Reflecting on the week that was: November 9, 2019

I have had some interesting conversations this past week, both personal and professional and some that were in between. I was told that I was a pioneer, and inspirational. Being called a pioneer was new, so I particularly liked that.

After years of being asked, “what I do” I finally figured it out (I have another blog about that), which was very satisfying and revealing. Now that I know what I do, I can much more easily tell people, and explain why they need me to help them be successful with their digital transformation project (or other big, unwieldy initiatives).

However, something someone said, in one the conversations is still bouncing around inside of my head: they said, that people want to know how to break-through the shell of what they’ve learned/been taught. Which is a noble thought; an admirable goal.

But what strikes me is that they want a shortcut. They want a course, or a checklist, that when you do these things you will have become aware, you will have dropped your mask, you will have unlearned the negative patterns you have learned. And certainly, there are retreats you can go on, books you can read, therapy you can do, coaching or mentoring you can get, and they all help move along the path, but there are no shortcuts. It takes as long as it takes, it happens when it happens and even when it happens, it continues to evolve; it never stops, you never arrive. Get used to it.
We have been taught that if you take the course, get the certification, finish your “to do” list, that all will be right with the world, that we will be successful when that happens. But it’s a big, fat lie.

You define success, the same way you define happiness. Looking for external approval and validation is only going to make you miserable.

What is success for me? Having work that I like doing, working with people who trust and respect me, spending time with friends, painting, going to museums and art galleries, seeing art, going to jazz or classical music concerts, going for a walk in nature, people watching, allowing my mind to wander, spending time along (sometimes a lot of it), reading, watching movies, eating good food (especially with friends), connecting with people, sharing my story/experience, learning, experimenting. 

It has taken me a lot of time and effort to figure these things out, it’s not been easy, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. There are no shortcuts.

What do I Do: the box I fit into

What do I do?

I get asked this question all the time; for years I have been asked this question. At the beginning of my career I could say I was an accounting student, or an accountant, and people understood this. However, the more education and experience I got, the more difficult it became to say precisely what I did. 

When I became self-employed, I used to say that I did knowledge management consulting, and I did, but people (mostly) didn’t understand what that meant, so I tried to explain. I could give examples of projects that I had done and the impact that it had had, and they sort of understood, but not really. They smiled and nodded and we moved onto another subject.

I have been self-employed for 16 years, my consulting practice has changed and evolved, the “how” of what I do has changed. I now incorporate artistic methods/thinking into what I do (the truth is, they was there all along, I just didn’t have a name for it, much like the agile, and design thinking practices I incorporated in to my methodology, without having a name for them either). But, honestly, no one cares about the “how”, they care about the results. 

What are my results? 

I stop you from failing with your big, unwieldy projects and programs. Your big, cross-functional, cross-organisational initiatives, that don’t neatly fit into a box. Those initiatives that have lots of stakeholders, lots of moving parts, lots of conflicting objectives. They have technology, they have processes, they have people.

Examples: One organisation recognised an ROI of 165%, while another was prevented from throwing out a million dollar (Cdn) IT investment and starting over.

In the current environment, these projects are called digital transformation, and up to 95% of them fail. When I first started, they were mostly called knowledge management, and somewhere around 50% of them failed. Certainly, one of the first KM projects I did had failed twice previously under different project managers, and I came along and did it using an iterative, collaborative approach (what might be called agile and design thinking now). Not only did I have a successful pilot with 100 people, but eventually had almost 7000 people using the platform, which increased to 10,000 on the momentum of what I had started even after I left the organisation. 

Since going out on my own, I have helped other organisations do this—well, at least the ones that trusted me. There were some that were uncomfortable with my cross-functional, collaborative, iterative approach, and so shelved my work, which is their prerogative. 

My success is built on experience, trial and error, persistence, collaboration, communication, curiosity, critical thinking, leadership, and a willingness to admit that I don’t know the answer but I’ll find out. There is no course that teaches these things, only experience. 

Courses and certifications teach theory, they teach best practices. But as anyone who knows about best practices will tell you, best practices are dependant on the organisation, the situation, the culture, the people, the technology, and the processes. Best practices from one situation/organisation will not necessarily give the same results somewhere else. 

