Book Summary
Digital Transformation Handbook for Solution Architects
An architectural and design guide for beginners in the field
Purpose of the Article
In this article, I explain the challenges of digital transformation methodically and in a straightforward format refraining from theoretical aspects and passing along my tacit knowledge in the field.
My aim is to provide insights based on a practical architectural approach to deal with the challenges of digital transformation effectively.
Some of the points may sound trivial or boring from a high-level perspective; however, each point raised in each step can have critical implications and significantly impact the initiatives' success or failure.
I penned this piece as an introductory and educative piece. The original version of this content is over six hours. I summarized them in around 30 minutes of reading, only focusing on the critical points for digital transformation initiatives.
Introduction to Digital Transformation
Business organizations are facing enormous challenges in responding to the rapid technological changes and growing demands of consumers for digital products and services globally.
There is a constant search to find solutions to the growing business problems. From my experience, the most optimal solution to address these problems is to architect enterprise digital transformation requirements and objectives.
My approach in this article is to propose an innovative model and framework formulated and described in a 12-step architectural method called DTM.
This is one of my longest articles on Medium so far, even though I made a conscious effort to keep the topic as high level as possible, focusing on critical points.
However, since the scope of the domain is comprehensive and the discipline is complex, this is the minimum viable size to convey important messages in an article.
I hope it provides useful insights and architectural guidance for those who are dealing with digital transformation ventures. Let’s start the architecting journey!
Architecting digital transformation can address the root causes of fundamental issues that we experience in the digital world. The proliferation of digital media in the form of images, sound, and videos created a massive demand for our infrastructure to scale globally.
Relentless sharing of these media types can create an unsustainable load over the networks, applications, and other expensive infrastructure components unless well-architected capacity, scalability, security, performance, and usability plans are in place.
Based on my architectural experience in various enterprise architecture initiatives, digital transformation, and enterprise modernization engagements, I want to share these learnings using a simple 12-step method.
I aim to add value by contributing to the broader digital transformation community and the progressing digital transformation initiatives globally.
Many large organizations that I work for are substantially challenged by rapid changes in technology and the increasing demands of consumers in this digital era. Every large organization that I worked for is affected by these changes. As an immediate reaction, they initiated quick digital transformation or modernization programs, to some extent at the program level or at the enterprise level.
It became evident that these business organizations needed new architectural approaches to address these issues and substantial organizational risks.
The initial modernization and transformation initiatives helped, to some extent, however, the focus needed to be on the new projects and initiatives to adapt and respond to the growing consumer demands. To this end, these business organizations needed integral, innovative, and modern solutions for the emerging workloads.
Digital technologies span multiple dimensions and many domains. These domains are tightly interrelated; hence, a minor change in one domain can reflect in many others. Dealing with these interrelated domains and their components requires substantial restructuring.
Introduction to DTM ( Digital Transformation Method)
Based on my decades of architecting and design experience, I developed a 12-step method to architect digital transformation initiatives.
The steps of DTM are involved. However, in this article, I provide an overview of each step to give you an idea of the approach and the key success factors.
The first step (establishing fundamentals) is longer than other consecutive steps as I want to give a taste of the core architecture process in digital transformation programs.
Step 1: Establish Fundamentals
The first step of our digital transformation method is establishing fundamentals.
In this chapter, as fundamentals, we have an overview of the architectural thinking approach within the context of architecting digital transformation engagements. This step is relatively longer as I wanted to cover the key architectural points.
From my experience, the architectural thinking approach establishes the fundamentals and can be used as a robust framework to gain digital awareness, unfold the mystery of digital transformation, and increase our capabilities by providing a structured approach to transformation.
This structured and methodical approach can serve us as a checklist to measure our understanding of the architectural building blocks for transforming environments.
The structured approach is important because our brains function using structure and patterns. Enterprise systems also are built-in and operate with structured patterns.
Using architectural thinking principles as a checklist ensures that we cover essential factors and steps in the thinking process for the digital world.
This structured thinking process establishing the fundamentals can be invaluable in our enterprise-wide digital ventures.
Here is a very high-level view of the architectural fundamentals that we need to practice:
Vision
In architectural thinking, any new initiative starts with a vision. In other words, as a top-down approach, architectural thinking mandates setting the vision first.
Vision is being able to think about the future with creative imagination and human wisdom based on desired goals. Vision sets the scene and shows us where we want to be in the future.
Even though everyone has a vision, a productive and strategic vision is a leadership capability and requires a substantial amount of intelligence, knowledge, skills, and experience.
Strategy
Once we have a compelling vision for the digital world, it is time to set the strategy clearly. We know where we are now on the digital journey and strive for where we want to go.
Our destination needs to be marked. A digital strategy helps us reach our destination using a master plan. The master plan can be a high-level roadmap to take us to the destination we set.
We need to proceed with a clear strategic roadmap; otherwise, we can get lost in the details and the constant noise.
Current Situation
Understanding and accepting our current situation is crucial. It doesn’t matter how good or bad, but we need to accept the reality at this initial stage.
The current state is our baseline and starting point. Knowing where we are can help us set our vision.
The current state of a legacy enterprise can be complex and difficult to compile. Everything is related to everything, and you may even be surprised that some old systems or solutions are not documented adequately or even not at all.
Therefore, we may need to conduct a gap analysis and take appropriate actions to address the gaps.
Despite all, we need to start from somewhere to identify our current environment and collect as much information as possible, taking all measures.
This can be one of the most painful exercises in the transformation lifecycle hence we shouldn’t be discouraged. It is a necessary step and pays dividends in the long run.
Requirements
Digital transformation initiatives can pose many requirements from many angles. Requirements for digital transformation can be interrelated and have multiple facets.
Most of the time, requirements can be seen as simple from the outside; however, they are not easy to manage inside.
Therefore, we need to make a concerted effort to understand the requirements from all angles in a structured way. Requirements involve multiple processes and stakeholders.
These stakeholders can be from different parts of the organization with varying goals, roles, and responsibilities. We need to identify them.
Both users and systems have their unique and standard requirements.
There are different requirements for different kinds of users — for example, internal and external users, technical, executive, and management users can pose different requirements. Systems also can have their unique requirements.
