require bold designs and flexibility of intent to work around the hurdles. Every innovative idea anyone has ever had has a million roadblocks to successful realization. The key to successful transformation in the current world, where there are multiple paths (technologies, partners, frameworks, etc.) to a destination on the map, is the willingness to explore all options unencumbered by the sunk cost of legacy. A capacity, intent, and skillset should be needed to develop plans B, C, D, and E at speed and scale.

The future of transformation is fast, flexible and bold. And those who can achieve speed, agility and aggression will be successful. The old frameworks of the not-so-distant past are now obsolete. As will today's thinking be tomorrow. But to build resilience, you must first break the reusable mold and be willing to start from wet clay every time.