The New Book “IT Innovation” Introduction Chapter 7 Empower IT as Digital Change Agent

Digital is about changes. Digital transformation is a journey. Literally transformation is a journey. Literally transformation is to radically change the nature of something. Digital transformation is a radical change of the business via its underlying business processes, invisible business culture or emergent new business model, etc. There are “significant bits and bytes of information” needed when evaluating a new market, new technology or any business growth opportunity. Hence IT should be run as digital change agent to explore such an “art of possible.”
Running IT as a change engine of the business: Organizations can make major leaps forward in change capability by involving the entire organization in major change efforts that support key business strategies to drive performance improvement. Change Management is all about balancing the main elements impacting changes such as people, strategies, processes, procedures, and IT. IT is not only the superglue, but also an integrator to weave all important change elements seamlessly and make people change, process change, and technology change sustainable. Change is a dance between the top management and the affected parts of the organization. And Change is a dance between the top management and the affected parts of the organization. And Change Management has to maintain and fix any imbalance in those elements by involving the executives in the HR, IT and operations, and take a structural approach, to make sure all of the management is on board and educated well on the change objectives and how to carry them out effectively.
A change agent IT should get deeper understanding the issues facing both internal customers and end customers: Change is not for its own sake, it is IT responsibility to identify opportunities  for the business transformation wherever analysis and assessment indicate the potential benefits of transformation efforts, to oversee key business processes and influence organizational cultures, to enable and catalyze the business transformation. The business transformation should not be undertaken lightly because it must align diverse and divergent stakeholders’ interests toward a common goal. IT is in a unique position because it can see the whole organization and should have the program skills to implement transformation successfully.
Optimizing people/performance management: Either managing IT talent or customer/vendor relationship, people are usually the weakest link, but the most expensive investment in IT and business. While IT is pervasive these days, this will come about as more people begin to interact with and understand IT and what can be provided. From discerning customers, demanding executives to enthusiastic vendors, identify, cultivate and optimize people management capability via following fundamental IT principle. First people - then process - then technology in that order. Optimization is not just about fixing things, but to leveraging trade off to improve business efficiency, flexibility, agility, and risk intelligence.

Change cannot be just another thing that needs to be accomplished. It has to be woven into the collective mentality, process, action, and communication of the organization. It takes a lot of energy to break bad habits and outdated thought processes such as silo mentality, get out of comfort zone, frame the right problems and solving them effectively. Change is happening at a more rapid pace now, if you make change part of your routine and ongoing business capability, then change becomes easier to deal with and improve strategy execution.Follow us at: @Pearl_Zhu