The system requirements can be categorized under technical, support, and operational requirements. In architectural terms, requirements can be classified under two main categories, namely, functional and non-functional.
The functional requirements of a solution involve what the system offers to the consumers as functionality to be accomplished.
For example, the system may offer calculations, data processing, or workflows. Functional requirements are usually related to the consumers of the solution. They describe what the consumers expect from the solution product and services.
Non-functional aspects involve how the solutions can accomplish these functionalities, such as their performance, availability, security, reliability, scalability, usability, configuration, scalability, and many more.
These are primarily technical and operational requirements. The tasks involved in the Non-Functional requirements usually relate to the IT support and maintenance teams.
Use Cases
Related to requirements, understanding the use cases for digital transformation solutions are essential architectural thinking skill.
Dealing with use cases requires different thinking modes, such as looking at things from the user’s perspective. Observing and being an observer at the same time is a critical mental capability.
More specifically, a use case is a specific situation depicting the use of a product or service of a solution by the consumers. We develop use cases from the users’ perspective.
We need to understand how the consumers are intended to be using a particular component or aspect of the solution.
Usually, the functional requirements can help us to formulate the use cases. Alternatively, in some circumstances, use cases help formulate the functional requirements.
Use cases and requirements are interrelated. We need to analyze them together; not in isolation.
Some selected users can help us understand the use cases when we interact with them. We need to ask questions to specific users and obtain their feedback on how they are intended to use a specific function that is expected to be in the solution document as a building block in the overall solution document.
In general, overall solution use cases need to be defined and elaborated with the input from all stakeholders of the solution; not just end-users. There may be different use cases for different stakeholders of the solution.
Use cases can also be determined based on roles and personas in a solution. Personas represent fictitious characters based on our knowledge of the users in the solution. Identifying personas and use of them in our use case development and requirements analysis can be beneficial.
While dealing with use cases, requirements refinement continues as a parallel activity in the subsequent phases. We need to ensure that we follow a pragmatic approach to the requirements phase.
Let’s be mindful that a perfectionist approach can consume a large amount of our limited budget, which is a common and undesirable situation for digital transformation initiatives.
From Current to Future State
After understanding the requirements and clarifying the use cases of the solution, we need to apply them to the current state. The current state shows us where we are now, as discussed in the first step.
By understanding the current state and its requirements to transform, we set future states and develop a roadmap to reach the target transformation goals.
The future state requires a substantial amount of analysis and predictions. In this phase, we can consult multiple subject matter experts to ensure the future state reflects our vision, mission, and solution strategy; and ensure that it meets identified requirements.
This architectural thinking approach for understanding the current environment and setting the future state applies to any digital solution that we engage in on a daily basis.
This structured approach is instrumental for the success of our digital transformation initiatives. Once we set the future state, the next critical step is the assess feasibility of the solution for the construction, deployment, and consumption goals.
Solution Feasibility
An architectural method can guide us to think about the feasibility of our transformation solution roadmap by looking at the risks, dependencies, and constraints along the way.
The feasibility of a solution is practiced using a viability assessment work-product which is a template covering all aspects of our solution from an operability perspective.
We can either use a viability work-product template from an established method such as TOGAF or our organization’s proprietary method.
Beware that the viability assessment can be categorized under different names. To ensure, we may check which work product is used in our proprietary method to capture risks, issues, assumptions, and dependencies.
Developing a comprehensive viability assessment can help us mitigate critical risks, resolve existing issues, capture assumptions, address challenging dependencies, and possible interdependencies. Missing this critical step in our digital solution approach can result in dire consequences in the long run. Therefore, this is a mandatory step in the solution lifecycle.
Most of the time, assessing viability also requires making a considerable number of trade-offs to reach optimal solution outcomes. Let’s understand what an architectural trade-off for a solution is.
Architectural Trade-offs
When architecting digital transformation solutions, we make substantial amounts of trade-offs.
When making trade-offs, we need to consider critical factors, such as cost, quality, functionality, usability, and several other non-functional items such as capacity, scalability, performance, usability, and security.
We make trade-offs to create a balance between two required yet incompatible items. In other words, a trade-off is a compromise between two options. For example, it is possible to make a trade-off between quality and cost for particular items.
Sometimes, dealing with trade-offs can pose a dilemma. We may tear ourselves between two competing and compelling options. In these circumstances, we must revisit our priorities.
Re-examining our priorities, especially those set by the key stakeholders for the solution objectives, can provide us with useful clues and necessary guidance.
In addition, we can also revisit our approved vision, mission, and solution strategy as sometimes our memories may fail to remember exact details in the rapid-paced transforming environments.
There may also be times that we make some of the architectural trade-offs to deal with uncertainties and ambiguities. To deal with these types of trade-offs, we can use techniques such as comparing and contrasting situations and taking calculated risks.
It is not possible to develop an architectural solution without taking risks. It is also possible that these risks can be turned into opportunities hence we need to mitigate them methodically and measurably.
Now let’s discuss the next critical point covering architectural decisions.
Architectural Decisions
Each trade-off requires to be supported by some architectural decisions. These crucial decisions can have substantial implications for the success or failure of our digital solutions.
We need to make architectural decisions very carefully and measurably. Each decision can have a severe impact and multiple implications on the solution outcomes. It may be costly to change the architectural decisions at later phases of the solution lifecycle.
Some implications can be cost-related or compliance constraints, while others can relate to non-functional aspects such as performance, scalability, capacity, availability, security, or usability.
In addition, our architectural decisions must be validated with subject matter experts and communicated with multiple stakeholders for their acceptance and approval to reach the optimal consensus on the validity of the decision.
Architectural Context
After making the architectural decisions and obtaining the necessary approvals, the next challenging task is to provide a representative picture of the solution on a single page.
This illustrated representation is usually called the solution context showing the critical dependencies. Solution context is a work-product template that can be found in many established methods as a sample.
Creating a solution context requires abstracting skills. We need to represent a large volume of information in small pictures by setting concise relationships amongst the components. We can apply the proverbial principle of one thousand words in a single picture.
