Successful digital transformations always focus on people over technology. Providing real benefits for the employees and motivating them to embrace the change are key factors in the development and execution of digital strategies.

Therefore, the size and extent of the transformation become critical considerations for how the people will be affected by and how well they will accept the result.

Transformations must be significant enough that they actually transform how people work. Going too small and simply digitising current manual processes does not qualify as a “transformation”, and the people will quickly realise this. Efficiency benefits are considered a given, however real buy-in comes when disjointed data and processes become integrated, when new intelligence and insights become available or when more actions and steering are possible rather than data gathering and reporting.

Mega-projects, on the other hand, while having the vision to significantly transform organisations, too often lose the people and direction along the way. Change management becomes extremely difficult when people cannot grasp the concept or when the timeline is so long that it becomes irrelevant to their daily lives. Providing solutions that transform how people work in months, rather than years, gives them a visibility and motivation which increases acceptance.

“Think big, act small” is an important approach in agile transformation, focusing on smaller (yet not too small) iterations to achieve a higher goal. A modular approach to digital solutions fits perfectly with this strategy, allowing a step-by-step implementation that convinces people of the benefits quickly and motivates them to accompany the transformation to the next level.

And so, finding the right size of transformation for your organisation is what really matters.