Product and Project Mindsets need structural props to deliver transformation together!

 Transformation deliverables were on time but not much used thereafter, is as familiar as this transformation program seems to be in continuous experimentation node with shifting go-love dates!  In most likelihood the transformation lead for the first case is successful Project Manager turned transformation manager, and in latter case its a passionate Product Manager wearing that crown.

Unfolding this quadrium would require bit digging into the mindset of Project Manager and Product Manager. Let us see what a good day looks like for the two species!

A good day in life of a Project Manager, would include weekly review of milestone schedule and risk list without red flags, contractors’ quality assessment coming green and material procurements staying within budget.

A good day in life of a product manager, would include chance meeting with potential customer, who proposed some enhancements that are doable, although with some additional effort and cost, but promises to raise the attractiveness of the proposed solution. 

Let us look at other variances in perspective 

Dimension Product Mindset Project Mindst

	Dimension	Product Mindset	Project Mindset
1	Definition of done	Good enough to learn from and usable by few	Fully specified, tested and signed off
2	Time orientation	Continuous — there is always a next version	Terminal — closure and handover as the final objective
3	Relationship with Failure	Failure is data — a valuable Experiment	Failure is cost — a loss that should have been prevented
4	Relationship with the consumer	Consumers are co-designers with continuous feedback loop throughout	Consumers are surveyed at the start and best left alone during delivery; closed system
5	Relationship with Competitors	Watched continuously; the fight isabout ideas and their appeal	Largely irrelevant except as rivals for scarce resources — land, talent, capital
6	Culture and governance language	Organic; iteration celebrated; ambiguity tolerated; leadership language is exploratory	Mechanistic; milestones celebrated; ambiguity managed; leadership language is directive

 

The unifying thread across all six dimensions is the open and divergent view vs closed and convergent system view of the goal at hand. And both the mindsets have delivered excellent outcomes, when the task required playing on their strengths.

 

Transformation leadership requires meshing-up with both mindsets

Smart Management have conventionally leveraged the power of both the mindsets by segregating and sequencing their ownership through structural boundaries, in terms of ideation and incubation team and projects department, with accountabilities, being overseen at the highest level of Management.   

This approach doesn’t work when aim is to undertake transformation journey with clearly scheduledvalue realizing milestones, that are must for continuing of the program.

Market opportunities come with small time window and require shorter turnaround cycles from conception of an idea to its full roll-out on predefined launch date leaving little time for traditional hand-offs. 

The POD approach requires team to hold full accountability from problem identification to outcome delivery, requiring both the exploratory and execution capabilities in equal measure.

Not many organizations are fortunate in the beginning of the transformation program to have internal leader, who is able to balance both the mindsets and has sufficient sagacity and agency to be able to use relevant mindset as required during the transformation journey.  Importing experienced transformation leader from outside has its own limitations and may not be viable option in all cases. 

So for the Architect of the Transformation program what seems to be emerging viable option is Two in a box model. Let the deputy leader compliment the Program lead with strength in alternate mindset, to ensure that both the transformation journey is ensured and the destination stays relevant in the fast-changing world, characterized by continuously changing expectations, technological evolution and competitive activism.   

Ironically assuming putting two in a box shall work automatically like two pilots flying an aircraft is often the mistake.  Soon it looks like two accomplished chefs being asked to share a kitchen during rush hours.   Unless kitchen is designed to accommodate both, friction is inevitable.  

Three structural props to make two-in-a-box deliver

Here comes the importance of three structural props that would help kitchen deliver desirable dishes on time to its customers. .

1. Shared definition of success with clear skin in the game:  Both needs to define success as happy customers that keep coming back on time and help achieve desired profit and revenue growth. While this would require continuous eye on the menu served, it also means that serving is delivered efficiently, so as to be able to serve the greatest number of customers using resources and assets efficiently.   Great customer experiences and operational discipline must coexist for them to be paid out of profit and sustain enterprise in the long run. 

 

2. Strong governance around scope change and impact visibility:  Not every idea needs to be experimented and nor wait till idea becomes mainstream to be incorporated. Having pre-agreed structure to evaluate any idea for its appeal and trade-off in terms of time, cost including sunk cost, risks, existing partner and procurement commitments brings in the transparency and heart burns during the debated advocacy for or against the change.  It helps to have standard reference mechanism to do reality check and break deadlocks.  It also helps to have some agreed band of minimum and maximum changes and track actuals to be within that band.

 

3. Templatized Program Health Dashboard that reveals truth without assigning blame:   The idea is to deliver status reality within the realm of desired psychological safety and reputational security. Rightly desired dashboard makes the areas of concern and implications of option evident and help deliver bad-news-early.   Designing the right dashboard would include mix of regular indicators around schedule, budget but also process and outcome indicators like Scope volatility, decision turnaround time, technical debt accumulation, early adoption results, team attrition and overall sentiments, and vender responsiveness 

Presence of these three props provides the conducive environment for the kitchen to stay functional and keep performing.