This abstract thinking skill is an example of architectural intelligence that we add to the digital transformation solution process. Setting the context for any solution can help us communicate it to relevant stakeholders in an understandable manner.
Context adds clarity to understanding the overall solution.
Architectural Models
We need to develop multiple models for digital transformation solutions. Models are essential to work products in architectural solutions.
A model is the proposed structure typically on a smaller scale than its original.
Once we draft a specific solution at an abstract level and our stakeholders understand it, the next important step in the architectural thinking process is to represent the abstract level in further detail by describing each component and the relationships.
Describing abstract representations in concrete details also requires a great deal of mental exercise, including dealing with multiple patterns, which can stimulate our thinking abilities.
Some of the vital Architectural models which we can apply to the potential modernization solutions are Component Model, Operational Model, Performance Model, Security Model, Availability Model, Services Model, and Cost Model.
These models need to be precisely documented, reviewed by the domain architects and governed by the Architecture Board or a Design Authority in the organization.
You can find samples of these models in established methodologies by searching the names provided in the previous paragraph.
Documentation of the architectural models can include both textual explanations and practical diagrams. For example, for a Component Model, all components and their relationships can be clearly illustrated in a diagram.
The components and their functions can also be explained in detail. Some of the architects use their proprietary architectural tools or PowerPoint. I use Visio as a tool to create my Component and Operational Models and share the output as a PDF to the relevant stakeholders.
The architectural diagrams can be useful communication tools for the selected models because the governance process for handling the solution architecture models requires presenting them to the Architecture Board or a Design Authority.
With an effective presentation and articulated communication, obtaining technical assurance approvals can be faster and easier.
Otherwise, people in these forums struggle to understand the key points and consume substantial amounts of time to approve them.
Approval for some of these models may also need to be obtained from the financial, commercial, and other business stakeholders.
For example, the Cost Model, the Services Model, and the Availability Model can have content that requires financial or commercial approval at the enterprise level.
Let’s remember that we not only deal with the architectural and technical aspects of the digital transformation solutions but also the financial and commercial aspects.
We also collaborate with multiple architects in transformation programs who create several models using the best architectural practices.
High-Level Designs
Once the architectural models are developed, we need to create fundamental high-level designs. Digital transformation initiatives require the development of multiple work products covering high-level designs based on the solution context.
The use of fundamental high-level designs to see the big picture for each solution building block can be instrumental to digital transformation solutions. The high-level design needs to be well understood, accepted, and approved by all stakeholders.
Let’s be mindful that at the later stages of the solution lifecycle, it can be challenging and costly to change these designs.
To this end, we ensure that the high-level designs are produced using our strategy and roadmap and are fully aligned for reaching the goals of the optimal solution.
Detailed Designs and Specifications
Like any other enterprise IT system, modernisation and transformation solutions are expected to deliver all their detailed designs and specifications correctly.
Applying a comprehensive configuration management practice for solutions components can be practical and useful when dealing with specifications.
In digital transformation solutions, a specification can be defined as the act of precisely identifying the enterprise ecosystem items.
Since specifications require precision, delivering the right specification is an essential requirement for enterprise applications and their associated critical business and emergency responses.
System specifications need to be accurate, reliable, and fast when collecting data, communicating information, sharing data, and making accurate decisions.
Unreliable communication of the specifications by various silos, wrong decisions made by those specifications, and their cumbersome layout can lead to disastrous results when attempting to detail the digital transformation solutions.
Finding inaccurate detailed designs or wrong specifications during the implementation and production support phase can be very cost-prohibitive due to massive re-work requirements.
These unexpected errors shatter the whole solution from every angle, and as digital transformation architects, we are the first ones who kept responsible for the consequences.
In addition, to rework, the implications for SLAs can also cause a considerable amount of financial loss to the organization. Rework is identified as one of the most critical lessons learned from the failed digital transformation projects.
Therefore, we need to ensure our detailed designs and related specifications are accurate and verified by relevant subject matter and domain experts.
As lead transformation architects, we set and chair the design authority for the digital transformation programs within our responsibility areas.
We must closely work with the solution architects, domain architects, technical specialists, and solution designers.
We cannot afford any silos in high-level and detailed design phases. It must be a fully integrated and collaborative team under our technical and architectural leadership.
Dynamic and Flexible Governance
Technical governance is an essential aspect of digital transformation initiatives. These transformation programs require a particular governance model due to their nature.
A dynamic and flexible governance model is essential for transformation initiatives.
The traditional stringent and extreme rule-based or oppressive governance models can be roadblocks to progress. From my experience, agile principles best suit the dynamic governance models.
We further discuss this point in the chapter titled “Accelerate Delivery”.
Governance committees in digital transformation programs can be complicated and sophisticated at multiple levels. There are many roles and responsibilities for governance committees.
For example, transformation architects can run the architecture review boards or design authority forums established for complex digital transformation programs.
Domain Architects, Technical Specialists, or Subject Matter Experts verify technical accuracy in their domains and expertise areas. There may be multiple of these professionals attending the governance forums.
In addition, sponsoring executives can join these forums now and then and look at the financial and commercial aspects of the solutions.
Program managers always attend every governance forum and are responsible for the compliance and risk management of the solutions.
We can use several governance frameworks based on our solution domains. One of the common frameworks for technical governance in the industry is COBIT (Control Objectives for Information and related Technology).
The use of frameworks like COBIT can help organizations gain optimal value from their IT investments by maintaining a balance between gaining benefits and optimizing risk levels and resource use.
There can be other governance models based on the industry to which the enterprise belongs and adheres.
Step 2: Simplify Complexity
We know that enterprise environments can be extremely complex with multiple layers of systems, subsystems, technology stacks, tools, and processes coupled with numerous stakeholders with different agendas and consumers with different expectations.
Even though the systems, tools, processes, and technology stacks can be challenging, the more significant part of the iceberg, the real challenge, is dealing with people in the enterprise, especially multiple stakeholders with different roles, responsibilities, and confusing agendas.
As a result, coupling systems and people can add extra complexity to the enterprise environments. Therefore, we must find effective ways to manage enterprise complexity for our digital transformation programs.
