Going Digital — Setting Digital Principles

Jim   Sinur
Jim Sinur VP and Research Fellow, Aragon Research Read Author Bio || Read All Articles by Jim Sinur

In order to reach a level of digital business that fits your organization, you need to come up with principles and goals that get you there.  These principles and goals can act as tie-breakers in the heat of battle.

What will affect your principles will be whether you believe that you are just a business that leverages digital or whether you are a true digital business.  Your organization's strategy could be aimed at diagnosing and eliminating near-term challenges, leveraging digital technologies with a 'bolt on' approach while progressing to becoming a digital business that reflects all of the business goals and principles. 

That being said, I have identified a good starting list for business principles and technical principles to use as a jump-start list to add to or delete from.  These principles might not work as presented for a highly-regulated organization, but they can be leveraged and adapted.

Business Principles

  • Attract and Spoil Customers — start and finish outside in eliminating internal silos

  • Build with Inclusion and Organize for Change — agility is better than perfection

  • Create Operational Excellence — technology eliminates complexity and reduces cost

  • Encourage and Reward Innovation — products, services, processes/apps can grow stale

  • Outcomes Ahead of Processes — goal-driven processes/apps and smart actions

  • Make 'Visibility to All' a Priority — not just for governance but for results analysis

  • Speed Wins over Perfection — evolution works and tech is fast

Technical Principles

  • Collaborate with the Business First — represents the customer and constituents

  • Experimentation is Essential for Innovation — time and legality are the guard-rails

  • Composition First Instead of Creation — somebody has already done it

  • Agile Development is First Prize — methods and practices encourage iteration

  • Scalability and Security Designed Early — explosive growth breaks and attracts

  • Design for Sustainability — pillage mentality is dying

  • Design with Autonomy in Mind — central control relaxes with goals and constraints

Net; Net

While these principles, and fleshing out the goals that cascade from these principles, may not fit your organization exactly, these should give you a jump-start.  It is important for you to define 'digital' for your own organization so you might refer to how I define what it is to be a 'digital business'.

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Standard citation for this article:


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Jim Sinur, "Going Digital — Setting Digital Principles" Business Rules Journal, Vol. 17, No. 8, (Aug. 2016)
URL: http://www.brcommunity.com/a2016/b871.html

About our Contributor:


Jim   Sinur
Jim Sinur VP and Research Fellow, Aragon Research

Jim Sinur is an independent consultant and thought leader in applying business process management (BPM) to innovative and intelligent business operations (IBO). His research and areas of personal experience focus on business process innovation, business modeling, business process management technology (BPMT), processes collaboration for knowledge workers, process intelligence/optimization, business policy/rule management (BRMS), and leveraging business applications in processes. Mr. Sinur was critical in creating the first Hype Cycle and Maturity Model, which have become a hallmark of Gartner analysis, along with the Magic Quadrant. He has been active in the rules, data and computing communities, helping shape direction based on practical experience. Mr. Sinur has vertical industry experience on the investment and operational sides of the insurance and financial services.

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