THE WHY
The future, in an age of digital transformation, must be actively planned, developed and designed! The digital transformation means that the boundaries between producers, trade, distribution and end consumers is merging to an ever increasing degree.
Traditional ways of thinking must be thrown overboard: It is no longer enough to aim to prevail on the market with my products, keep an eye on my staff, and perfect my products.
New ways of thinking and new processes must be learned and internalised: innovations and changes, starting from the needs of your users, determine the everyday work of the company. Work is carried out in projects. A project begins with an idea for a product, a service, or a change. Open processes, with a high degree of freedom and changes in direction within the project can change the product or service into something better (for the user”). Ultimately, the result may be a completely different product or service. To achieve this, the project requires clear leadership and guidance.
The digital transformation, with its key words such as “disruption” or “Industry 4.0” is the flavour of the moment. Project management plays an essential role in this process: to approach and develop the mega project of digital transformation in the company.
In fact, many more innovations fail due to their implementation than to the quality of the ideas. Good project management therefore greatly increases the likelihood that innovation will succeed. Innovation projects require more than control and coordination. We, as project leaders, are particularly persuasive and often change the attitudes of stakeholders.
Success indicators for agile change
Many company managers ask themselves whether it is worthwhile to transform into an agile company. They therefore look for ways to visualise the growing agility of their processes or to measure them in figures. But most of them do not capture the essence. Ultimately, agility cannot be measured – and it would not make much sense. What certainly can be measured, however, are the changes created by agile working methods, simply because many of these changes produce better results.