Our architecture must simplify complexity.
Simplicity is a substantial requirement to be fulfilled for digital transformations and modernization goals. Simplicity is also one of the critical attributes of digital transformation leaders.
Digital transformation leaders must be capable of turning complexity into simplicity. Let’s touch on the reasons briefly.
Simplicity touches almost every angle of transformation solutions, as these solutions can incredibly be complex. Simplicity, in sophisticated enterprises, is a paradoxical topic.
As we know digital transformation initiatives can be very complex and require sophisticated thought processes and capabilities such as in-depth knowledge, varied skills, and extensive experience.
We must simplify the complicated processes, systems, tools, and technologies using our architectural capabilities.
Paradoxically, to create simplicity, one needs to deal with a lot of complexity, complications and sophisticated matters. This is where architectural capabilities play an essential role.
Obtaining the required knowledge, acquiring advanced skills, and gaining substantial experience are not easy and are not indeed trivial activities. We need to deal with complexity using our digital intelligence to create simplicity.
From my observations, digitally intelligent transformation architects who deal with complexity and sophisticated matters can have extraordinary attributes to simplify things for other people.
At the most fundamental level, creating simplicity requires effective communication.
Simplicity is a well-sought-after characteristic in digital services and products. The modern digital world aims to offer simplified solutions to consumers. As opposed to complexity, simplicity is favored by consumers.
Therefore, digital transformation leaders are expected to simplify complex situations and complicated problems and offer simple solutions.
While architecting digital transformation initiatives, we must consider multiple aspects simply such as:
· Processes
· Tools
· Technology stacks
· Designs
· Specifications
· Data
· Governance
· Integration
· Communication
Step 3: Manage Cost
Arguably, the financial aspect of digital transformations can be the most important one.
Even if we create a paragon of architecture with flawless designs, if the solution is economically not viable and it does not produce a compelling return on investment, it cannot be considered as successful.
Therefore, the financial focus on digital transformation is mandatory and must be a priority objective. We need to consider the cost impact of every task and activity we undertake.
A pragmatic architectural approach with a priority setting is essential to keep the cost under control.
Everything in enterprise transformation generates substantial costs. There are known and hidden costs. It is relatively more comfortable to deal with the known costs; we can apply some logic and resources to address them. However, the real challenge is to deal with the hidden costs.
Hidden costs are the more significant part of the proverbial iceberg. When we are developing cost models for our digital transformation solutions, we always need to challenge the norms, especially capital expenditure.
For example, server, storage, and infrastructure costs for a simple development workload can be prohibitive; therefore, we may consider moving these low priority, less sensitive workloads to inexpensive public cloud service offerings.
Even though financial teams manage the cost, the technical team needs to find ways to make digital solutions inexpensive, and affordable and lower the cost gradually without compromising quality.
Quality considerations are the critical requirements of digital transformation initiatives. We can increase the quality of the solutions by applying professional diligence, architectural rigor, delivery agility, smart collaboration across multiple teams, and harvesting re-usable materials.
There is a common perception that making solutions cost-effective without compromising quality is not possible. The reason is that we must make a considerable number of trade-offs in the architecture and technical development phases.
I partially agree with this statement. There are many challenges and factors to be considered to achieve this goal. Our approach makes a difference.
While architecting digital transformation initiatives, we need to consider several cost items such as:
· Infrastructure cost
· Applications and software cost
· Tools cost
· Design and specification cost
· Project management cost
· Data management cost
· Mobility cost
· Governance cost
· Integration cost
· Service management cost
· Service level costs
· Marketing and sales cost
Step 4: Innovate and Invent
Digital transformation initiatives are predominantly based on innovative and inventive ideas.
Innovation and invention relate to novelty, improvement, and iterations for ongoing steady progress. Innovative and inventive thinking generates novel ideas, focuses on improving ideas, and strives for making continuous iterative progress.
To this end, innovative and inventive thinking can use agile delivery principles to reach their goals. Innovative and inventive thinking must be practical rather than theoretical. They need to add immediate value.
Innovative and inventive thinking feeds the culture and is a critical aspect of a modernizing ecosystem in transforming organizations for digital goals.
Enterprise cultures embracing innovative and inventive thinking approaches can naturally renew themselves to survive and thrive in fluctuating conditions, which are typical situations in modernizing and transforming enterprises.
These enterprises extend to the next generations with constant progress, renewed image, improved services, and stronger capabilities.
I authored an article on Medium on this topic titled “Innovative & Inventive Business Culture for Digital Transformation Leadership” which you may check for details of this step.
Step 5: Accelerate Delivery
Accelerating our solution delivery by using an agile approach is the next critical step in our digital transformation method.
As transformation architects, in this era, we must be nimble, agile, and think on our feet at all times.
Approaching our goals with agility provides us with a competitive advantage in our organization and can help us to be influential, credible, competitive, and productive in our modernization and transformation engagements.
In this day and age, agile thinking and acting are essential attributes for the transformation architects striving to architect their digital transformation. We cannot afford slow thinking and acting in these rapidly changing environments.
Speed to market is one of the most fundamental requirements of digital transformation initiatives. We can generate revenues only by acting very quickly in this competitive world.
To this end, fast delivery using agile approaches became the new norm in transforming enterprises. Our products are expected to be released faster than they were in the past. Security updates and bug fixes are required more frequently.
Speed to market affects all aspects of the digital enterprise and creates many challenges for the service providers. This challenge makes it imperative to act, behave, and approach in agility to stay competitive in the market.
Accelerated delivery for digital transformations requires multiple roles and responsibilities. An accelerated delivery approach requires using agile methods across multiple teams called scrum teams.
These teams work collaboratively and in an integrated way.
The most common roles in agile teams are the scrum master, the product owner, and the scrum team member. As transformation architects, we can perform the role of the product owner for digital transformation programs using agile scrums.
As we are architecting digital solutions, we are in an excellent position to own the digital product or services that we are architecting.
As product owners, we can set the acceptance criteria for a digital product or service in the allocated transformation sprint. Providing a practical acceptance criterion can lead the team to think in the right direction. Our leadership and ownership of digital products are paramount for the success of accelerated delivery.
