The document discusses the concept of digital transformation, emphasizing that it goes beyond simple digitization and requires continuous change within organizations. It highlights challenges faced by traditional organizations in adapting to new paradigms and suggests ways to transform organizational structures to facilitate this change. Key recommendations include building knowledge-centric matrices, fostering a culture of responsibility, and implementing ongoing training and ethical standards.

1. Changing how
agencies change
EMBEDDING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN ORGANISATIONAL DNA
Craig Thomler
Public Sector Digital Transformation Officers’ Summit
20 April 2017

2. What is Digital Transformation?
Not digitisation – integrating digital tech into
workplaces
Not digitalisation – replicating offline processes
online
Digital Transformation

3. What is Digital Transformation?
Use of technology to improve how society,
commerce and governance are constituted and
operate, to centre them around the self-
actualisation of every individual,
backed by data-driven evidence.

4. Traditional project management
Start Plan Build Test Release End
Goal: Get from A to B

5. Agile project management
Goal: Get from A to B
Start End
Test
Build
TestRelease
Plan
Test
Build
TestRelease
Plan
Test
Build
TestRelease
Plan

6. That’s fine for projects
 Defined scope
 Defined timeframe
 Defined budget
 Defined outcome
 Perfect for slow-changing environments

7. Treating Digital Transformation as a
project means increasingly falling
behind.

8. Digital transformation involves
continual change
 Is an endless journey, not a
stop-start project
 Requires new thinking,
organisation and resourcing
approaches
 You will never see the end –
continue changing & evolving
over many human lifespans

9. -2,000,000 Fire
-12500 Farming
-3500 Monotheism
-2350 Sewage systems
-500 Democracy
1000 Guns
1440 Printing press
1796 Vaccination
1820 Industrialisation
1830 Telegraph
1846 Petroleum
1876 Telephone
1886 Horseless carriage
1880 Artificial fibres
1888 Alternating current
1890 Women’s suffrage
1894 Radio
1904 Production line
1905 Powered flight
1907 Plastic
1911 Modern fertiliser
1916 Drones
1925 Artificial organs
1928 Antibiotics
1937 Computing devices
1937 Nuclear medicine
1939 Jet aircraft
1941 Solar panels
1944 Nuclear power
1953 DNA
1954 Transplant surgery
1954 Programmable robot
1955 Civil Rights Movement
1950 AI Turing test
1957 Satellites
1960 Birth control pill
1960 Lasers
1971 Recombinant DNA
1973 Mobile phones
1975 Augmented reality/VR
1981 Desktop computers
1982 Internet
1984 Self-drive car
1991 Wi-fi
1994 World-wide-web
1995 GPS
1996 Google
1998 3D printing
2000 Smartphones
2004 Facebook
2005 YouTube
2007 DNA Transplant
2014 Cybernetic hand with touch
2016 Power-free water from air
There’s been many transformations

10. Traditional organisations struggle to
adapt
 Rigid hierarchies – designed to resist change
 Budgetary cycles – designed for accountability not outcomes
 Torturous decision-making – led by HIPpos, not strategists
 Managed not led
 Distrust their own staff
 Often complexify rather than simplify

11. How do we transform the DNA of
organisations?
 Restructures don’t work – swaps one hierarchy for another
 Innovation ghettos don’t work – exist on fringe, not in the centre
 Change programs don’t work – scope and timeframes too limited to
manage continual change & growth
 Need a clean break

12. How do we transform the DNA of
organisations?
 Turn administrative hierarchy into knowledge-centric matrices – any employee
can lead, within their own expertise and skill base, regardless of their position.
 Purge untrustworthy staff & untrusting leaders.
 Hand back responsibility to all staff, within a responsibility framework.
 Create new recruitment dynamic based on attitude, not skills.
 Align and connect people by interests and passions.
 Provide low-barrier collaboration & connection tools.
 Commit to continual self-driven training.
 Rigorously enforce ethical standards – the price of admission & retention.

13. Is changing DNA possible?
 In large organisations
Yes – Accenture is a model to look at (400,000 staff)
 In government-run organisations
Yes – introducing blended teams, Agile methodology, 360
degree ongoing assessment, performance-based rewards

14. Where should organisations start?
 Continuous change program – Combine future scanning, innovation & project office
with change management
 Behaviour change – Make happy, high performing people a core organisational KPI for
all staff.
 Tool up – Provide, and train people on collaboration tools and practice.
 Train up – Make continual training on relevant topics a base requirement for every
employee and foster people as internal trainers across the organisation.
 Set & measure using meaningful metrics – Outcomes not outputs
 De-structure, not restructure – Create a knowledge pool that people can dip into to
find relevant & passionate staff for specific tasks.

15. Addressing change fatigue
People disengage when they feel disempowered

16. Tech spheres to keep an eye on
(Environmental impacts)
 Artificial Intelligence (supplementing & replacing human decision-makers)
 Automation (of labour)
 Autonomous vehicles inc Drones (human-free transport & logistics)
 Blockchain (built in transparency on transactions
 Cybernetics (better than human)
 Genetics (disease eradication, self-driven evolution)
 Internet of Things (Internet everywhere)
 Renewable energy & batteries (unlimited localised power)
 Virtual Reality / Augmented Reality (information layer)
 3D Printing (home manufacturing)

17. Thank you
Craig Thomler
T: @CraigThomler
E: Craig.Thomler@Accenture.com