This is an initial blog of a series dedicated to the topic of IT Transformation. This series entails themes about triggers, goals, definitions, patterns, practices, tools and challenges of the IT Transformation. We will talk about organizational as well as technical aspects of the subject. So let’s start with the first question “What is actually IT-Transformation?”.
Introduction
“Not every business is a digital business, but every business must become digital”, this was one of the most interesting sentences I heard this year at JAX 2016 in Mainz, the biggest IT conference in Germany and I’m pretty sure one of the biggest IT conferences worldwide.
Many organizations feel the need for an internal change due to the changing competitive situation on their markets. We are all within a digital revolution manifested by plenty of buzzword and trends like “always on”, “augmented reality”, “social networks”, “real-time communication”, “human 2.0”, “instant business” as so on. All these trends are clear triggers for a change, change driven by the IT, as the IT is not a business supporting discipline anymore. IT is the business itself! In many cases we can talk even about so called “IT enabled business change”.
So, what is the extent of change we need in case of the digital revolution? To explain this let us use a very simple model introduced by Julia Balogun in 2001 in her article „Strategic Change“ [1]:
Balogun defines types of change as follows: “Change can be classified by the extent of the change required, and the speed with which the change is to be achieved”. According to this model a revolution is a type of change with a big bang speed and a transformation as an extent of change. This gives us a clear advice that the IT Transformation is the proper way to react on the digital revolution.
The Definition
Balogun’s definition of the transformation focus on very important aspect, namely organization’s culture. This aspect is same for every organization regardless of the industry it belong to.
Transformation entails changing an organizations’ culture. Culture is to do with the shared and taken-for-granted assumptions and beliefs within an organization (the paradigm) that shape ‘the way of doing things around here’. More specifically, a transformation is a fundamental change within an organization that cannot be handled within the existing organizational paradigm. [1]
To come to the point:
IT Transformation always means a cultural change within an organization.
We will deepen this topic in one of the following blog posts, especially in context of the agile software development methodologies and some of the new architectural paradigms like microservices.
We can find plenty of definitions for the process of the transformation which should give us the answer to the question “How to run the IT Transformation?”. My favorite one was created by Kurt Levin in 1947. It’s quite old but still topical and defines transformation as a change model that consists of three phases [2]:
- Unfreezing
- Changing (moving to the new level)
- Refreezing (freezing at the new level)
The following diagram depicts these phases and the flow between them:
Levin’s model is quite straightforward. If we want to change our old structure to the new structure we have to first unfreeze the old one. After that we get a chance for the change, we can move our structure to the new level. Finally we have to freeze the structure at the new level. This last phase might be a surprise, but this is one of the challenges of the IT-Transformation. Many organization fail to sustain the change and fall back into old structure.
We will deepen this topic in one of the following blog post, where we will talk about steps in each Levin’s phase based on the “8-Step Process for Leading Change” defined in 1996 by J.P.Kotter [3].
The Challenges
There are three main challenges of the IT transformation:
- “Ability to deliver” – as the IT Transformation entails not only a technical change, but also a cultural one.
- “Ability to manage” – as the IT Transformation is not a single project, but rather a program with many projects, where their aims have to be align with the organization’s portfolio.
- “Ability to sustain” – as the IT Transformation entails the cultural change, which can be refused by some parts of an organization causing fall back into old structures and behavior.
We will deepen this topic in one of the following blog posts with some examples of the real project challenges like “organization’s immune system”, “open vs. closed minds”, “orders of ignorance” and so on and what are the possible solutions to the problems they cause. We will shortly discuss topics around agile software development and the management challenge with “scaling agile”. In this context we will look at the pretty new Nexus Framework and other scaling approaches that were launched over the past years like SAFe, DAD, and LeSS. Finally we will look at the relation between IT Transformation and the topic of Change-Management and the role and responsibilities the top management to make IT Transformation happen.
The Process
As stated above the IT Transformation is actually a set of projects that cover all disciplines of the software engineering. Within a program of IT Transformation we will find projects that focus on the business architecture, projects that address technology stack, projects that deal with infrastructure and so on. There are many drivers for such wide scope, but in the context of change these are the most important ones. The new systems have to be:
- “Built for change” – means we are able to change the system in easy way, thus to guarantee the highest flexibility possible
- “Built for testing” – means we are able to test and retest a system in easy way, thus to guarantee the highest quality possible
- “Built for operating“ – means we are able to keep system running or rerun in easy way, thus to guarantee the highest availability possible
- “Built for replace” – means we are able to replace the system or one of its subsystem in easy way, thus to guarantee the highest lifetime possible
We will deepen this topic in one of the following blog posts discussing the areas of the requirement engineering, software development, testing and operating and all that in context of such topics like agility, pragmatic craftsmanship, continuous improvement, continuous integration and continuous delivery.
The Core Concepts
The IT Transformation consists of three core concepts:
- Digitalization
- Integration
- Modernization
According to the Gartner’s IT Glossary [4] digitalization is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities; it is the process of moving to a digital business.
As there is no digitalization without IT, there is no IT without integration. Domains, components, subsystems, interfaces, APIs all are needed and have to be integrated with the outcome of the IT Transformation to achieve defined goals.
And finally the result of the IT Transformation has to be modern.
We will deepen this topic on one of the following blog posts focusing on the modernization that introduces among others such current IT trends like agile architecture, reactive systems and microservices.
Conclusion
The topic of the IT Transformation can fill without any problems a whole book, but for the sake of this blog post it is important to remember that the transformation is a complex process that consists of multiple phases with multiple steps. It entails the organization’s culture change, which makes IT Transformation programs (multiple projects) much more challenging comparing to other program types. It focuses on change, thus all processes involved should be appropriate tailored and managed. The core concepts of the IT Transformation are digitalization, integration and modernization with the coverage of all software engineering disciplines.
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[1] http://www.tomorrowsleaders.com/A5569D/icaew/content.nsf/DocumentLookup/ICAEWSTR0109/$file/MQ10+Strategy.pdf
[2] http://study.com/academy/lesson/lewins-3-stage-model-of-change-unfreezing-changing-refreezing.html
[3] J.P.Kotter, Leading Change, 1996
[4] http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/digitalization/