MAORI PROVERB
“What is the most important thing in the world? It is the people, the people, the people”.
The same answer applies to technology, especially in businesses with complex data and systems. Mature organisations, advanced in their digital transformation, take advantage of a Human Centred approach to lead their Digital Strategies.
However, it’s still common to see organisations struggling with delivering technology that supports their business strategy, because they are only focusing on what software solution to buy, or how to integrate data.
The missing piece is the understanding of the people interacting with the technology and the people making decisions about technology. What are their motivations and concerns? How do they track progress of their decisions?
The Software Centricity Problem
Many organisations choose to buy software out of the box, with the expectation that it will cover all their business needs. It seems convenient to rely on only one solution with one license cost.
For organisations with complex data and systems, it is unlikely that out of the box solutions will be the sole enabler of their business strategy, therefore they will need customisation that usually gets implemented in two ways:
Additional modules
Software ad-ons provided by the same company that created the out of the box product. There is still the convenience of relying on only one solution, but there will be an increase in the license fee – sometimes price prohibitive.
Ad-hoc customisation
Local software vendors will offer ad-hoc customisation by building on top of the existing software, at the risk of affecting performance, increasing complexity and making the product harder to manage. This is when the business realises that the vendor is actually a managed services provider.
Some software vendors suggest that they take a Human Centric Approach to elicit requirements by understanding the users. We should remember that their definition of the problem is already biased by the solution they are trying to sell.
The Data Centricity Problem
Other organisations take a product agnostic approach by integrating multiple systems. They rely on software that has been developed for a specific purpose, focusing on connecting it with other specialised solutions, as part of a digital ecosystem.
This approach is appealing for organisations aware of their complex data and systems, as it gives them control over their technology. It depends on the decision maker’s mindset to ensure that the digital ecosystem will enable the people to use technology to deliver the business strategy:
Technical mindsets
They understands data structure, performance, complexities and scalability, but they are usually distant from the strategic business discussion, and the role of technology in delivering the business value proposition.
Analytical mindsets
Their focus is data and statistical modeling, ensuring the accuracy of insights. They also have a tendency to dive into details, seeking for perfection, losing perspective of the high level strategy, and not engaging with the humans that will use the data.
Business mindsets
They have a vision, connections and the ability to influence business strategies. They see an opportunity to deliver the vision through technology, but they are not usually technically savvy, and struggle with the lack of feasibility or long delivery timeframes required for their vision.
All of the mentioned mindsets are critical for the success of an organisation with complex data and systems, but they are rarely all three represented when the business need to make strategic technology decisions. The opportunity is to maintain a healthy balance between them, as well as to introduce human centric thinking, so their decisions will enable people interacting with technology to deliver the business strategy.
The People Problem and the solution approach
We need to understand The People Problem in three dimensions to tackle it at different levels:
1. Digital Experience Mapping
Is the understanding of all digital interactions between technology and humans. Imagine a supply chain with suppliers maintaining products and invoicing distributors, central office administrators interfacing between suppliers and stores, store administrators selling products to end customers, and of course end customers.
Mapping out the expectations, motivations, concerns and context in which each human interacts with technology, will provide a critical part of the puzzle to understand what the digital solution must do to enable the most efficient use of people’s ability to provide data.
Only then we should decide what software to use, and how to integrate.
2. Ecosystem Thinking Capability
Is the understanding of the humans in your organisation, and their ability to recognise opportunities or challenges they cannot handle alone, and seek to work together with partners, customers, and other stakeholders, to scale the benefits.
The emphasis shifts from me to we, and from subordinate dictation to community persuasion. The way to go is by co-creation and shared operations with more integrated projects, capacity and resource sharing.
3. Digital Governance
Is the understanding of the humans responsible for making digital decisions, and a framework that minimises the debate about the organisation’s digital strategy by making clear who in the business has the authority for specific areas.
In mature organisations there will be a core digital team representing the technical, analytical and business mindsets, as well as a function that leads the strategy definition by bringing the human perspective to the table.
In less mature organisations, this team might have a de facto authority over digital standards, but it gets easily challenged by higher ranked stakeholders who disagree with them.
Whatever implementation approach you take to address “The People Problem” in your digital strategy, you are getting in the mature stage of your digital transformation.
Sometimes your business will need to work on all three of these dimensions of “The People Problem” simultaneously, or will choose either a top-down approach by starting with digital governance, or a bottom-up approach by starting with the digital experience mapping.
Do you need help solving “The People Problem” in your organisation?
Let’s brood together a solution that will help your organisation to move to the next level in your Digital Transformation Journey.
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