Once the critical elements are clear, make sure the business’ goals are outlined in full. One of the most common reasons why IT projects fail is unclear or evolving objectives. If you are pursuing a mainframe modernization project, for example, achieving better speed and delivery throughput with DevOps may be a primary objective. But there is much more you can accomplish at the same time, including deploying into new channels and markets by leveraging Cloud deployment models, increasing throughput, and having the ability to surface the data that has been locked away for a long time and making it more broadly accessible to advanced analytics. Make sure you draw the circle big enough on what you’re trying to accomplish at the outset, and then tune your strategy accordingly.
Then take stock of where you are today and establish where you want to be at a set point in time, and then identify and prioritize key IT gaps. This will provide a meaningful structure to build from, and will help you start to crystalize a framework. Equally important, make sure your plan takes your current IT realities into account. This is often described as a modernization maturity model, and it is critical to ensure you balance ambition and risk mitigation.
Finally, no effort to evolve will be successful without taking the time to build a team that can think creatively and adapt to change. In a recent survey, this was supported by 38% of CIOs who said their digital strategy would fail without an innovative and experimental culture. Make sure you don’t forget the softer components of change management.