The Real Responsibility of the Transformation Sponsor

For architects of transformation programmes, designing these three structural props correctly initially is a must but greater rigour is in monitoring adherence to them through the journey.  The greatest risk often emerges once the two leaders become comfortable working together. As trust grows, formal guardrails are frequently bypassed in favour of informal arrangements.  That is precisely when risk begins to accumulate.

These structural props are most required in times of conflict, and when things are getting out of contrail and accountability discussions tend to become figure pointing bouts. Once diluted, their ability to resolve tension and maintain balance becomes severely weakened.

That is why the programme sponsor's most important responsibility is to preserve the integrity of these three structural props, while allowing two leaders with fundamentally different mindsets to continue delivering the right outcomes at the right pace.

In the end, successful transformation is not about choosing between the Product mindset and the Project mindset. It is about creating a system in which both can thrive together. The art lies not in selecting the better chef, but in designing the kitchen in a way that it keeps serving desirable dishes, profitably.

When Transformation Outlives Its Relevance …. It deserves a Graceful Sunset for the success of the next one

 

Organisations are generally good at starting transformations. They know how to launch programs, announce aspirations, appoint sponsors, create steering committees, engage partners, design roadmaps, allocate budgets, and communicate with bold intent. 

The language of beginnings is familiar: digital-first, future-ready, agile, resilient, customer-centric, AI-enabled, globally competitive, sustainable, simplified, transformed.

But organizations are far less comfortable dealing with another equally important and frequently emerging question:

What to do when a transformation no longer deserves to continue?

Not because the original ambition was wrong. Not because the people involved failed. Not even because the transformation produced no value.  But because the assumptions that shaped the chosen path have changed.

And this question is becoming increasingly urgent.

The rise of AI is redrawing the economics of work. Supply chains are being redesigned around resilience, redundancy, and regionalization. Geopolitical tensions are influencing technology choices. Organizations are revisiting questions of self-reliance, sovereignty, data localization, vendor dependence, and strategic autonomy. Business models that appeared compelling a few years ago are being re-examined in light of new risks and possibilities.

In such an environment, many ongoing transformation programs may not be wrong in their purpose but outdated in their design.  They may not be able to withstand the honest question: 

If we were not already doing this, would we start this program today?

And relevance decay is the new risk that traditionalprogram governance structures are not designed to handle. 

This powerful question moves the discussion away from sunk cost and toward current relevance. It separates loyalty to the original ambition from attachment to the original vehicle. It allows leaders to ask whether a program should be accelerated, repositioned, merged, paused, or consciously closed. 

Any honest assessment of transformation portfolio will throw-up some programs that deserve closure before they consume more attention and resources. 

How Leadership manage these closure candidates matters a lot!

The convenient response!

Organizations often choose a softer path.  They do not cancel the program.

They simply reduce its feed.

Budgets reduce. Reviews become infrequent. Resources move elsewhere. Leadership attention shifts to the next priority. Teams sense the loss of sponsorship before anyone formally acknowledges it.

So the program is not officially cancelled. It is simply deprived of oxygen.

This quiet starvation feels convenient because it avoids a hard conversation. But it carries a deeper cost, because when leaders do not explain what has ended, people construct their own explanations — and those are rarely as generous as leadership would have intended. 

The program is never formally closed, so its lessons are never formally captured. It simply fades, taking its learning and its goodwill with it.

The emotional residue matters more than many leaders realise.

Employees lose trust in future announcements; teams become reluctant to emotionally commit again, middle managers learn that priorities are temporary, and future programs inherit accumulated skepticism.

The next transformation program does not start with hope. It starts with memory.

Why Leaders Choose Silence?

The answer is rarely lack of intelligence.  It is usually a combination of psychology, politics, identity, and organizational discomfort.

Grace framework recognizes five structural forces push leaders toward slow starvation rather than explicit closure.

1. Sunk cost entrenchment: The program has consumed capital, goodwill, and political credit. Acknowledging failure means writing off those costs publicly. The instinct is to keep the program nominally alive while quietly withdrawing resources, preserving the fiction that something may yet be salvaged.

2. The accountability vacuum: Transformation programs have clear ownership of delivery. Almost no organisation assigns  explicit ownership of termination. When the closure decision belongs to no one specifically, it belongs to no one at all. Theprogram enters a state of distributed neglect.

3. Personal reputational exposure: The sponsor of a program is personally associated with its ambition.Terminating it on their watch risks being read as an admission of poor judgment. The game-theory outcome is coalition silence: each member privately knows the program is failing, but none will move first.

4. The new initiative provides cover: When a new priority emerges, it is convenient to let the old program die by distraction rather than decision. Resources migrate. No one formally closes what no one formally abandons. The program becomes vestigial.

