Although digital transformation strategies tend to focus on the technology, it’s the effective adoption of agile business processes that will determine their success or failure.
Agile principles are aimed at streamlining the development process to keep up with the rapid pace of change. According to analyst firm IDC, “by the end of 2018, 90 per cent of IT projects will be rooted in the principles of experimentation, speed, and quality.”
Deloitte points out that new digital business models are the main reason why just over half of the companies on the Fortune 500 have disappeared since the year 2000. They even suggest that, in just 10 years, nearly half of today’s Fortune 500 companies will no longer exist.
As disruptive innovation expert Clayton Christensen says, “companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slowly.”
The shift to an agile approach requires organizations to break projects into small chunks and to use cross-functional teams to manage them. IDC predicts that by 2018, “70 percent of siloed digital transformation initiatives will ultimately fail because of insufficient collaboration, integration, sourcing or project management.”
Indeed, a study by the Standish Group says that applying agile practices to projects is three times more likely to succeed than a traditional waterfall approach. Yet, a recent ITWC survey of over 100 IT professionals revealed that agile remains a work in progress for most of them. The survey showed that, for many companies, the challenge is how to carry out this transformation while dealing with the pressures of the real world.
A Feb. 9 ITWC webinar will provide a practical guide to agile as the pathway to digital transformation, including real life experiences of what works, and what doesn’t. CIO Jim Love will host the webinar and Henry Noble from credit card processor Vantiv will share lessons learned from his company’s transformation story. Skip Angel, Chief Pathfinder for Agility Services Excellence at CA Technologies will provide his expertise.
