I am not anti-technology, but I am anti-project failure.

Since the COVID lock down in Singapore in March, I have been reaching out to the Chief Financial & Chief Technology Officers in my network to talk about Why 70% of Transformation Projects Fail.

Technology without purpose will be a mess. The technology should be in the ‘service’ of something bigger – the End User’s (My Customer’s). The key is to put the technology in context.

In large Transformation programs I like to talk through the following steps when considering the role of technology.

Always begin with your Customer Experience Strategy.

Who are we? What do we promise to our Customers either explicitly or implicitly? What are the expectations on the Customer?

The Customer Experience strategy will be the filter through which you make decisions on the kind of experience you are going to offer. And that includes the role of technology.

Understanding what Customers expect from us serves as a great guide to what we offer to them.

Quantitative and qualitative research have a big role to play here.

We are after a frictionless Customer Experience.

The best project engagements are when we deliver the following:

• Reliability
• Value
• Relevance
• Trust

Unless you have a Strategy & Set of Customer Expectations locked, I would not start to look at the technology that helps you achieve these things – particularly at scale, until you are in fact ready to.

The difference between a successful journey mapping program and one that is not so successful is the calibre of the people included and their willingness to take action based on what they learned.

Do not overcook or over-complicate this process.

There are a number of things that are awesome about Journey Maps.

Firstly, they cross functional boundaries – so they require cross-functional collaboration to serve a higher purpose.

Secondly, our friends at McKinsey noted many moons ago that Customers don’t think in touchpoints – they think in journeys.

So, ask yourself:

Where would technology enable this journey? Not just save cost (which is too often the only focus) but how can it create new ‘opportunities’ that may never have existed before?

When you apply this mental discipline to the role of technology you’ll find many more relevant opportunities than just saying “let’s buy some Trading & Risk Management software, it will solve all our problems!”.

You can’t talk about technology today without talking about the role of Imagination.

Think of something, WRITE it down, get buy in from all the right people, WRITE it down again, iterate until you have a set of requirements that works, then we can think about how we go and find the technology to help realise it.

Not everything is going to come to mind in one hit, it is okay to iterate your requirements, but make sure that the job you do on this is the best it can be – these requirements will be used to procure the technology to help automate the process and obtain efficiencies.

Imagination at work is a trait that is highly underrated. I have refused to work with “command & control” style organisations, they actually squash Imagination, an integral part to problem solving.

I am obviously not a fan of shiny toy syndrome. I am however a big fan of technology.

I am excited about how a sound Strategy, realistic but accurate Customer Journey Mapping and Free Thinking add HUGE context to how technology creates a better Customer Experience and along the way a successful project.

If you can explain the context of what led you to the use of the technology you have selected and how that technology supports your Customer Experience strategy overall you will succeed every time.

About the Author

Jason Novobranec is Implementary’s Chief Operating Officer.

With over 20 years Consulting, Program Management & Senior Leadership experience, Jason has delivered initiatives for large multi-national / multi-regional organisations as well as SME’s and is an expert in shaping solutions to fit a customer’s project needs.