Digital Transformation: Identifying the right problems to solve

Have you ever felt sick, Googled a few of your symptoms, and then instantly diagnosed yourself with a deadly condition?

We’ve seen the same pattern with customers. They come to us with their symptoms or issues and then in the next breath give us the solution they want, for the problem they decided they have.

And while there definitely is a problem and we recognize the pain points happening, it is critical to treat the root cause of an issue, instead of only addressing the immediate symptoms.

Approaching a project or product with a more holistic mindset is a part of digital transformation.

This is how Fearless defines and talks about digital transformation:

The way people interact with products and services has changed, and new capabilities offer modularity, security, and accessibility.

The delivery of government services should match the digital and modern era we are in.

Digital Transformation is the adoption of new habits and operating models optimized for services and technologies of the digital era.

It’s not only transforming outdated or incomplete technology, but also transforming culture, adding space for experimentation and failure, and building collaboration to break down silos inside the organization.

The problem is probably bigger than you think:

Instead of saying, ‘this is the problem,’ try coming in with the mindset of: There is a problem, let’s figure it out together.

We worked with a DoD client on a problem surrounding timesheets and reviewing timesheets for 10,000+ people. At first-glance the problem was simple. Users have a hard time entering time worked in their timesheets. Upon further discovery, the client and team expanded the project vision to a more holistic goal of reducing the time spent entering, correcting and tracking data in the system, allowing users to focus on more essential and valuable information.

We’re not “finding” problems to boost our bottom line. This isn’t a money grab situation of a vendor telling a client their problem is bigger or different from what they think, so we can bill you more for a bigger project. Piecemeal or whack a mole problem solving, where you think you fixed one issue and then another crops up because you aren’t addressing the root problem, will actually end up costing a client more money in the long-run than the initial investment of addressing the whole problem.

Your problem wasn’t always a problem

The issue your organization has now might have, at one point, been a solution for a problem. It’s understandable team members or leadership might be reluctant to change or move away from something that has provided value to the organization.

Think of Agile and Waterfall methodologies. Agile is now favored for rapid delivery through a culture of iteration, open collaboration, and continuous improvement over the Waterfall methodology. But that doesn’t mean Waterfall has never delivered organizations value.

Waterfall provides value, but not as much value as Agile.

When a team makes the switch to Agile or another new process, it’s difficult to see the immediate value. The first few iterations or sprints will involve a learning curve, so the old method may seem more valuable than the new. But you will eventually come to a point where the new process outpaces the value of the old.

Questions to ask when identifying the right problem that needs solving:

The right partner will help coach you through identifying the right problem. An outside voice telling you what your problems are will never be as strong or as impactful as an organization self-identifying the issues they face.

This takes some introspection to get to the heart of the issue instead of surface-level symptoms.

Here are some of the questions we like to go through with clients:

• What has been identified as an issue?
• Is it related to anything else?
• Are there any problems deeper than that issue?
• How would you go about working through these issues?
• How does the team feel about this?
• What else does that make you think about?

By empowering our clients to recognize issues and be engaged, they are in control, instead of feeling like a vendor is pushing an agenda.

When an organization effectively identifies its root problem, then we can all work together to establish a plan to solve it.

Everyone should be on board with the solution

It is nearly impossible to implement widespread change across a large organization in one effort. We’ve found the best way to implement change is by doing the groundwork to get individual teams and groups excited and interested, one by one.

It’s hard to change behaviors, and this is a cultural change. The entire customer team must commit to this delivery. Empowering teams to embrace change is difficult when you have a traditional bureaucratic leadership system handing down mandates. That’s not an environment that enables strong digital services to happen. The team needs to be on board with plans to deliver the business value leadership wants or expects.

Our teams like to introduce new concepts at a manageable pace to get people comfortable. Then customer teams see the value in the change, in a few iterations or sprints, and leadership sees that progress is being made. Listening is also key, if a team is reluctant to change or very firm in continuing their processes, ask why.

With transformation, it’s about getting people to figure out what part of a change they are okay with and what part they’re most fearful of. The parts they are okay with, we empower them to be the best advocate ever.

Once folks are excited about the changes, they share the word and then we follow the trail of interest and run into more teams and people interested in change. That is how you can truly change an organization and embrace digital transformation, one changemaker at a time.

Once you’ve defined your problem, you need to coordinate every step of the product’s life cycle. Fearless’ Product Management playbook will help ensure success from ideation to launch and beyond.