DallasHall.tech

Category: Digital Transformation

  • The Promise of Improving Lives

    The Promise of Improving Lives

    I had a teacher in elementary school who showed me a picture of a student pulling a wagon full of textbooks. She told me that by the time I was old enough to attend college, all of those textbooks would fit in a single backpack in a digital book. I had very interesting ideas about what that digital book would look like, and sure enough, I had a few digital course books in my university studies (though there was a general reluctance to adopt e-books by the publishers and the professors).

    When Netflix and Redbox were still in their physical/mailing days, I wondered when I would walk up to a machine with a thumb drive to pay for and load the latest blockbuster video (my internet had not been fast enough for me to consider streaming yet).

    I watched as the learning management systems in the university I attended became increasingly advanced, interactive, and attempted to be communal. I was convinced that education was going to undergo a major leap, where learning would be more accessible and more effective than we could even imagine.

    Recent trends

    In some aspects, I was right. Access to information has expanded well beyond what I could have dreamed. There are more tools at my fingertips than I could ever hope to master, and the latest advancements in AI promise me that I’ll be able to use them without the requirement of mastery.

    Education

    In other aspects, I was wrong. Increased access did not directly translate to increased learning. In fact, there seems to have been a line that we crossed where we started to move in the opposite direction.

    If we take a look at a recent report from the National Center for Education Statistics, we can see a few troubling trends. The reading, math, and science proficiency of our youth is (and has been) declining, even as our classrooms are embedded with more technology than ever.

    General Wellbeing

    A look at the 2024 World Happiness Report shows us a similar trend (looking specifically at the youth in the United States), where our general happiness is declining. The generation that has had technology embedded into a greater portion of their lives is certainly not experiencing the fabled benefit from that technology. Or, at least, the benefit is being overshadowed by other negative forces (some of those are certainly technology-related).

    What does our future look like?

    Sandi Metz is one of my favorite human beings on the planet. She’s a renowned developer, author, and speaker. I had a really great opportunity to meet her at a company training back in 2017/2018 while working at Procore. One of the most striking characteristics that I remember is her ability to take a look at a question with an almost unreasonable amount of practicality. More than that, her perspective on technology and the way it changes our world has stuck with me, especially now in the midst of very large leaps in computer-generated content. If you have the time, rewind this talk to the beginning and watch the whole thing. If you are in a hurry, play from around the 30-minute mark. It’s worth it.

    The TL;DR: everything will change, and we will be left to deal with those changes—from our own mortality to the rapid displacement of current technologies and ways of living. It’s on us to find a cause and contribute some good back into the world and “do real things”.

    How do we move the needle forward?

    We have more tools now than ever before, but our quality of life (as measured by our collective happiness, health, education, and economic growth) is not accelerating at the same pace as our tools. As a technologist (a programmer by trade), I am loath to blame the tools themselves. After all, some of the tools must be useful and even “good”.

    For the past two weeks, I have not gone a single day without learning about a new tool, startup, or idea to use technology (specifically AI) to improve some aspect of our lives. I can see that we have a huge desire to make these improvements. The performance of and investments in these new developments show me that there is a massive interest in addressing these challenges. People and businesses are willing to pay, governments are writing grants, and non-profits are raising funds.

    People are executing and starting to use these new tools.

    …What are we missing?

    How do we fulfill that promise of technology improving our lives instead?

    I don’t have the answers today, but I do have a few ideas about some things that are standing in our way. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to share them.

  • If you can’t communicate, you risk falling apart

    If you can’t communicate, you risk falling apart

    This sounds like relationship advice (and in a way, it is). My last post talked a lot about figuring out the reasons you would want to start “digitally transforming” some process, and I’d argue that understanding your “why” is a core pillar of making a meaningful change.

    If the change you want to make affects other people, it isn’t enough to keep those reasons (or your plans) to yourself. You need to get enough support or permission to start making that change.

    Quick templates for starting a conversation about change

    If you read my last post (linking again, in case you didn’t) and if you went through the exercise of coming up with a value proposition, you already have a nice statement that you can share with another person. Sometimes, you need more than that. Here are a few different approaches to helping other people understand the value of what you want to do. These aren’t meant to be manipulative or to abuse any psychological principles, they are just meant to be a starting point for getting buy-in for a new idea.

    Old-world/new-world

    Right now, we are [doing/spending/performing/in an old-world state]. This lets us [current accomplishments and action-abilities]. I think that we can improve [part you want to change] and achieve [improvement of your values].

