How to go about a digital transformation

How a vision is developed building on both customer benefits as well as key business objectives.
Anonymized example from one of the largest transformations in banking globally.
Copyright: Digital Leadership AG, all rights reserved.

7. Setting up the workstreams to execute on the defined direction

Once you have defined your key user benefits, business objectives, and derived a vision from them, the next step is to set up workstreams that translate those into more detailed and actionable roadmaps, concrete requirements, and initiatives. The workstreams are ultimately there to translate a set of customer benefits and business objectives into reality. Typically they are organized around a specific theme or objective, such as customer experience, operations, or technology.

Exemplary setup of workstreams.
Anonymized example from one of the largest university transformations globally.
Copyright: Digital Leadership AG, all rights reserved.
Each workstream should be led by a dedicated team of experts who have the skills and experience necessary to drive progress and achieve results. The team should include representatives from all relevant functions and departments, as well as external partners and vendors, as needed.

8. Developing a detailed roadmap by each workstream

Each workstream receives as an input the higher-level guiding inputs that were developed previously – the relevant part of the user benefits, business objectives and vision. These inputs serve as guidepost and guardrails for defining the digital transformation initiative further at the level of the workstream.
Each workstream now follows the exact same process as we discussed above:

1. 
   Identifying the user benefits on the level of the worktream
   
2. 
   Identifying the detailed business business objectives on the level of the worktream
   
3. 
   Deriving a guiding vision on the level of the workstream
   

Once these items are defined in details per workstream, each workstream then defines a detailed roadmap based on those. The roadmap is covering in depths the agenda for the next few months on a monthly basis, then quarterly, and then yearly basis for the next few years. As such, we do make sure we both have the details to govern the short-term, as well as have a shared understanding of the path ahead.

The roadmaps should include timelines, milestones, and dependencies to ensure that all initiatives are aligned and integrated with each other. Concrete requirements should be defined for each initiative, including functional, technical, and non-functional requirements, as well as success criteria and metrics for measuring progress and impact.
This process ensures that the initiative is fully aligned between highest level customer and business objectives all the way down to the details of the execution per workstream.

By setting up workstreams that translate key user benefits, business objectives, and the vision into detailed and actionable roadmaps, requirements, and initiatives, organizations can ensure that digital transformation initiatives are well-planned, executed, and aligned with their overall strategy. This approach ultimately leads to developing a value-maximizing roadmap of a digital transformation, thereby ensuring that the digital transformation directly contributes to the short-, mid- and long-term success of an organization.

9.