- You have a solid core of technology team members.
That's important of course.
As you embark on the digital transformation ahead,
what skills will be amplified,
which new skills will need to be hired or trained for?
These are important questions
since the pace and ultimately the success
of that transformation will only be as good
as the team you assemble.
The skills necessary will need to combine
business disciplines and technical knowhow.
Let's get into more specifics.
There are several skills that become more important
for digital transformation.
First, it's necessary to hire skills
associated with Agile development.
Digital transformation requires Agile development
which focuses on developing projects iteratively.
This is in contrast to the traditional waterfall method
which is serial in nature with handoffs along the way.
Agile coaches are key new roles in this paradigm.
They're part change manager, consultant and trainer.
Let me give you an example from Capital One.
To ensure the organization has the right skills
associated with Agile development,
Capital One has developed an Agile maturity assessment
to train teams to understand where they are
in their journey.
Once a quarter, individuals across the company
are asked to react anonymously to neutral statements
across five areas, sustainability, value delivery,
Scaled Agile, culture and technical health.
Areas with low scores are flagged
and individuals at the team and program levels
identify areas to improve
for the next six development cycles or sprints.
Agile coaches then formulate an Agile transformation path
for each value stream.
The second skill necessary related to Agile development
is the scrum master.
Scrum is a framework associated with Agile development
which stresses frequent meetings of the entire team
to chart the next phase of development,
chart progress, course correct and test results.
Scrum masters are the leaders of the scrum.
The scrum master manages the process
for how information is exchanged
but they're well equipped to lead teams.
They also have deep technical knowledge.
For example, to facilitate learning,
Capital One established peer groups for scrum masters
with the idea of creating communities
where they can share best practices
and learn from each other.
The third skill necessary to incorporate into your teams
is the product owner.
In the digital age, to a greater degree,
one must think of traditional projects
or services of the company as products.
The product owner is ultimately accountable
for the product that is in development.
They set the vision for the product,
chart the development path, track progress
and ensure that the value is ultimately delivered.
Agile coaches and scrum masters work across products
but product owners develop a deeper expertise
in a given product area.
Again, Capital One provides an interesting case example.
The company's Capital One University
includes training courses on Agile and design thinking
among other topics.
The goal of this curriculum is to allow Capital One
to retrain current employees
to take on new product owner responsibilities.
The fourth skill that's required for digital transformation
is the user experience designer.
User experience encompasses both customer experience
and employee experience depending on who a given product
or project is directed toward.
User experience designers,
sometimes referred to as UX designers,
are both technical experts
but also able to work with customers individually
and through group research as well.
They should be familiar with identifying
and charting experiences for different personas
which represent different kinds of customers
or employees noting different needs each has
and baking those in accordingly.
They should also chart customer journeys
mapping out each customer or employee's interaction
with a product to identify what to amplify,
what to turn off and what new ideas might emerge.
These should be updated over time.
Let me give you an example from IBM.
The company's chief information officer, Fletcher Previn,
created a visual design and user experience team
with the goal of ensuring that everything IT builds
from web pages and email formats
to mobile and desktop applications
looks like something from your consumer life
and not something from a large enterprise IT shop.
By making IT products easy to consume,
more IBMers will be encouraged to use the newer tools
which could help the entire organization
work more effectively and productively.
You probably see a common theme here
in that each of these new roles combine disciplines.
As I mentioned at the outset,
these leaders have traditional business disciplines
coupled with technical acumen.
This means they are admittedly in short supply
and they can be rather expensive to hire.
Developing your own curriculum to train for these skills
will ensure that you have a growing supply
of talent in these critical areas.
With these skills in place,
your digital transformation aspirations
are much more likely to become a reality.