Experience takes best practices and asks the question, how do we take that and make it work here, in this environment, with this technology, with these people?

What do I do?

I ask the questions, and I successfully plan and execute big, unwieldy projects.

How not to fail at digital transformation

It is said that digital transformation projects fail up to 95% of the time! [1], I’ve seen slightly lower numbers, but still exceptionally high.

I’m not going to go into the why, the article I linked to above does that, and I will let you read that, what I’m going to tell you is how I implement digital transformation projects successfully, so that you can do it too.

One of the keys is to work across the silos of your organisation, this makes a lot of people very nervous, but it’s the only way to do it and be successful. This means talking to people, involving them, keeping them informed.

Another key is to involve the users. This often gets called design thinking, these days, but design thinking wasn’t something I’d heard of when I first did it 20 years ago, it just seemed to be the right thing to do. I certainly don’t know what would make people’s jobs easier, and reduce their workload, or at least not increase it, so I ask them. I talk to them about their processes, what they call things, how they are organised. The things that worked for them, what didn’t work for them.

Once I get their input I create wireframes or prototypes and validate them with the people I’ve talked to, making modifications where I’ve misunderstood something or not asked enough questions. We often do this 2-3 times until we get it right. This gets call agile, trying and failing, or iteration; again it just seemed to be the right thing to do when I first did it. I was realistic enough to know that I wasn’t an expert in whatever my users were, so if I was going to help them, I was going to need their help–it was a team effort, we were in this together.

Something else that is critical is keeping everyone informed: users, management, other stakeholders. We have regular emails, updates, and meetings as well as documents being posted online for people to access. It takes a lot of communication: A LOT!

I ask questions and ensure alignment. When something doesn’t make sense, I go back to the users, the use cases they had described, the organisation’s vision or strategy, whatever helps me ensure we are moving in the right direction, in the best interests of the people I was working with and the organisation as a whole. If I have conflicting information, we talk about it and make a decision, sometimes, I make the decision, sometimes the team does, whatever keeps us moving towards the goal. The times that I make the decision, I explain my rationale and reasoning, so that people don’t feel excluded, like I have “done it to them”. We are in this together, we only succeed together.

I treat people like equals, with the trust and respect they deserve. They come to trust me, and work with me to achieve our objectives. It is hard. Lots of people don’t like it. Lots of people want a command and control approach, but that’s not going to be successful. We’re in the age of the knowledge worker, and have been for a long time. It demands a different approach than the industrial age.

You have to be passionate, tenacious, and willing to admit you don’t have all the answers but you’ll find out. Success takes leadership, not a place on the hierarchy.

Boxes I Fit Into

I have written/spoken a few times lately about how I don’t fit into a box, and that’s true, I fit into many boxes, based on my education, experiences, and areas of expertise. Here is a list*, in alphabetical order:

Abstract Expressionist
Accountant
Agile Implementer of Solutions
Analyst
Artist
Author
Big Picture Seer
Business Analyst
Business Process Analyst
Business-Technology Aligner
Catalyst
Challenger of assumptions
Change Manager
Chaos Organiser
Coach
Collaborator
Communicator
Community Builder
Connector
Consultant
Creative
Critical Thinker
Culture Changer
Decision Maker
Design Thinker
Digital Transformer
Executer
Facilitator
Financial Analyst
Follower
Gamification Consultant
Human’s First Advocate
Implementer
Influencer
Information Technology Process Consultant
Innovator
ITSM Master
Knowledge Management Expert
Knowledge Manager
Leader
Learner
Listener
Manager
Marketer
MBA
Mentor
Networker
Organiser
Painter
Planner
Problem Solver
Process Analyst
Process Designer
Process Thinker
Product Manager
Program Manager
Project Manager
Public Speaker
Questioner
Realiser of Potential
Sales Person
Solopreneur
Strategist
Strategy Developer/Creator/Implementer
Taxonomy Developer
Teacher
Team Builder
Technology Person
Technology Requirements Analyst


*I reserve the right to add to/edit this list