    My idea is that by [making a change], we will [tangible benefit]—and that will let us really [core value achievement].

    Challenge and effort

    There has to be a way to [improve a concrete challenge]. I keep running into [effect of the current situation].

    I know I can’t just snap my fingers and make it perfect, but I think that making a change in [affected process] would make a big impact in [core values], not to mention the [tangible benefits].

    Ask and revisit

    I’ve noticed that we are [non-ideal actions/outcomes]. Is that something that you run into a lot?

    Then genuinely listen. They might have a similar train of thought or approach, and if your ideas are in line with their ideas, you have a green light to share your hypothesis. If this challenge hasn’t been on their mind, it doesn’t mean they don’t care, and now you can bring it up and explain its importance.

    These are things I’ve been thinking about a lot. My prediction is that by [introducing a specific change] in [process], we can really improve on [non-ideal/current state] and get closer to [ideal state]. For me, that means [achieving personal values], but for the group, I think it will result in [tangible results].

    Prompt for starting a conversation

    I think you should make use of the tools that are available to you, and if your are really struggling, you can take those templates and toss them into something like ChatGPT. Here is one that is ready for you to copy and paste. It will ask you questions, and after you answer them, it will give you some suggestions. (Please do not type any sensitive information into a ChatGPT window. It is not safe).

    I'm looking to make a change to process in my organization, and I need to start a conversation about it.

Here are some strategies I can use to start the conversation:

## Old-world/new-world

> Right now, we [are doing/spending/performing/in an old-world state]. We have to do this because [current accomplishments and action-abilities], but I think that we can improve [part you want to change] and [improvement of your values].
> 
> My idea is that [making a change] will [tangible benefit]—and that will let us really [core value achievement].

## Challenge + magic

> There has to be a way to [improve a concrete challenge]. I [frustration/effect of the current situation].
> 
> I know I can't just snap my fingers and make it perfect, but I think that making a change in [affected process] would make a big impact in [core values], not to mention the [tangible benefits].

## Ask and revisit

> I've noticed that [non-ideal actions/outcomes]. Is that something that you run into/hear/notice?

Then genuinely listen. They might have a similar train of thought or approach, and if your ideas are in line with their ideas, you have a green light to share your hypothesis. If this challenge hasn't been on their mind, it doesn't mean they don't care, and now you can bring it up and explain its importance.

> These are things I've been thinking about a lot. My idea is that [introducing a specific change] in [process] will really improve [non-ideal/current state] and [get us closer to ideal state]. For me, that means [achieving personal values], but for the group, I think it will result in [tangible results].

---
Ask me:
- What process I want to change
- What I hope to achieve (my "why")
- What the change is

After I answer, respond with just the suggestions.

    What comes next?

    It’s great to start a conversation when you have a clear plan. It’s less great when you don’t have a plan.

    If you’ve ever wanted to automate something tedious, but you get stuck at how to go from your current state to the ideal state in your imagination, you might want to grab a stack of sticky notes and wait for the next few posts. We’ll start digging into the realities of making a plan and turning that into real-life software.

  • Digital Transformation: Where Do You Start?

    Digital Transformation: Where Do You Start?

    Digital transformation is a loaded term that means different things to different people, but in my experience, this is the most important principle:

    Technology should be used to improve how we work and how we deliver value. When done correctly, it improves the experience for us, our coworkers, and our customers. That improvement is the real transformation.

    In order to achieve the “transformation,” something has to change. One of the problems we run into early on is that we trick ourselves into thinking that many things have to change, and that they all have to change all at once.

    That kind of thinking—while bold—is not a good fit for many businesses.

    Incremental Digital Transformation

    I could write (or rather, copy and paste) dozens of clichés about “walking before you run,” “building a foundation from the bottom up,” or “starting with small and simple things.” I’d rather talk about the reality of adopting incremental change. You need to know how to figure out the smallest impactful change that you can implement, and to do that, you need to start at the end—with the ideal outcomes that you want to see.

    Reasons Matter

    When I ask people what they hope to achieve by adopting a new technology or by automating and changing their processes, they almost always tell me that they want to save time. And almost always, my follow-up question is “Why?”

    It’s not that saving time for the sake of saving time is a bad thing. Time is one of the easier metrics we can use to gauge the effectiveness of our experiments and solutions. But looking at time alone might mask some other smaller, but still impactful, opportunities for changes.

