Steering an organization through the complex storm of digital evolution is a significant challenge. It demands a departure from traditional methods and a shift towards a new adventure without clear plans — a solid yet adaptable guide that charts the course of the journey. Picture this not as an elaborate, intricate map but as a daring vision pointing the path forward.

What is a Vision

The ‘Vision’ paints a picture of the desired future of the developed solution. It explains the aspirations and achievable goals, mirroring the needs of customers and the proposed solutions to fulfill them. This ‘Vision’ is much like an artist’s preliminary sketch for a masterpiece, providing an overview and purpose of the solution in progress.

In art, a sketch starts the creative process. The artist refines it over time, adding details and fixing errors. Each step improves the final piece. Similarly, digital transformation begins with a basic framework. Iterative work allows for adjustments based on feedback and performance. This ongoing refinement is essential for success, making the system more effective and aligned with goals.

Why is the Vision Important

1. The Guiding Light: Imagine you’re on a boat sailing through a thick fog of unknowns. Your guiding light is clear and bright digital vision. This digital vision ties all your actions together, ensuring they’re all moving in the same direction and helping your organization navigate the tricky waters of digital transformation.

2. The Journey towards Continuous Maturation: Just as an artist’s masterpiece is not created in a day but through continual refinement, an organization’s digital maturity is an ongoing process, not a single event. A combination of strategy, culture, leadership, and talent shapes this journey. Your digital vision is the guiding light on this path, enabling your organization to embrace continuous maturation and adaptability in the face of new trends and technologies.

3. The Engine of Progress: Consider your digital initiatives as different boats on a wide sea. Your digital vision is like the wind filling their sails, pushing them to move with purpose and steadiness. This vision ensures your organization doesn’t just float aimlessly but steadily progresses towards ongoing digital growth.

Building Your Digital Tomorrow: Practical Steps to Shape Your Vision

Describe your present environment, the starting point of your digital transformation journey. Take into account the unique dynamics of your organization, its strengths, weaknesses, and the distinctive characteristics that set it apart.

Now, look around and pinpoint the problems. What are the digital challenges that your organization faces? Understand the difficulties in the current scenario and the barriers to digital maturity. These are the obstacles you’re set to overcome on this journey.

Lastly, visualize the solution. Here’s where the concept of a “Postcard from the Future” comes into play, inspired by the book “Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard” by Chip and Dan Heath.

Picture that you have already reached the pinnacle of your digital transformation. Write a postcard back to your present self, describing this future state where all customer and stakeholder needs are met, and the digital landscape is smoothly navigated. This postcard becomes your North Star, your vision, providing a vivid glimpse into your destination. It’s not just a vague objective; it’s a tangible goal that binds your team together, ensuring every step taken is purposeful and pointed in the right direction.

Yet, vision alone can feel too vast to navigate individual steps of your journey.

As described in Measure What Matters by John Doerr, are the specific objectives or shorter-term goals within your broader vision? These are like the bullet points on your postcard, providing more granular guidance on the steps required to move toward your vision. The vision and strategic themes are the compass and milestones to guide your digital transformation journey.

Recommendations for Crafting Your Vision

1. Understand Your Team: Engage with your team members. Have conversations and listen to their aspirations, fears, and ideas about the organization’s digital future. Remember, while you’ll sketch the initial outline of the vision, your team will refine and bring it to life.
2. Formulate Your Digital Vision: Based on your understanding of the team and the organization’s purpose, formulate a clear, ambitious, attainable digital vision using the postcard from the future and the strategic themes.
3. Align with Organizational Strategy: Ensure your digital vision syncs with the overall organizational strategy. There must be a clear correlation between where the organization wants to go and the digital path to get there described with the strategic themes.
4. Develop an Action Plan: Outline the steps that need to be taken to achieve the digital vision. Break down the journey into manageable goals and define measurable outcomes for each goal.
5. Communicate the Vision and Plan: Communicate the vision and the plan to all stakeholders. Make sure the vision, its benefits, and the steps to achieve it are understood and supported by everyone involved.
6. Regular Check-ins: Regularly review and reassess the progress toward the digital vision. Is the organization moving in the right direction? Is the strategy still aligned with the vision? Adjust the action plan if necessary.
7. Feedback and Adjustment: Encourage feedback from all stakeholders. Use this feedback to refine the vision, the strategy, and the action plan as needed. Digital transformation is an iterative process — be prepared to adapt and adjust as you progress.
8. Celebrate Milestones: Recognize and celebrate when key milestones are reached. This helps keep morale high and reinforces the validity of the vision and the journey.
9. Continued Evolution: Remember, achieving the digital vision is not the end. As the digital landscape continuously evolves, so too must your vision. It’s a continuous journey of evolution and growth. Keep revisiting your vision and adjust as needed.

Conclusion

In this post, we discussed the crucial role of the first pillar of digital transformation: the digital vision. Here are the key takeaways:

• The Importance of Vision: The vision acts as a guiding light, the North Star in the digital transformation journey, fueling continuous maturation and guiding the ever-changing digital terrain.
• Crafting a Successful Digital Transformation Vision: The concept of a “Postcard from the Future” and strategic themes serve as important tools in shaping your digital vision. The postcard provides a vivid glimpse into your desired future state, while strategic themes offer granular guidance on steps needed to achieve that vision.

Remember, setting the vision is only the start of the digital journey. As we sail ahead, stay tuned for an exploration of the remaining pillars.

“Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.”

Japanese Proverb