The key to unlocking true digital transformation isn’t about technology at all; rather, it’s fundamentally about communication and collaboration at its core.
“Digital transformation” is a familiar buzzword across government, but for many agencies, it has been elusive to achieve at scale. Despite the best of intentions, when large enterprise-wide efforts fall short, the tendency is to apply new technologies to overcome perceived shortfalls, whether it’s cloud, artificial intelligence or other innovations. However, the key to unlocking true digital transformation isn’t about technology at all; rather, it’s fundamentally about communication and collaboration at its core.
A successful enterprise initiative to embrace digitalization begins with a strong call to action from those sponsoring it, with an ability to clearly and concisely explain not just the “why,” but also the “what’s in it for me” for their teams. In garnering interest and support well before digital change is initiated, the same executive sponsors must simultaneously build a coalition of middle management to internalize how the initiative will help address organizational goals, given the essential role managers play in day-to-day interactions with the employee population responsible for adopting and implementing the change.
Better communication can also help move federal organizations away from getting stuck in processes that have been in place for decades, and instead consider how those processes could be reviewed, improved and streamlined. A critical first step in any digital transformation initiative is having key contributors participate during process definition workshops to ensure work scope is properly understood; participating roles are documented; and job success factors are captured to ensure buy in and willingness to adopt the solution.
Increasingly, federal agencies are establishing digital transformation offices that look across the entire life cycle throughout the organization, not just specific acquisition or sustainment projects. These offices are taking the lead to blend all aspects of the life cycle of an IT or — in the case of the military — a weapon system. This results in “born-digital” projects that can knock down silos that have impeded the success of past digital transformation programs, ensuring alignment between people, processes and technology.
Born-digital projects build rich data sets early in the program’s life cycle so that agencies can immediately start to integrate different aspects of the transformation goals onto a single digital thread that serves as a foundation to move through full-scale acquisition, design, development and delivery through the supply chain. This approach helps engage user communities faster, emphasizing communication and collaboration by showing wins through manageable, phased-based outcomes steadily making progress toward larger organization-wide objectives.
Born-digital projects are designed for reliability and sustainability. A perfect example is an Army program office I once worked with, which requested that two down-selected contractors provide virtual models that could attest to meeting production quantities over a given timeframe to satisfy program goals. Such visibility and transparency between the government and industry is something that could only exist in the digital realm using verifiable data. Opportunities like this example provide the testimonials sponsors and stakeholders require to successfully tell the transformation story throughout the chain of command, garnering support for broader adoption and implementation.
Real-time collaboration is also a key factor in successful digital transformation. Traditionally, agencies wait months or longer to conduct a design review, only to find that the design is not what they’re looking for. Instead, born-digital projects are based on a collaborative environment where the program office has insight into what’s going on during the prime contractor’s development phase, even so far as standing up digital environments for development work, helping ensure configuration management is captured and value is realized at every step. With a more collaborative environment, agencies can do on-the-fly verification management to ensure the manufacturer’s design aligns with the requirements and performance specifications previously agreed upon, ultimately improving the quality of the final product.
Ongoing governance of digital transformation projects is critical because it’s an ever-changing, ever-evolving journey. As technology improves, project managers need to evaluate how and where to adopt it in a way that’s least disruptive. To support this approach, leadership also must challenge their delivery teams to measure user engagement, change readiness, and ultimately, solution adoption to drive value and ensure expansion across workstreams and sites.
Ultimately, technology without a broad communication and adoption campaign will not net the outcomes federal agencies need. By enabling teams with the tools and the understanding of why digital transformation is needed, real change can occur. And that is when we see actual improvements against schedule, cost and performance. If an agency just gives users technology but doesn’t teach them the most effective way to use it, it will just sit there unused.
Modernizing with new technology, such as AI, is important as it can add value across every part of the life cycle. But agencies can’t just apply AI to unstructured data. If an agency has no idea of the quality of its data, AI can’t provide trusted results and becomes more of a burden than a benefit. Agencies need to build a digital thread of structured data to be able to apply AI effectively to it.
Large digital transformation initiatives can be intimidating. However, with a focus on collaboration, communication, governance and enablement, government agency leaders can overcome challenges and promote broad understanding of the benefits of these efforts to transform their organizations at the speed of relevance.
Aaron Johns is vice president of digital solutions at Siemens Government Technologies.
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