Many times in my career, I’ve had the chance to experience exactly the kind of transformation that’s so often talked about: re-shaping a team into journey-focused value streams (or squads, themes, or whatever term you prefer). And in the process, I’ve repeatedly witnessed a decision-making process that confuses and confounds me.

Let me set the scene.

Moving from more traditional waterfall (or even Agile) delivery structures to something that focuses deeply on engagement or ROI  can be a real jolt, not just to an organization’s operations, but to its culture. It often leads to a flurry of activity, as teams develop new workflows and processes, and re-shape their operating models, often migrating from centralised to distributed teams.

Let’s consider for a moment how many large organisations are coming to the realisation that their size, legacy and ways of working have industrialised the ability to think and act creatively out of their businesses. They study start-ups and create innovation teams to try and emulate some of the practices they deploy to disrupt service, products and business sectors and they study agencies to understand how to create people and culture programs to engender better ways of working for their employees.

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Having worked as a consultant and contractor on both sides of the Transformation/BAU fence, there is often present a divide in ethos, ego and perception. In digital, People who work in the BAU arena typically optimise and maintain live websites, apps and software. BAU teams are predominantly made up of permanent members of staff because it often requires a lot of specialist training and continuity. As employees, they feel more a part of the fabric of the organisations they work for.

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Many organisations are undertaking digital transformation programs to “put digital at the heart of their businesses”. This isn’t a new thing. In a way, by replacing legacy systems, upgrading IT infrastructure, and putting in CRM and distribution systems, we’ve been on this path for the better part of the last decade. In parallel to this, User Experience and in a larger sense, Customer Experience, have been gaining traction at putting the People closer to the centre of our designs and our organisations. So if at the same time we talk about putting digital at the centre of our organisations, what does that mean for People using digital systems?

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“Digital Transformation” has become an interesting buzzword that in its own right seems to be rapidly transforming. Not so long ago, replacing software systems with integrated, customer-facing digital systems, and putting digital more at the core of your business was simply a large-scale technology infrastructure program. But everything requires a buzzword, and perhaps “large-scale technology infrastructure programs” had become laden with everything needing to be “enterprise-scale” using large “systems integrators” in an eco-system where technology – not the Customer – was in the driver’s seat.

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