Across the last few weeks, I have been involved in a range of conversations about technology in different domains. Many of those conversations were about the risks. challenges and opportunities of fast moving AI. A number were about how to leverage technology transformation to harness benefits and mitigate the risks. In all the conversations, one theme kept resurfacing: It’s not about the technology. As I wrote a long time ago about social collaboration, there is a lot to get right before you start buying and implementing technology and too many people assume that they are ready to go.
By dint of having started my career as the commercial application of the internet exploded, I have spent most of it involved in the strategy and value creation of technology from early ecommerce to digital experiences, to mobile, cloud, social collaboration and now into the AI era. In every domain the same issues arise, people get excited about what they can do, what they can buy and what they can implement. Over and again, the questions that matter more are:
- What is our goal or purpose and how will we know we have succeeded?
- What do our customers want?
- What is our strategy to deliver for our customers and to succeed?
- What business model and capabilities do we need to support that strategy?
- What roles do we need our people and partners to play in those capabilities?
The similarity between these questions and the Lafley & Martin Playing to Win strategy framework is intentional and clear. All technology investment is a strategic action seeking advantage as part of a process of increasing value creation. Lack of clarity on the strategy, the goals, the required customer experiences, people experiences and the capabilities are why organisations fail when they implement technology. The issues and risks that will strike a project down, delay it significantly, cause cost overruns and destroy value are all help in the margins of ambiguity on those decisions.
Technology is not a realm where you can trust a vendor’s greater experience or even their proven case studies. Strategies vary. Even within the same strategy capabilities, processes and business model economics change. Every vendor has to implement an 80:20 rule to make sure the product fits across clients that are always more diverse than expected. Fitting your organisation to a vendor’s average process might work well in areas of low criticality but can break strategies. Small misfits lead to customisation, poor experiences, and integration issues.
These demands are why it is wise to treat even the smallest technology changes as a full transformation with a wide enough scope to deliver real value through change. You are never just bolting something on or swapping one system for another. To often the ‘change and adoption’ work that people perceive as a step at the end, needs to be an entire stream of creating strategic clarity, developing a plan for value and aligning the project and the organisation’s processes around that value. Doing that work before you start spending money on vendors will deliver a lot greater clarity and better shape the technology delivery than hoping it will happen through a process of technology change.
If you are struggling with the business case of your technology investment or you are struggling to finish an implementation, there’s a really good chance the problem doesn’t exist in the technology. The challenges and clarity you missed are in purpose, strategy, capabilities and the work of your people. Start there and you’ll discover a new path.