Avoid failure in Digital Transformation projects, measure Experience

Unfortunately, statistics report that 70% of Digital Transformation projects fail, with $900B being wasted in 2018. How do you think about Digital Transformation and does Employee Experience tie into the success of the Digital Transformation.

When people speak of Digital Transformation or start creating Digital Transformation projects the usual thoughts focus on technology, budget and time.

Instead, Digital Transformation should be focusing on changing human behaviour, how people's work changes, the outcome and the value created from this change.

“Digital Transformation is a really lovely word, because it’s telling about a journey”

- Sami Kallio, CEO of HappySignals

See the thing is many Digital Transformation projects in fact fail, with a massive 70% of all digital transformation projects failing in 2018. A study from Forbes and McKinsey showed that a total of $900 billion was wasted last year solely on digital transformation projects.

That’s an unbelievable amount of money wasted. Two of our founding fathers discussed this conundrum and where companies are going wrong.

Measuring projects or the outcomes?

The main problem lies in how companies and managers are measuring these projects, with measurement usually focusing on the duration of the projects, as well as the costs and budget.

However, Sami believes that these projects are in fact started in the wrong way. The first step to starting a digital transformation project is to “ask from the project managers and even the whole team one relevant question – what is the target for this project?” – Sami Kallio.

The HappySignals team were able to attend an event in the UK run by one of our clients, Virgin Trains. A key point that was taken from this event was how Virgin Trains approach new digital transformation projects.

Before any planning or work goes into the project, they first take half a day to define what it is they want to achieve and how this will impact their employees or their customers. Sami says “That kind of thinking mindset is a totally different thing. And that helps to also focus on the value of the projects".

CIOReview.com stated in an article that employee experience and digital transformation are two big trends in 2019. HappySignals allows you to now approach these two trends through one outlook.

When planning Digital Transformation projects, managers needs to be focusing on the value, experience and reasons for the change -

“You are having this journey because you want to change the way people do work, which will improve the experience and the productivity”

– Pasi Nikkanen, CPO of HappySignals

Digital Transformation needs to focus on the desired outcomes of these projects instead of having the objectives focused on time and budgets. These obviously need to play a role in every project; however, the main focus should be on the experience and the value gained from the transformation.

By making this the driving force of each Digital Transformation project can lead to better results and most importantly, happier and more productive employees.