We can also serve as scrum masters. The scrum master role requires us to provide day-to-day guidance on developing agile user stories, clearing backlogs, running stand-up meetings, and designing iterative solutions for digital transformation initiatives.
This is a lead architecting role for accelerated delivery.
We know that predicting the future is very hard; therefore, creating an upfront paragon of architecture is not practical.
To this end, as transformation architects, we must take a pragmatic approach to architecture and focus on the minimum viable product (MVP).
Pragmatism negates perfectionism. The notion of perfection equates to failure in fast-paced digital transformation programs. We cannot afford the use of monolithic waterfall methods for perfecting and developing architectures and designs for many months and even years.
This slow approach is not sustainable and does not suit the demands of digital transformation goals.
Step 6: Grow with Collaboration
We know that the term collaboration is overused and loses its significance, especially with the emergence of internet technologies. People keep saying collaborative or collaboration tools, especially in a social media context.
In its true meaning, collaboration refers to a team of people working together for mutual goals to achieve successful and synergetic outcomes.
The team, mutual goals, and synergetic outcomes are essential entities of this simple framework. Our focus is, of course, on the work aspect of the collaboration rather than entertainment or hobbies.
Collaboration may take place in different modes and formats. One example is two or more people sharing ideas for a project plan.
At a basic level, people may also collaborate by writing using various documentation tools such as Box, Google docs, or the network versions of Microsoft Office products.
There are also emerging tools mainly used in mobile settings. These mobility tools are widespread in agile methods. To give an idea, some of these tools are Slack, Trello, Twitter, Facebook Messenger, and many more.
Most of us tout social media tools as practical, useful, and highly valuable for collaboration purposes.
However, when we carefully examine these tools, we can see that they are more information-sharing tools rather than actual collaboration tools.
From my experience, the most productive and impactful collaboration tools are face-to-face meetings, telephone, and video conferencing.
Collaboration is essential to create synergy in digital transformation teams. As digital transformation architects, we collaborate widely and productively.
We also motivate our team members to collaborate effectively and efficiently by pointing out the common goals and making them compelling for collaboration. Related to collaboration, we need to understand the powerful metaphor of fusion.
We can consider fusion an empowering attribute for digital transformation architects and the architecting team members.
The term fusion refers to joining different things with different attributes or functions together to create a single new entity or form. The notion of fusion relates to concepts such as integration, blending, merging, amalgamation, synergy, and bonding.
Fusion is closely related to collaboration from several angles. Fusion is a type of collaboration designed for specific and advanced missions. Fusion principles suit the goals of transformation progress in an enterprise.
Fusion principles aim to bring individuals from various backgrounds, small groups with different purposes, various teams with differing capabilities, and communities of practices with different missions under a single umbrella for serving a joint mission.
Fusion is the most advanced and effective type of collaboration especially required for complex and complicated modernisation initiatives with unique goals and market focus.
Creating fusion-based collaboration can be very challenging. As digital transformation architects, with extensive technical and people skills and experiences, we can create fusion-based collaboration for our digital transformation goals.
Fusion can also refer to integrating old systems, tools, and processes and creating new systems. This transformative approach is a critical factor for enterprise modernisation and digital transformation goals.
From an awareness perspective, we need to understand the significance of fusion principles and apply them to help our organizations to modernize the enterprise effectively.
There are different ways to enable fusion in an organization. As transformation architects, we usually take responsibility to initiate fusion in our immediate and extended teams in the digital transformation initiatives.
We must be passionate about achieving our digital goals using fusion principles. We don’t wait for fusion to happen by itself. We know that nothing can happen by itself.
Naturally, someone with leadership and architectural skills must initiate it. This action-oriented focus on fusion is one of the outstanding characteristics of strategic transformation architects, who are typically extrovert people.
Once we initiate fusion and invite our collaborators to structured activities, then the process is maintained with necessary communication and engagement rules.
Effective communication is a critical enabler of fusion goals. Depending on the medium, both verbal and written communication types are essential for fusion to happen.
Fusion for co-located teams is usually conducted face to face and can primarily be dynamic in delivery. However, geographically distant teams usually use video conferencing, telephone, chat programs, email, or some agile collaboration tools.
In remote teams, written communication is critical. Written communications can create some challenges, such as a careless piece of writing may cause some offense and kill the spirit of collaboration.
Therefore, as transformation architects, we play an essential role in facilitating these types of communication by moderating communication channels delicately.
After we initiate and enable fusion goals, we need to maintain the desired outcomes. We can create the necessary process and procedures to maintain collaborative activities.
Effective use of our strategic leadership skills is mandatory to achieve fusion goals in modernisation and digital transformation initiatives.
Even though we set the initial team and processes to support the team activities, it is also the responsibility of other team members to contribute to the goals set by our collaborative plans.
To this end, as transformation architects, we also take the role of motivators to keep the transformation team inspired by showing their impactful vision and strategic goals.
By focusing on productive fusion at various levels, we leverage insights from cross-functional teams and a community of practices to create differentiated value propositions for our modernisation and digital transformation goals.
By undertaking many tasks to initiate and maintain fusion, we keep repeating these activities multiple times with multiple teams and integrate these teams to aggregate more intensive collaboration.
The magic of fusion starts with these repetitions. Successful repetitions make ripple effects for more success. In a relatively short time frame, these teams can create a collaborative culture based on fusion principles aligned with the organization’s ecosystem and strategic goals.
This collaborative culture at work can be invaluable. When collaborative culture starts flourishing using fusion-based collaboration, a desirable phenomenon called innovation happens naturally.
Step 7: Leverage Emerging Technology & Tools
The key technology enablers of enterprise modernisation and digital transformation goals are Cloud Computing, Mobile technologies, IoT, Big Data, and AI-based or Cognitive Data Analytics.
An integrated view of these technologies, associated processes, and tools is critical to our success in our digital endeavors.
Besides, we must focus on benchmarking technological products and services as they are essential enablers of our digital transformations.
Nowadays, the most widely used technology in transforming enterprises is Cloud Computing. Cloud became mainstream in many organizations.
The adoption of the Cloud became very rapid. We can use Cloud as a foundational enterprise modernisation and digital transformation tool.
