I spend a lot of time reading industry analyst reports. The irony: I'm not what you’d call a “reader.” I'm slow at it, and frankly, I prefer learning through conversation and experience.
While reading helps me gain an intellectual understanding of what it’s like for our customers, I build empathy through interacting with IT leaders and practitioners. They verify what I’ve read. For me, hearing end-users share their stories helps me learn and validates my own journey.
At SpringOne Platform 2019 (October 8-10) we have dozens of sessions that I think will inspire and validate your own work with practical advice based on real-world experiences. This post will highlight talks in four areas that I think are imperatives for anyone doing digital transformation today: Leadership, Metrics, Product Mindset, and Application Modernization.
Leadership for Transformation
If you are looking for a perspective on how leaders must and can drive their company’s digital transformation, check out this session by Forrester’s Jeffrey Hammond: Getting Fancy: Creating a Partnership with Your CEO for the Digital Era (you can also read the report on which his talk is based). Then check out An Application Transformation Journey with CUNA Mutual to hear Sidd Kuckreja, Director of Technology Business Transformation at CUNA, share his executive perspective on how their organization embraced a new agile way of working.
Application Modernization
About four years ago I read a Forrester report that predicted the next wave of cloud adoption will be driven by modernizing core applications. It outlined the inherent benefits and shortcomings of each of the most common ways of doing this, from lift-and-shift to SaaS replacement, to full-on application rewrite. Since then Forrester published an epilogue to that report; give Modernize Core Applications With Cloud a read.
There is no shortage of stories about the role of platform and people in the process of modernizing core applications to be shared at SpringOne Platform. Pradeep Sadhu from Northern Trust Corporation will give it to you straight in AppTx: Transforming the Beast into a Beauty. He will discuss how they modernized a tightly coupled architecture that had been burdened with the technical bells and whistles of its decade, using microservices architecture, the React ecosystem, and modern software processes.
By 2025, technical debt will continue to compound on top of existing technical debt consuming more than 40% of the current IT budget.
—Gartner, Application Modernization Should Be Business-Centric, Continuous and Multiplatform; August 2019; By Thomas Klinect and Stefan Van Der Zijden”
While you may find Northern Trust’s story inspiring, that does not mean the task at hand is not daunting. Jakub Pilimon, an advocate at Pivotal, will share some techniques on how to get over the hurdles keeping you from starting the modernization process.
The people at DICK'S Sporting Goods tackled their app modernization challenges by building a team of App Transformation Archaeologists. Sean Graham, Application Transformation Practice Lead at DICK'S Sporting Goods, will take us on an action-packed adventure of legacy system modernization, speedy time to market, and team-level autonomy!
Metrics for Transformation
At last year’s SpringOne Platform I had a hallway conversation with one of our customers about the importance of metrics on cultural change and transformation. Since then I’ve been thinking about the idea of how we can use metrics and data to implement processes that inspire a culture of continuous learning. This is at the crux of Ying Zhe’s talk How People and Data are Driving Digital Transformation at Discover Financial. Discover has been on this journey for some time, you can read about some of it here, but why just take our word for it? Come hear it directly from someone who is doing it.
If you're focused on the outcome, you're not focused on the process.
Sustained success comes from a fanatical focus on process.
You don't need to be perfect, just better than yesterday.
— Shane Parrish (@ShaneAParrish) August 6, 2019
Of course, setting the right measures can be difficult. OKRs have been a prominent way to measure results. But even with this prescriptive concept, understanding the value of OKRs and knowing how to create the right ones can be elusive. So why not pop into The Fallacy of OKRs and How to Find the Right Measurements of Success. The Pivotal Application Modernization team will share gleanings from hundreds of engagements with customers across industries and geographies.
Product Mindset
A product mindset for platforms is harder to embrace then you’d think. The idea may seem simple: Treat your devs and LOB counterparts as customers and your platform as the product. Yet it’s not easy for organizations to internalize and manifest this!
By 2024, more than 50% of large enterprises will manage internal business capabilities as products to drive continuous innovation and competitive advantage.
—Gartner 2019 Strategic Roadmap for Becoming a Digital Product Delivery Organization; May 2019; Jason Wong, Thomas Murphey, Keith Mann
Forrester’s Chris Gardner minced no words in his 2018 report “Evolve Or Retire: Administrators Are Now Developers.” In it, he suggests I&O must change how they work with and learn from developers. For more about this and how to foster a product mindset among your I&O teams, join Chirs and Jay Piskorik of DICK’S Sporting Goods for this webinar on October 17th where they'll discuss how I&O can thrive and bring strategic value in a digitally-led world.
Treating platforms as products is a pattern I recognize among our most successful customers. Along these lines, Claire Moss and Cheryl Spruce from The Home Depot consider what if you treated your coworkers as your customers in Time to Good DX.
Being a product manager requires vision, leadership, and the willingness to have difficult conversations. But the results are worth it! The team at Orange will share the ride of being a product leader and how they navigate this often misunderstood and critical practice. If you want to hear about how the product mindset is embraced across teams and roles, then don’t miss Four Perspectives, One Product Mindset: A Retrospective into Dell IT's Digital Transformation
SpringOne Platform is an amazing opportunity to network with and learn from your peers! Put your curiosity hat on and start building your agenda today. Make a new friend. Learn a new thing.
See you there!
