AT#16: Ten Guidelines for a successful Digital Transformation

Last week I attended the #1 EAM Conference in Germany, the “Lean42 EAM Conference”

At the closing podium session of the conference, I had the opportunity to discuss the following questions with brilliant people from companies of the old economy and Feras Alsamawi of Amazon:

• What are the success factors for the digital transformation?
• What is the contribution of EAM to these success factors?
• What is different in companies of the old- and the new economy?

After thirty minutes of discussion, we agreed to the following guidelines:

1. The digital transformation of the old- and the new economy are two quite different things. It needs quite different approaches.
2. Stay calm! The transformation of the old economy will be much slower than some consultancies might make you feel.
3. Digital transformation does not happen through a bottom-up approach. Successful transformations start at the top of the companies.
4. Let your CEO create and clearly communicate a strong, short, simple and compelling vision instead of a detailed, long-term top-down strategy.
5. Know your current strengths and base your vision on them.
6. Formulate the vision around new capabilities that arise with new technologies.
7. Build a culture that embraces re-engineering.
8. Establish a governance that is strict, but lets room for agile creativity.
9. Design your solution from both sides: general structures top-down by a few, details bottom-up
10. The border between business- and IT people will blur more and more. At the end business will become IT, IT will become business.

The Architectural Thinking Framework® includes all concepts that are needed to implement these guidelines in a structured and manageable way.

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Launch of the Architectural Thinking Framework®