Digital Transformation, the latest buzzword

With news last week of a decade-old incomplete $340m federal government transformation, let’s talk about Digital Transformation because it seems like every organisation is trying to do one these days. Talk about a buzzword!

According to a 2022 McKinsey & Co study, a majority of transformation projects fall short of expectations, often with profound consequences. A similar report by BCG in 2020 showed similar findings.

Putting aside my personal views around how innovations in technology automatically imply the need for an ongoing state of transformation that doesn’t require a 21st century buzzword-y title – why do so many Transformation initiatives fail? 

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This article was first published on LinkedIn and is also on the ENVEE Digital blog. 

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Waterfall or Agile?

A couple of years ago I was asked by a client if they should “Go Agile”. I just stumbled on this graphic which perfectly sums up my response at the time. Basically, if your organisation has a fixed budget, fixed timeframe and fixed set of deliverables, that’s pretty much what Waterfall was designed for and it’s worked well for decades.

When Waterfall makes sense: Government contracts, regulatory compliance projects, infrastructure implementations where requirements are well-defined upfront and changes are expensive. You know exactly what needs to be delivered, you have a fixed budget and timeline, and scope changes require formal approval processes. Waterfall excels here.

When Agile makes sense: Product development where user needs evolve as you learn more. Software projects where requirements emerge through experimentation. Situations where delivering working functionality early and iterating based on feedback creates better outcomes than planning everything upfront.

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This article was first published on LinkedIn and is also on the ENVEE Digital blog. 

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