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Maturity, product vision and correct skills are three of some of the main failures that happen in this process of change and innovation of digital transformation Digital Transformation is no longer an option and companies that have not yet started this process are lagging behind. However, in the race to change, some crucial mistakes happen, either for lack of objective or maturity, of strategy and business vision or even for lack of basic tools to structure this revolution.

Are we really ready for Digital Transformation?

This is a question that every company must ask itself first and foremost. We are living in a moment when everything is for yesterday and, as a result, some corporations do not dedicate enough time to understand what is really necessary when it comes to digital transformation. We see many people wanting ready-made solutions, such as a “cake recipe”, but the descriptive solution does not always meet the existing needs. To know if you are really ready for the Digital Transformation, it is necessary to have a transparent purpose to go through this change, as it is a delicate moment, in which it will be necessary to involve all employees and have clear goals for everyone to follow to the same direction. The lack of strategy alignment within a company can generate several failures, such as a lot of effort dedicated to tasks or initiatives that do not generate any value for the digital transformation; misunderstandings or unfounded discussions between business areas or product teams; in addition to disconnected deliveries or postponement thereof.

Does this product really solve the customer’s problem?

Before you invest in an idea it is extremely important that the purpose and value your product will generate for your customer is clear. In other words, what problem for your customer will this product solve? When a product does not have a defined purpose, any idea can be good, but with that the focus is lost and investments become losses. Knowing your user/customer, your competitors and having a defined goal for your product often avoids the above scenario. But, this depends a lot on the dedication to data analysis and research for you to really have autonomy over your product. Another very common situation is when the strategy is linked to a personal objective – which may or may not be aligned with the company’s – in which the achievements are focused on delivering only functionalities, without knowing how useful they are for the customer. In this case, the focus is quantitative, leaving the qualitative aside and causing the product to lose quality and reliability for the customer. Most of the time, these goals are disconnected with the company’s strategy and the digital transformation.

Do we have the right people for this journey of transformation?

To make a big change within a company it is necessary that everyone is really involved with the goal of this transformation. People need to keep in mind why the company chose this initiative, what benefits will be generated, risks mitigated, etc. But unfortunately that’s not what happens. In some cases, the news reaches employees in a “distorted” way or as an order and then chaos reigns in the company. All kidding aside, but that’s almost it! The lack of training and the knowledge needed to implement new initiatives can generate a lot of frustration, due to the time spent in this process and the delay in get the return on investment. As a result, the pressure on employees will increase in a way in which they will feel overwhelmed and demotivated, causing them to decrease their productivity or decide to quit. Every change creates discomfort, as people will have to leave their status quo both to perform tasks in a different way and to seek knowledge.  At this moment, the company needs to encourage people and provide them with more training, showing how impactful and important the digital transformation process is, in addition to aligning and leveling the knowledge of everyone involved. These are the three mistakes we usually find within a company undergoing digital transformation: the company is not ready and does not have the necessary foundation to start, not having the right product vision and not investing in the right people to start the process. By investing in these points as you begin your journey of change, we believe your chances of success will increase exponentially. If you are going through a process of digital transformation and are seeing some of these situations going on, talk with us here</a >! We will be happy to help. A hug!  

Understand how to have more dynamism and less bureaucracy to launch your products faster and have exponential growths

I hear the question a lot from managers and business administrators: “How can I launch a product in a short time if my company is slow?” or “Is it possible for my organization to quickly launch a product and get ahead?”

Currently startups play a very different game than big or traditional companies. They have much more dynamism, less bureaucracy and, therefore, are able to launch a product in a short time, faster and have exponential growth, even threatening the big players.

Often the wish of the board is to have a project that already gives some kind of short-term feedback (maybe in 3 months for example), but the project will usually take from 1 year to 1 year and a half. You end up losing time-to-market and don’t get ahead. This even when you manage to launch a good product.

Companies even have great professionals, but they can’t play the game and launch the product good and fast. What happens?

Generally, the company is in a culture, a traditional status quo, and changing that is difficult and often time-consuming. Some signs of a traditional status quo:

• Many projects in parallel, taking people’s focus away
• Low transparency of what’s happening in the projects
• Team used to the current status quo and want to make a product 100% perfect to cast, with absurd technical perfection
• Fear of challenges. “What if something goes wrong on the way?” many think, and end up not even moving.
• Some companies start the process of hiring people, but until they find it in the market, do the onboarding, and then start to change the < em>mindset of the team, it’s been a long time.

We talk to companies on a daily basis, how do we see that people are breaking these barriers and launching a product fast?

Basically we see two great models of success:

1) Create a separate cell within the organization.

This cell can be more or less coupled in the organization.
– A more coupled cell can be like an area of ​​innovation.
– A less coupled cell ends up being a spin-off, sometimes even with another brand.
In both cases it is vital to have professionals who can lead this team with agility. Having an Agile Coach who can help with tools and agile mindset can define the success or failure of the initiative. Otherwise, the team won’t do much different.

2) Hire an expert team, a SQUAD, who is already used to these challenges and solves this type of problem faster. It is important to choose the right supplier and merge the external team with some internal people, especially senior business and IT people.

In both cases, launching a product in little can range from a few months, up to 1 year. It all depends on how well you know the market. In projects with less knowledge of the market, in the beginning the team will be composed of more research people (Research). If the team already knows the market well, the launch ends up being in a shorter period of time.
But regardless, it is essential to validate the hypothesis of the problem with potential customers, with MVP solutions. Only after that, make the product more robust and more scalable.

agile.inc is an expert in both cases, helping companies to launch better products that give them a competitive advantage in this complex market.

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