THE STARTING POINT
Scope digital transformation around one business process. Map responsibilities, system dependencies and a first milestone before committing to a wider rollout.
Draw the current path.
Follow a task through the people and systems involved. Record handoffs, repeated data entry and exceptions. Ask stakeholders to verify the map. A shared description of today’s process helps the team decide which change matters and which dependencies it must respect.
Separate the problem from the preferred tool.
Describe the outcome the workflow needs to support before choosing a platform. Consider whether the issue is a missing integration, unclear responsibility, outdated interface or a combination. Keep options open until the requirements and constraints are understood.
Choose a first phase with clear boundaries.
Define what changes in the first phase and what remains outside it. Agree the users, systems and data included. Plan how the changed workflow will be reviewed and what happens if a dependency is not ready. This gives the project a practical decision point.
Include ownership and transition.
Discuss the people who will use, approve and maintain the revised workflow. Include documentation and any required training in the scope. A technology change still needs a workable transition for the organization around it.
Define a first phase with a visible boundary
Choose a process with an identifiable trigger, outcome and owner. Observe a real sequence of work and record where staff wait, clarify information or copy details between tools. Include exceptions, since the normal path alone may hide the decisions that create difficulty.
Describe a first phase in terms of request types, users, systems and locations. Agree what remains outside it and how the new process interacts with existing work. Test the proposed flow with the people who submit, review and support requests. Use their feedback to refine the scope before deciding on a wider programme or a particular platform.
A first-phase transformation canvas
Use this canvas to explain the change to both business and technical reviewers. Each statement should be specific enough for someone to challenge it.
- Current process: trigger, outcome, users and systems involved in the work.
- Problem: observed friction and the evidence available to describe it.
- First-phase boundary: included request types, teams and explicit exclusions.
- Dependencies: policy decisions, data quality, permissions and connected systems.
- Acceptance: representative tasks and exceptions the changed workflow must handle.
- Transition: training, support, ownership and a decision point before expansion.
Separate workflow change from tool replacement
Moving a form into software does not resolve an unclear approval rule. Decide which decisions belong to policy owners and which require implementation. Otherwise the new tool may preserve the same ambiguity in a different interface.
Avoid making the first phase depend on every proposed improvement. Record future ideas without silently including them in the commitment. Review the pilot’s limits before describing its results as representative of the entire organization.
How do we choose the first process?
Look for a meaningful problem with an available owner, accessible evidence and a boundary the team can test. Do not choose only the most visible idea. A smaller process may be a better starting point when its dependencies and review responsibilities are clear.
ILLUSTRATIVE PLANNING EXAMPLE
Example: digitizing purchase approvals
Follow a purchase request from submission to approval and receipt. Note where staff re-enter details, wait for an approver or resolve missing information. Choose one request type for the first phase. Agree how rejected and urgent requests are handled before drawing a new screen or selecting a platform.
Use a process map and a scoped first-phase brief to compare options. Keep wider departments and request types visible as later decisions rather than implied commitments.
TAKE THE NEXT STEP
Your discovery checklist
- Where does the current process become difficult?
- Which handoffs and systems are involved?
- What belongs in the first phase?
- Who owns the revised workflow?
FURTHER READING
Official resources to explore
Explore the related official guidance below. The templates and examples are practical starting points to adapt to your own project.