WHY IS THERE SUCH A HIGH FAILURE RATE IN BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION TODAY?

The true number of business transformation project failure is underreported. Depending on which research you follow, the figure is between 70% – 80% of business transformation projects end in failure. There is five (5) main causes in business transformation failure are – lack of stakeholder involvement, lack of senior stakeholder support, changing requirement, incomplete requirements and poor planning.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH EXISTING APPROACHES?

Nothing. They are good at the purpose they were designed for, except they are now used for a different purpose, and that is not the original purpose they were designed for. Look at TOGAF® (The Open Group Architecture Framework) for example – it’s a framework for managing ‘technology’ or ‘technology changes’. It is not surprising, it was written by a “technology standards company”. They know and understand technology. What is happening is, TOGAF® is being used in business transformation projects that the ‘framework’ to manage the ‘transformation’, but it only focuses one thing – technology. It doesn’t focus on anything else other than Technology (it almost completely ignores, the other two (2) important aspects of the organisation – People, and Process(es)). It also ignores how to transition the business from the current state, to its desired future state. It effectively put the Technology stakeholders in the drivers set, to dictate to the Business what they think they want and literally throw it over the fence to the Business for them to work out if first it is fit for purpose, and then how to use and implement it.

HOW DOES HOBA® SOLVE THE PROBLEM IN BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION TODAY?

HOBA® solves the 70% failure rate in business transformation problem by addressing the causes that problem in the first place – by putting the Business back into control, to take control back from Technology and into their own hands, using a structured process and framework that was developed WITH the Business, BY the Business, to be USED and OWNED by the Business, putting the control back into their own hands.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION PROJECTS AND HOW DOES HOBA® HELP?

The biggest problem with business transformation projects is firstly the name. “Business Transformation” is incorrectly called or referred to as “Digital Transformation”. ‘Digital Transformation’ is a misnomer, it is not ‘digital’ per se that is ‘transforming’, it is the ‘Business’ that is transforming, and how it does or is doing that in this period of time is via ‘digital technologies’ (if ‘technology’ isn’t already digital, what were they before?). What this intentional confusion in the marketplace is causing, is it causes is an incorrect bias and focus on the ‘technology aspect’ only of the transformation, which by doing so completely ignores the Business aspects – that’s the Business Operations Stakeholders and their concerns, and the Processes those stakeholders carry out. HOBA® helps by putting the Business back in to control, to be very clear and structured with what is the Vision, Strategy, Objectives and Measures, what stakeholders are involved and need to be involved in the transformation and their decision making authority, the process to manage those decisions, scope and risks; what are the problems they want to address or opportunities they want to take advantage of; what benefits they want to realise from the transformation and when; what the future or Target Operating Model (TOM) needs to look like to achieve their Vision and Strategic Objectives and business benefits, and how and when will the changes be implemented. Everything and nothing more, only doing what needs to be done, to transform the business, not doing what is happening in the marketplace today and that is ‘creating reams and reams of colourful models and diagrams, that while beautiful, are in reality just “interesting but (sadly) useless”.

WHAT IS THE DESIGN PROCESS?

The Design Process is the 6-Step process used to implement HOBA® and manage the transformation from the very start, to the very end, implementation.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST MISCONCEPTION IN THE MARKETPLACE?

The biggest misconception in the marketplace today with business transformation is that Clients are led to believe that they need ‘reams and reams’ of pretty colourful presentations to transform your business. This is a fallacy. This only creates expensive shelf-ware. What those ‘pretty presentations’ are designed for is to enable the transformation project to keep moving toward its end goal, transforming the Business. What the Clients are led to believe is those ‘pretty presentations are the actual goal of the project, and often celebrated and hang up on the project office wall with great bravado as if they were the goal of the transformation itself! What those ‘pretty presentations’ actually need to be is two (2) things – first, is they need to be understandable, and written in a language that the Business understands, so first they can understand what it and they mean, and then they can agree to it. Then second, then they need to be useful. A lot of Consultants and Consultancy’s wanting to impress their clients with great marketing, pretty presentations and long list of impressive acronyms and latest “it” words, but this just confuses the Client. What happens is the Consultants will present their ‘ideas’ (because that’s what they are, they have had one meeting with the Client, interpreted that into their own words and perspectives, and come back to them several weeks and months later, having not consulted with them through the process, thinking ‘they know their Clients business best (they don’t, the Client does!) and play back their 300+ page power-point presentation that looks impressive), they present it to the Client, the Client has no idea what it means or says (its written in a foreign language, literally), due to the time it’s taken, and the money it has cost at that point, the Client agrees to it in the room, then walks out the room, and completely ignores everything the Consultant(s) said. The transformation goes nowhere. HOBA® solves that problem, refer to the first question above.