Cloud Computing
The most significant attribute of the Cloud is that the cloud service model can expand or reduce computer resources based on service requirements.
For example, Cloud can provide the maximum resources when we need a large amount of computing power, storage capacity, or network bandwidth for a specific workload at a particular timeframe.
Then we can release these resources after completing our specific mission for these workloads. This elasticity and scalability of the Cloud can provide a valuable position for digital transformations.
‘Pay per use’ or ‘pay as you go’ is another essential characteristic that the Cloud services model offers. The resources can be consumed based on the usage amount. Usage could be on a short, medium, or long-term basis. For example, consumers can pay based on the computing power or storage amount they used.
IoT (Internet of Things)
After Cloud Computing, another rapidly emerging technology is the IoT (Internet of Things). Substantial progress has been made in many disciplines owing to the use of IoT in creating new services and products.
Some of these disciplines include environmental monitoring, manufacturing, infrastructure management, energy management, agriculture, healthcare, transportation, IT, electronics, material sciences, and banking.
In the market, it is noticeable that IoT technologies are emerging and IoT solutions are growing exponentially to support digital transformation initiatives.
It is estimated that billions of devices in the next few years to connect to the global IoT ecosystem. The bottom line is that IoT is valuable for both business and the economy, which is inevitable.
From our current experience, we can construe that IoT can have a substantial impact on our economy and the way we do business and commerce as far as digital transformation is concerned.
Consumers and service providers have an incredible interest and focus on this fantastic technology powered by the internet. The generation of new business for companies and new job roles that we cannot even name yet is imminent.
For architecting digital transformation initiatives, we must understand IoT offerings and possess a broad range of IoT knowledge and skills because IoT is one of the primary enablers of digital transformation initiatives to create new revenue streams and broader business opportunities.
Big Data, AI, and Cognitive Analytics
In addition to IoT, Big Data, AI (Artificial Intelligence), and cognitive analytics are vital technologies and processes that we need to understand. Not only understand but also, we must use them for creating insights and competitive advantage for our digital transformation goals.
It is important to note that even though architecturally similar to traditional data, Big Data requires newer methods and tools to deal with data. The traditional methods and tools are not adequate to process big data, especially for digital transformation goals.
The Big Data process refers to capturing a substantial amount of data from multiple sources, storing analyzing, searching, transferring, sharing, updating, visualizing, and governing huge volumes of data sets such as petabytes or even exabytes nowadays.
Cognitive analytics deal with analytics types such as descriptive, predictive, prescriptive, and diagnostic analytics mimicking human learning. Machine learning and deep learning are common techniques used for this purpose.
Cognitive analytics can be invaluable for digital transformation initiatives. We need to understand the type of analytics and when to use them for the required type of transformation solution construct.
For example, machine learning (ML), as a subset of artificial intelligence is a critical technology domain for digital transformation initiatives.
ML refers to computer systems to learn and improve based on their learning from the analysis of large volumes of data sets without programming the system.
Due to its usefulness and impact, machine learning became a vital technology and tool for digital transformation programs. As these are comprehensive topics, I plan to write a detailed article specific to these high-impact technology domains.
The other key technology and services domains for architecting digital transformations are:
· Cybersecurity
· Network
· Mobility
· IT Service Management
· Blockchain
You may check my article for detail on Blockchain.
Step 8: Reconstruct, Modernise & Transform Data
Data is the most valuable asset for business intelligence required in digital transformation initiatives. For compelling business reasons, there is a tremendous focus on data in digital transformation initiatives.
Applying data intelligence steers the transformation and leads to new business insights. One significant fact is that data, especially Big Data, is ubiquitous in every business organization.
Large organizations generate massive amounts of data coming from multiple sources. There are ongoing real-time data collection and analysis aiming to create business insights and value. The most prominent example is the data coming from embedded objects as mentioned in the IoT technology point in step 10.
As a transformation architect and architecting team, data is our bread and butter for our digital transformation initiatives. Therefore, we need to understand every aspect of data in its lifecycle methodically.
To this end, I provided my experience in a comprehensive article on Medium titled “How to deal with Big Data for AI?. I also authored an article about data lakes titled “Architecting Data Lake Solutions” due to its importance in digital transformation initiatives. I hope these two articles provide you with a useful overview of this DTM step.
Step 9: Mobilise Building Blocks
Mobility involves people, processes, technology, and tools at a massive scale in every business organization. Mobility is an essential factor for digital transformation initiatives. To simply state, no mobility, no digitization!
The demand for mobility is rapidly increasing in all walks of life. The process of mobility is also challenged to meet the demands of digital service consumers. In one way or another, everyone in our society is affected by mobile technology and processes.
Mobile technology and tools are proliferating on the market. Mobile devices, mobile phones, mobile computers, tablets, and wireless networks are a few to mention. It is not feasible to have a digital transformation initiative without extensively using mobile technology stacks.
Lifecycle management for mobile devices is an essential architectural consideration in enterprise modernisation and digital transformation initiatives.
Managing mobile devices can be daunting from many angles. The life cycle for mobile devices can be much shorter than for traditional computing and telecommunication devices.
One of the primary challenges related to the lifecycle of mobile devices is dealing with quantity. In the past, there were only office phones, and people used to share them. Nowadays, workers have multiple mobile phones. Having multiple mobile devices per person may equate to thousands of mobile devices to consider at the enterprise level.
In addition to quantity, the user in the enterprise may change their mobile devices frequently. These frequent changes require consideration of applications and software updates for these devices in the dynamic lifecycle.
Enterprise modernisation and digital transformation strategies must consider the challenges associated with the lifecycle of these mobile devices.
As transformation architects, we need to create dynamic and flexible governance to address the concerns related to the use and lifecycle management of these devices in our digital transformation initiatives.
The security implications of mobile devices are massive challenges. They create many security vulnerabilities for enterprises. Software updates can be persistent and very frequent. Frequent updates and patching can create a massive workload for the IT support departments. These challenges inevitably affect our digital transformation programs.
