In my previous posts I have discussed 3IT Ideology and DevOps Methodology in the context of Digital Transformation and in "Applying KnowIT: Making the right IT decisions when Going Digital" I asserted the rationale for Digital Transformation was underpinned by Praxeology (the study of human action) and that raising the human capacity for action is the expectation of everything digital.

In this post I hope to introduce the Trivector of praxeological techniques that, in my experience, have successfully delivered the desired end state of the Digital Transformation projects in which I have played a role and by doing so arm the reader with a complete, if skeletal, paradigm for initiating, delivering and sustaining large scale Digital Transformation projects.

I refer to this paradigm as The Art of Transformation and I hope many elements within it are already familiar to anyone that has consciously analysed the success or otherwise of large transformational IT projects.

This post is my first attempt to unify information from researchers, thought leaders, practitioners and decision makers with my own experience into a coherent system to affect successful transformation.

Ideas, Methods and Actions

The diagram below depicts how ideology, methodology and praxeology combine to maximise the probability of successful transformation and what commonly happens when these concepts are neglected.

An understanding of why, how and when we use computers and technology may seem to be an obvious prerequisite of for IT decision makers, but within the context of large, for profit, enterprises and indeed state institutions it takes little effort to find case study after case study describing massive waste and epic failure.

These failures ultimately stem from a lack of clarity of the purpose and capability of technology. The principles of 3IT (aka KnowIT): NoDev, NoOps and NoIT help to ensure that the delivery of IT systems meet expectations of costs, simplicity and efficacy. Without a strong ideological framework, large scale transformations will attempt to deliver technology more aligned with the wants of suppliers, IT departments and the CFO, rather than the customers, employees and shareholders.

Methodology - DevOps

Without a culture of collaboration and interdisciplinary expertise, in short a DevOps methodology, the productivity of IT is greatly diminished. The returns on vast sums of investment in IT will be both disappointing and demoralising. IT Silos will ossify across departmental, divisional and geographical fault lines adding to the inertia and breeding a bunker mentality. IT talent is slowly driven out of the organisation and replaced by process navigators and order takers.

Praxeology - Trivector of Transformation

All the ideas and methods in the world will achieve nothing if humans cannot or will not act upon them. As Steve Jobs observed ideas alone are not enough. The graveyard if Digital Transformation is haunted by the ghosts of white elephants; wonderful ideas for digital platforms, products and services that fail to see the light of day or add any meaningful value to existence because people failed or refused to act upon them. In the 3 techniques for digital transformation of "minefield" sites I identify the Trivector of Transformation as:

Innovative Appropriation

Accelerated Transformation (aka Accelerated Adoption)

Community Development.

The diagram below depicts how these actions and behaviours drive transformation:

In future posts I will elaborate the Trivector of Transformation as I believe this is possibly the most powerful component of the Art of Transformation for large enterprises that are heavily invested in heritage IT systems. The cyclical nature of these praxeological behaviours generates a positive feedback loop, a virtuous spiral of innovation, adoption and growth that evolves the technology landscape without disenfranchising existing IT talent.

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