Introduction

Digital transformation doesn’t have to be complex or costly, and it shouldn’t take years to achieve meaningful business impact.

When getting started, it’s generally a good idea to think big, start small and learn fast. This is exactly what our micro-transformation model will show you how to do.

Thinking big is how you’ll motivate your organization to change. You’ll do this by articulating a future state that is bold and fundamentally different and better than the current state. Note that thinking big doesn’t mean that you’re making a commitment. It’s not a list of requirements or deliverables. Instead, you’re painting a picture of the future that will hopefully inspire and motivate the organization to move in a new direction.

Starting small is how you’ll find your path. Applying the principle of optionality, you can avoid going all-in on an approach that could be wrong. When you start small, you can intentionally explore a few different ideas before deciding on the best possible path to the transformed future state. This is important because it will help you discover what works and why (as well as what doesn’t work and why). This will enable you to not only direct the transformation path based on real-world data, but it will also enable you to articulate clear guiding policies and coherent action steps that will dramatically improve overall time to value and substantially reduce complexity, noise and friction.

Starting small has other benefits, too. Most importantly, it enables you to learn fast. This minimizes overall risk, sustains momentum and avoids waste. But you can’t learn fast if you don’t have the right environment for learning. And if you are not committed to creating this environment, your transformation will ultimately fail.

In this final part of the book, we’ll show you how to think big, start small and learn fast in four steps using our micro-transformation model.

In Step One, we’ll explain how to design empowered, outcome-driven, cross-functional transformation teams that can reach the future state. In Step Two, we’ll explore how to use “immersive working environments” as the ultimate accelerator for your transformation. Then in Step Three, we’ll show you how cross-functional teams that can solve any challenge using a framework called the Starter Kata. Finally in Step Four, we’ll demonstrate how to simultaneously test the future state and deliver real-world outcomes using the thin-slicing technique.

Like all things, our model may take some time to master. However, we are confident that micro-transformation will provide your organization with the most effective path to the future state. With this model, you can achieve your transformation goals in 6 to 18 months, depending on your organization's size and complexity.