The use of these mobile devices increases information consumption in the enterprise dramatically. Security control of the data can be daunting too. These security implications cross the data and application domains; hence, a collaborative effort among the Security, Data, and Application Architects are required.
As transformation architects, we must coordinate this collaboration across other technical, architectural, and business domains in our programs.
These critical challenges created by mobile devices are real and evident in the enterprise. Therefore, enterprise modernisation initiatives and digital transformation programs must consider these challenges and find practical and innovative ways to address them. We touched on the importance of cybersecurity in previous chapters.
Mobile business intelligence, also known as Mobile BI is an essential requirement for enterprises to stay competitive, open new markets, and create new revenue streams.
Mobile BI includes both real-time and historical information for analyzing mobile devices such as phones and tablets. The primary purpose of Mobile BI is to provide insights based on past and current information, for business decision-making.
Mobile BI is necessary for the overall support of mobile devices in the enterprise ecosystem. This intelligence, providing a broad perspective on the business data, sales figures, consumption figures, and performance statistics, can be valuable for enterprise modernisation.
Using the analytics on mobile progress in enterprise digital transformation initiatives can be instrumental for developing new business models and improving the current models.
Product and service providers widely use Mobile BI. Some established and popular Mobile BI environments are publicly accessible services such as Appstore by Apple, Google Play Store, and Samsung Galaxy Store.
A unified endpoint management (UEM) practice is essential for enterprise modernisation and digital transformation initiatives. UEM includes relevant software tools and centralized management interfaces for consumers.
This centralization is necessary to improve the security capabilities and also allow collaborative content sharing for the consumers and other stakeholders. It is essential to integrate unified endpoint management in the digital transformation program structure.
We cannot transform our legacy enterprise without including mobility to the equation. Due to these compelling business reasons, we must approach mobility from strategic and architectural perspectives to properly integrate it into the culture and ecosystem of a digitally transforming enterprise.
Step 10: Create Smart Objects & Sensors
Digital transformation initiatives mandate the use of smart objects to extend intelligence and enhance user experience. This step for DTM is about IoT (Internet of Things).
The main benefit and business value proposition of IoT come from collecting an enormous amount of data from various means and devices in the enterprise and then building services based on analyses of these massive amounts of data.
Developing new services from such a collection of data would result in a substantial business outcome posing multiple architectural and business implications.
Business organizations embrace IoT because it helps us predict the future; hence, the more data provided by the IoT systems, the better the analyses and outcomes can be. These data-rich analyses help us predict the future better and intervene before any potential damage occurs.
As we can synthesize IoT data via cognitive analytics, IoT solutions can help us gain better insights from structured, semi-structured, unstructured, dynamic, or static data by integrating with cognitive systems.
Like humans, a cognitive system undertakes the duties of learning, understanding, planning, problem-solving, deciding, analyzing, synthesizing, and assessing.
We can use IoT solutions in many facets of enterprise digital transformation initiatives. These solutions can be used for the transformation of department, enterprise-wide, and external entities in the enterprise to predict what we need and want.
For digital transformation purposes, as an extended electronic ecosystem, IoT solutions can help to eliminate cumbersome technology affecting the performance of our organizations.
IoT can offer several applications at a large scale for enterprises serving different industries. Some typical applications of IoT solutions are industrial control, robotics, medical, workplace safety, and security, embedded sensing in buildings, remote control, traffic control, and most recently self-driving cars which are all related to digitally transforming ventures.
Step 11: Create High Performing Teams
A digital ecosystem can consist of many interrelated teams with a wide variety of professionals covering various facets of digital transformation programs. We can come across many roles and responsibilities in these programs.
These roles and responsibilities need to be known and understood clearly. Stakeholder management is one of the primary responsibilities of transformation architects in digital transformation programs.
Understanding team structures, dynamics, and many roles and responsibilities require a considerable amount of effort and organization. In subsequent sections, let’s discuss these significant factors starting with talent as a crucial enabler of digital transformations.
Talent management is essential in digital transformation initiatives. Therefore, as transformation architects, we need to understand the value and importance of talent for our programs.
Without caliber talent, our digital programs cannot progress and transform productively.
To this end, we need to be very cautious in nurturing and keeping talent in our teams. We need to make every effort to retain valuable talent in our teams.
We cannot emphasize enough that talent is a crucial enabler of core products and services of transforming enterprises. Without talent, an organization cannot be competitive in its transformation goals. Evidently, there is constant talent hunting in the industry to secure these scarce resources.
As part of our architecture role in the digital transformation programs, we need to perform talent management and facilitation roles. We can encourage the architecting team members, especially less junior team members, to perform better and turn them into talented team players.
We can also pick up poor performance in our programs and help remove poorly performing employees and replace them with talented team members who can genuinely contribute to the modernization and transformation vision. Our success depends on high-performance teams consisting of talented members.
Digital transformation initiatives require team members who can perform and produce at the highest possible level. These team members must perform optimally at all times to meet the challenges of these programs. Their skills and capabilities must be tested and validated to suit the type of work they are performing in our programs.
Building high-performance teams are critical for the success of digital transformation programs. We need to create proactive and engaged local technical teams and a community of practices as give-back activities.
These high-quality teams and collaborative community of practices can generate innovative, high-quality solutions in an accelerated manner. They are ideal contributors to digital transformation goals.
As our teams are involved in complex transformation matters, people may have blind spots in understanding the sophisticated dynamics. Blind spots can be hazardous in digital ventures. The owner of the blind spot cannot see his or her blind spot unless using specific tools or assistance from someone else who is more experienced.
Habits and habitual thinking patterns are common causes of blind spots. Focusing on details without seeing the big picture can also cause cloudy thinking and ultimately dangerous blind spots.
However, as astute digital technical leaders, we need to look for big pictures from multiple angles and deep dive when needed; hence can quickly identify blind spots and weaknesses experienced by our team members in our transformation programs.
We need to articulate situations with constructive feedback, lots of clarifying examples, metaphors, and similes.
This influential articulation focus can help people to see their blind spots, understand their weaknesses, and turn them into strengths. Related to blind spots, identifying hidden agendas and hidden costs are critical for enterprise modernization and digital transformation initiatives.
