Business Transformation Digest: December 1, 2015

There have been so many good business transformation articles lately! And I missed sending out a digest on November 20. So this week I’m giving you a bonus digest to enjoy.

In this interview on ZDNet, David Bray and Corina DuBois share what they have learned about being successful change agents. I particularly liked this tip:

“Build consensus by listening to the narrative, build trust and reduce fear with consistent communication, and articulate a vision of the future that others will support and around which they will rally.”

Tips for Change Agents

Information Age has a thought-provoking article about challenges faced by Financial Services and Insurance Providers (FSP) when trying to support a more digital economy.  In particular, the author points out the difficulties of an Agile contracting model in a regulated environment and suggests the possibility of ‘contractualised Agile’ as an in-between model (a middle ground between working out the requirements as you go and determining all the requirements up front).

How FSPs can become true digital creatures

Forbes offers a look inside the IT transformation at BDP International which was done to support a larger digital transformation of the company.  The 6 tips include:  Run IT like a software shop, become an early adopter of new technologies, work with colleagues and customers as a true business leader, be fast and flexible, bring in new skills and talent to create a continuous learning environment, and engage with the broader community.

6 IT Transformation moves for a successful digital transformation

The blog Radius1 reminds executives that we cannot transform our organizations with our old thought patterns, which for executives generally means to be sure you are always right. To transform our organizations, we have to transform how we ourselves think and approach problem solving. We have to change from always being right, to being open-minded to finding out what is actually going on and eliciting input from others throughout the organization.

Meta Transformation – Change Your Thinking!

Finally this article from CIO.com minds us to avoid bimodal thinking when it comes to IT. Bimodal IT is where you split IT – one part does traditional IT and the other part does innovation. While this may fix some short term problems, there are many perils down this path.

Think multi-threaded not bimodal