Maintaining digital transformation speed: 5 priorities architects need to know

In many organizations, the pandemic created a critical need to accelerate digital transformation efforts that were already underway. At the same time, as knowledge workers retreated to home offices to slow Covid's spread, enterprise architects had to restructure IT systems to support remote work.

Now, even as people return to the office, the speed imperative will not go away. Many organizations see it as core to competitiveness.

According to Maintaining momentum on digital transformation, a recent Harvard Business Review (HBR) Analytic Services report, 86% of CIOs and IT leaders responding "said their organization had accelerated its digital transformation during the pandemic. Of those respondents that rapidly transformed, 91% said they plan to maintain the faster speed—or possibly increase it—even after the pandemic ends."

With that as a backdrop, the surveyed CIOs pinpointed five priorities as they shape digital transformation strategy: worker burnout, digital skills, agility, employee experience, and sustaining speed. And as the C-suite focuses more attention on solving these problems, enterprise architects need to be ready with solutions that address their goals.

Fighting worker burnout

While working from home largely increased worker productivity, it also removed the separation between work and personal time that prevents burnout. In the HBR report, Melissa Swift, US transformation leader for consulting firm Mercer, says, "Right now, one of the biggest obstacles to [ongoing digital progress] is all of the rhetoric about the return to office. The more cutting-edge organizations are working toward pushing the envelope beyond hybrid working arrangements to making work itself more sustainable."

Outside of those issues, one way that architecture teams can avoid burnout is by creating and then automating standard operating procedures and performing root-cause analysis to address issues, say cloud architects Johan Swanepoel, Adam Goossens, Mohammad Ahmad, John Apple II, and Maurice Burrows in A cloud architect's guide to operations.

The HBR report offers other solutions relevant to architects such as automating repetitive or dangerous tasks and deploying digitized information systems to improve decision making. Overall, it's not enough to try to recreate our pre-pandemic world. Instead, the report recommends "reimagining work to fight change fatigue; building digital acumen across the enterprise; creating more agile operating models with alternate paths to operational resilience; and deepening human connections between colleagues, teams, and customers."

Scaling digital acumen

We've heard it for years: Every worker needs digital skills now. And the pandemic made that abundantly clear. From corporate public relations specialists developing content for multiple digital platforms to plant workers making decisions based on real-time data, everyone needs to know how to use digital tools.

If you're developing architectures for systems that employees will use, talk openly with them to understand their needs and priorities. If your team has technology skills gaps, the best option is to train your existing employees; if that's not enough, hire new employees with the needed skills. Other hard and soft architectural leadership skills that Matt Shealy, president of Chamberofcommerce.com, recommends include specific programming languages, diagramming, leadership, and organization.

[ Need to fill skills gaps? Get a trial Red Hat Learning Subscription. ]

Adding agility

Being able to pivot when necessary is an important goal for enterprise architects and other IT leaders. Architects can use technologies like digital twins to simulate outcomes without disrupting current operations. This can improve decision making and help companies adapt more quickly when change is needed.

Johnson & Johnson CIO Jim Swanson says, "The goal is to accelerate outcomes. You can do any number of things in silico simulations (scientific experiments performed via computer simulation). They accelerate your ability to find issues and opportunities and to improve processes."

One way to introduce agility in enterprise architecture is to leverage existing standards and principles. For example, Red Hat solution architect Brandon Cox recommends using the 12 Factor App to make cloud-native applications "agile, scalable, and portable for years to come."

Prioritizing employee experience

Many people spent the last two years collaborating remotely through video, chat, and email. As much as people want to get back to in-person communication, they see benefits to working from home, such as reduced time and costs spent on commuting and greater attention to personal and family needs. For this reason, hybrid work is probably here to stay for a while, as are the technologies that support both in-office and at-home workplaces simultaneously.

Don Anderson, a senior vice president at the Federal Reserve System, says flexibility will remain part of his organization's culture. "We can't keep working the way we have been working or everyone will eventually quit and find other work," he says. '"If you have a talented group of individuals, let them make decisions as to what works best for them."

The past couple of years were defined by upheaval in the workplace, which is stressful for everyone involved. In times of change, it's important to "make sure your organization connects to the needs that you're supporting—in any scope you lead. It could be the line of business; it could be the region or the overall organization entirely; these values should align with your values," says Walgreens Boot Alliance VP of enterprise architecture Grant Ecker. Ecker created a five-step framework for integrating community federation and collaboration into your enterprise architecture practices: Listen, Assess, Partner, Plan, and Engage.

Leading for sustainable speed

It's one thing to ramp up to handle a crisis, like at the start of the pandemic. It's another to sustain that speed over the long term, which is where things are headed with digital transformation.

This takes leaders who have the empathy to navigate the cultural and human effects of ongoing change. As Johnson & Johnson's Swanson says, "it's all about building relationships and listening to people inside and outside of IT to create cross-functional alignment around a singular goal with technology at the core." And enterprise architects must be part of these conversations to ensure leaders' visions are supported by the on-the-ground technology.

Red Hat solution architect Angela Andrews agrees. She finds plugging into stakeholder communities—both internally and externally—"allows us to see customers sharing feedback and remain aware of the content and events happening in those communities. We can use that information to better support them in the broader sense and understand how to develop solutions that fit their growing needs."

Learn more

As Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, "Change is the only constant in life." Even as we emerge from the rapid upheaval created by the pandemic, the need for and speed of change are unlikely to abate. If you'd like more insight on what C-suite leaders are expecting and how enterprise architects can respond to ongoing change, download the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services report Maintaining momentum on digital transformation.