    Ideally, you can phrase your reasons like a value proposition:

    I want to [make a specific improvement], so that I can [achieve some end goal or state].

    Here are some generic examples that we can use as a very rough start (and we’ll improve them as we go along):

    I want to save time in my document processing so that I can send and respond to more messages with my clients.

    In this example, time savings isn’t really the desired outcome. The desired outcome is a different time distribution. If we wanted to improve that value proposition, we could keep diving deeper, ask “why” over and over again until we hit some kind of core issue.

    A Starter List of Reasons
    • Time/Speed
    • Accuracy
    • Scalability
    • Compliance/Auditability
    • Customer Experience
    • Workforce Experience
    • Quality
    • Efficiency (often tied to time, money, and experience)
    • Ease/Difficulty/Accessibility/Usability
    • Reliability
    • Portability
    • Reusability

    Your Most Valuable Resources Are Your Experts

    When I talk about “experts,” I generally refer to three different groups: business leaders (executives, management, stakeholders), the workforce (the people who “do the work”), and clients (customers and external actors). If you take a reason off the list above, you can do some quick brainstorming to get an idea about why that reason is or isn’t important.

    Here are some light examples, still sticking with time:
    • Why does a customer care about time? Is there an unmet expectation of swiftness for product delivery, service response, or notifications? Are they comparing you against your competitors and using speed as a benchmark when making purchasing decisions? Are they generally comfortable with the speed at which you operate? How do you know?
    • Why does an executive care about time? Is there a public image of speed to uphold? With additional time, could your business increase its throughput, service, or quality? Is there a competitive advantage to speeding up certain processes? Is data moving through the organization fast enough to make well-timed decisions? What are the metrics that are already being tracked that relate to time?
    • Why does your workforce care about time? Can saving time in a particular process decrease employee burnout? Can faster communication lead to better service or production? Are there other processes that would benefit from having additional time?

    Don’t just assume the answers to these kinds of questions. Take the time to actually talk to and understand each group.

    From Values to Processes

    As you talk with your people (your customers, executives, and workforce), you are going to start to hear about patterns and processes that can be improved. Hold those up to the reasons and make sure they move you in the right direction. Do a quick visualization by combining an idea for change with the value propositions above.

    Here’s a template to get you thinking:

    I predict that [making a change to a process] will lead to [making a specific improvement], which will enable me to [achieve some end goal or state].

    And another generic example (an iteration from our example at the beginning):

    I predict that using text extraction software to put client data into a spreadsheet automatically will lead to a time savings of 1-2 hours a week, which will enable me to spend that time improving my relationship with my clients by having a faster response and also by sending more outreach emails to check in with them.

    Wrapping Up

    Understanding why you want (or need) to make changes should be the first step in any digital transformation. The “why” and the “so what” become our measuring sticks that we can hold up any change (proposed or actual). By having conversations about our goals with actual people in our business and customers, we can start to identify the processes that have potential for improvement in a way that the change will be meaningful and not just mechanical.

    Further Reading

    I cheated in the generic examples above, and I jumped right into a statement that had a technical solution (using text extraction software). How did that statement evolve to that point? Where did that solution come from? How do we get there?

    For digging deeper into the reasons, it comes down to simple exercises, like “Five Whys”, balanced with real conversations with people who have more knowledge than ourselves (I use the list of reasons and questions above as starting points). There are whole lists of NYT-Bestsellers that cover the importance and strategies to discover your “why”, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

    For discovering the technical solution in that statement, I had to understand the work that was being done and where technology could be injected.

    I use a process called Event Modeling. It’s a system for modeling real-world problems and processes and turning them into software. If you’ve heard of processes like “Event Storming” or if you’ve worked with “User Stories,” parts of the process will feel familiar. There is an amazing, open community around Event Modeling (mostly technical people right now, but always willing to share their knowledge).

    Event Modeling is normally used to define software requirements and used for actual software development, but I have found it to be an invaluable tool for identifying pain points, inefficiencies, and mismatched assumptions in business processes—without ever getting into a technical discussion or talking about “solutions.” I jokingly call what I do “Process Modeling,” but the steps are the same (with an extra emphasis on keeping things “business-minded” and value-focused).

    If you are interested in teaching your team how to model their own processes, understand where and how to improve those processes, and even start to build their own solutions, consider booking a free discovery call with me.

    Book a Discovery Call