Taking necessary performance measures is essential in our transformation programs. We need to focus on both qualitative and quantitative measures for team success. We can manage across complex matrix structures in our organizations to integrate skills into our programs.
As metric-oriented transformation architects, we need to use KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). We can use a team dashboard to see the trends and qualify and quantify progress in visual formats for the team members and the business stakeholders.
We need to encourage other team members to create their dashboard and shared dashboard for the team in our transformation programs. Our teams must turn our program into a data-driven organization to measure the progress of modernization and transformation goals structurally and methodically.
One of the key measures is customer orientation and support mechanisms. We ensure a customer-centric outlook is provided, focusing on continually improving client experience with measurable results.
We are expected to be the ‘thought leaders in our transformation programs. Thought leadership is a critical need and demand in modernization and transformation environments for changing cultures and transforming ecosystems.
Tangible outcomes are essential for the success of enterprise modernization and digital transformation programs. These programs require tangible outcomes iteratively rather than monolithic.
For example, some tangible outcomes can be virtualization of platforms, creating containers, creating reusable shared resources, reviewed products, and agreed services.
As transformation architects, we need to pay special attention to providing measurable outcomes with the support of our team members. Modernizing and transforming environments present constant and rapid changes. We know that any change matters in the transforming ecosystem.
These small and rapid changes lead to more significant measurable outcomes at later stages of modernization and transformation.
For example, the systems may need to be fully automated, loosely coupled, service-oriented, software-defined, self-learning, self-managing, and self-healing are a few to mention in this context.
Now that we emphasized the importance and approach to team performance, let’s get to know our key players from the architectural point of view in our programs.
All other architecture types, such as solution architecture, system architecture, integration architecture, and other architecture domains, are all dependent on the quality of enterprise architecture.
Apart from architecture, the subsequent activities in the digital transformation lifecycle are also adversely affected by the decision made at the enterprise level.
After a validated, business-focused, and pragmatic architecture supporting the digital transformation strategy, the design (both high level and detailed level) is the next vital aspect to be considered in the lifecycle.
Our architecture team needs to participate in various forums, such as the Architecture Review Boards and Design Authority forums. These forums are consisting of many architects, designers, and technical specialists.
For example, a Design Authority maybe consist of multiple architects with diverse expertise in different domains. Usually, Enterprise Architects orchestrate the activities with their broad knowledge and understanding of the strategy, architecture, technical matters, and business.
They govern the Design Authority by using their organizational skills coupled with other architectural skills and business understanding. I plan to cover the roles and responsibilities of the architecture team in a separate article.
Step 12: Reuse and Repeat
The digital transformation lifecycle is recursive with successive steps and results. There is no end to transformation. We may complete a cycle, but as soon as its completed we need to deal with another cycle.
As time passes, systems get older; technology stacks become obsolete, and processes get convoluted and unusable; just like human beings, everything ages in the IT systems. Therefore, we always need to modernize and transform our systems, processes, tools, and technology stacks.
Due to this natural phenomenon, I added the repeat step to the digital transformation method. However, from an architectural and architecting perspective, the repeat process needs to be well structured based on a dynamic lifecycle management process.
As transformation architects, we can re-use our architectural and design assets multiple times as needed.
The main reason for this is to save time and reduce the cost of rework. In addition, using established and validated building blocks of our architectural solutions can be very powerful in maintaining and increasing the quality requirements.
The most commonly used architectural assets are reference architectures. A reference architecture is a re-usable solution or a design in a template format.
The use of a reference architecture for modernization solutions can save us a considerable amount of time. Reference architectures are developed by experienced solution architects based on successful outcomes obtained from delivered solutions.
This means that we can trust the reference architectures as they were once successfully delivered. Following the same path as our customized specifications, these re-usable templates can save us a considerable amount of time and can improve the quality of our solutions.
As reference architectures are developed by experienced architects, they can also guide us in dealing with the unknown aspects of the solutions.
Reference architectures can be used for various domains, can be combined to extend functionality, and can be integrated into the final architecture solutions.
Reference architectures are developed based on the collaborative spirit in many organizations. Some architects share their experiences internally or externally for various reasons.
For example, some architects share them for charitable give-back purposes or networking or to boost their reputation and recognition in their industry. Whatever the reasons they share them, the reference architectures are invaluable resources for our planned solution architectures.
Open-source organizations produce many reference architectures in their domains.
There are two primary sources for these reference architectures: either their members develop them as part of an open-source team, or some commercial companies donate their re-usable assets to the open-source organizations as reference architectures.
The Open Group (TOG) is a typical example of this kind of open-source organization.
Reference Architecture can be at a high-level or other detailed levels. A typical IoT reference Architecture at a high level can include essential points, such as Portal, Dashboard, API Management, Analytics, Services, Communications, Devices, Device Management, Security Management, Infrastructure, and so on.
Reference Architectures are usually represented in diagrams with minimal text to explain the representations in the diagrams. Clarity is the main factor for a reference architecture. Reference Architectures usually are easy to understand and use.
In the transformation architecture team, we need to encourage our domain and solution architects to leverage available reference architectures related to enterprise modernization and digital transformation initiatives.
We also need to encourage them to create their reference architectures and share them with other domain architects in our programs or the enterprise. From my experience, smart reuse of architectural assets can help reduce enterprise costs substantially.
Conclusions and Takeaways
This concludes the overview of the Digital Transformation Method (DTM). In this article, I highlighted the importance and the high-level steps of architecting digital transformation initiatives.
My experience comes from large complex business organizations. However, I believe that the use of this method for smaller organizations and startup companies may be beneficial.
Besides, architecting any digital solution is a fundamental requirement for creating sustainable results. I hope you find my perspectives and reflections valuable.
If you are responsible for architecting digital transformation initiatives and want to delve into details, you may review my book titled The book may provide you with insights and practical guidance as it reflects my learning and experience in the field in a simplified way.
Your input and comments to enhance this emerging discipline can be useful as it is an under-discussed topic in the literature.
I am pleased that my consultancy platform was selected amongst the top 50 thought-leading companies for Digital Transformation in 2023.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
Here is my vision of the far future, wearing my scientific and technological hats.
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