HOBA® is trusted by the UK Government, FTSE-100 companies and start-ups to both set up, and also turnaround their failing transformations. HOBA® is used by thousands around to transform their business, and was made public for the first time in late 2018, after over 10+ years in use with private clients, published in The Business Transformation Playbook – How to Implement Your Organisations Target Operating Model (TOM) and Achieve a Zero-Percent Failure Rate Using the 6-Step Agile Framework’, reaching bestseller on Amazon in 6-categories including Project Management and Consulting, and made it onto the Best Business Strategy eBook List of All Time by BookAuthority, at no.30 (March 2021). See News for details.

CAN I READ A PREVIEW OF THE BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION PLAYBOOK?

Yes, you can download a FREE preview to The Business Transformation Playbook here.

The Business Architecture Challenge

By Heath Gascoigne
December 4, 2018
Business Architecture, Business Transformation, Design Process
Post Views: 1,270

Lets start this post by defining business architecture

What is Business Architecture?

Business architecture refers to an organization’s framework. The Business Architecture Working Group of the Object Management Group (OMG), calls it “a blueprint of the enterprise that provides a common understanding of the organization and is used to align strategic objectives and tactical demands.” Here’s a visual that can help you understand it better:

To put it simply, business architecture enables strategic planning and strategic execution. And it used to align the businesses’ aims and objectives.

The Gap Between Business Architecture Strategy And Execution

About 80% of leaders feel the need to change their strategy in order to grow their organization. 44% have executed changes to these strategies to generate real value and remain competitive.

About 80% of leaders feel the need to change their strategy in order to grow their organization. 44% have executed changes to these strategies to generate real value and remain competitive.

Heath Gascoigne Tweet

But implementing business architecture that enables those changes is a lot harder than it sounds.

In fact, 70% of enterprises fail to integrate business architecture into their projects and initiatives. And 80% of organisations have clearly defined strategies but have difficulty in executing them.

What Is The Problem With Business Architecture?

Here’s why business architecture is difficult to implement:

Challenges with collaboration

Designing and implementing a business architecture requires collaboration from every member.

Designing and implementing a business architecture requires collaboration from every member.

Heath Gascoigne Tweet

But it’s difficult to get everyone inside the room and sell an idea.

Failure to Communicate

Enterprises think that stakeholders and key players are not part of designing the business architecture. In a top-down enterprise, communication within every tier is important. All stakeholders and key players need to be aware of the business architecture, otherwise it will meet resistance and lead to failure.

Ideal Team

Finding people with the appropriate skills is a must. Businesses will perform better with the right skill and the right people in the right place.

Technical Governance

The alignment of business strategy, objectives, infrastructure, collective tools and processes is vital but not easy. Security and division of data or duty are also a high priority.

The Customer

The final result of the business architecture depends on the customer’s wants. After all, if the business architecture does not suit the customer, it would fail to get their loyalty and interest.

The final result of the business architecture depends on the customer's wants. After all, If the business architecture does not suit the customer, it would fail to get their loyalty and interest.

Heath Gascoigne Tweet

Unfortunately, most business architects don’t consider the customer when building their business solutions.

When this happens, the enterprise will likely not to succeed.

What Are Solutions To Improve Business Architecture?

The problems above can be solved through:

Creating an environment where everybody will be involved in the decision-making processes.
Considering the customer’s wants and needs.
Making security and data control a high priority.
Implementing measures to determine the strategy’s progress. This way, if a loophole has been detected, corrections can be made immediately.
Having a clear vision. All stakeholders must understand the businesses’ goal and should be updated with the latest developments regardless of their hierarchy in the organisation.

Thank you for reading this!

Sincerely,

Heath Gascoigne

P.S. Many organisations fail to recognise these problems with their business architecture and take the necessary actions to solve them.

Remember: It’s always important to bridge the gap between strategy and execution.

P.P.S. If you want to learn more about business transformation, check out The Business Transformation Playbook or download the free preview here.

For more information, visit https://hoba.tech

Heath Gascoigne

Hi, I'm Heath, the founder of HOBA TECH and host of The Business Transformation Podcast. I help Business Transformation Consultants, Business Designers and Business Architects transform their and their clients' business and join the 30% club that succeed. Join me on this journey.

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