5. The program as organisational symbol: Some programs acquire symbolic weight entirely separate from their instrumental value. Terminating them feels — and is sometimes experienced by others — as an act of cultural destruction. Closing it disrupts a narrative without offering a replacement.

A graceful sunset is possible 

Organizations that handle closure well tend to focus on the following three areas: 

1. Emphasize that the WHY survives, while HOW expires: 

If leaders have been doing “Why sharing” of the program well, explaining closure becomes easy. Much of the difficulty around closure comes from a confusion between the program and the purpose. Organizations assume that stopping the initiative means abandoning the ambition. Usually it does not.

Business may still need speed, the customer may still need a better experience, the enterprise may still need resilience. What has changed is the path.

A transformation is a means, not an end — and one of the quieter disciplines of transformation leadership is ensuring that people are committed to the purpose, not imprisoned by the program.

2. Acknowledge learning and separate it from embarrassment

Graceful closure should document and commit to memory: What the Program Leaves Behind.  A program may fail as an implementation vehicle but succeed as a learning vehicle.

A technology program leaves platforms, data, architecture decisions, and vendor relationships — its closure needs asset harvesting. A process program leaves routines, controls, and managerial habits — it needs learning consolidation. A talent program leaves expectations, trust, and emotional investment — it needs careful redeployment and honest communication. A culture program leaves beliefs, language, and identity — it needs the preservation of meaning.

The residue differs, by the program, bum us answer the question: 

What must survive this closure?

Framed that way, closure stops being an act of subtractionand becomes an act of stewardship — deciding deliberately what to carry forward rather than lettingeverything dissolve by neglect.

3. Honour contributors: Stand the People Test 

There is one signal that reveals, more honestly than any town hall or strategy deck, how an organization truly treats transformation outcomes: what happens to the people associated with a discontinued program.

If a program closes and the people who carried it are quietly sidelined, if sponsors are embarrassed andcontributors are left to explain the outcome defensively, the organization has taught its most capable people a precise and lasting lesson: transformation risk is career risk, and the next difficult initiative is not worth volunteering for. 

But if contribution is acknowledged, talent is redeployed with respect, and learning is visibly valued, the message is the opposite — that difficult transformation work is honored here, even when the path changes.

Those who carried a discontinued program become the organisations memory. They become either its future champions or its future cynics, and they shape the corridor conversations and the emotional climate around every initiative that follows. 

A graceful sunset is not complete until the peopledimension has been handled with dignity. Organizationsthat erase contributors create fear.  Organizations that honour contributors create resilience.

Transformations Closure design respects Context

Formal closure does not require theatrical communication.  It requires thoughtful communication.  The goal is not to dramatize the ending. Nor is it to hide it behind vague language.

As mature leaders, closure management execution must be calibrated to the specific context in which the organisation operates. A graceful sunset in a family-owned business requires different emphasis from one in a publicly listed conglomerate. 

A closure by a new CEO carries different permissions and risks from one executed by the CEO who launched the program. An Asian-origin firm requires cultural coding that a Western firm does not. Most importantly, the state of business decides the level of accommodation for such public acknowledgement of closure.

In an age shaped by AI disruption, geopolitical uncertainty, supply-chain redesign, sovereign technology choices, and accelerated business model shifts, more transformations will outlive the assumptions that created them.

Organizations must learn how to close one chapter without damaging belief in the next.

A graceful sunset is not surrender.  It is stewardship.

And perhaps that is what sustaining relevance ultimately requires:

Not only the courage to begin transformation, but also the wisdom to end, redirect, and renew it without leaving scars that the future must carry.

Handing over to Machines : The Why and why-not Question?

Like all dimensions of work, the conventional work done by Human resource professional is also under scanner and expected to be given to, fully or partially, to machines.  

The prime motivation is to leverage the tireless energy, unbiased application of decision rules, immense retrieval and computing capabilities and NLP based interactions of new set of digital technologies (RPA, AI ML, Chatbot, Agentic-AI) for the good of employee, managers and organisation.  

The Why-Machine question?

The key motives for introducing machine power in HR context hovers around the following:

1 If Talent is the strategic asset, then machines help identify, acquire and deploy this asset better, and more efficiently. It can provide fitment score. predict the performance outcome, attrition risk and often provide the hidden talent option that is hidden in the remote work location.    

2 If employee experience at workplace is to be as good and personalised as at market-place, we can emulate same solutions for validation, interaction, recommendations and transactions, chatbots for example.    

3 If trust, transparency and auditability behind routine transactions are important, machines deliver better and at scale, using RPA as a disciplined agent.   

4 If machine releases cognitive capacity of the workforce, by taking over routine and rule-based decisions, why not? And machine capacity to adjust to scale is far more than of workforce. 

5  If the outfall of mistake by machine is manageable and not disproportionate from ethical, reputational and economics consideration, lets go ahead.   

In recognition of the above, over 70% big corporations are using machines in HR for some purpose or other.  

The Why-Human question?

At the same-time, need for putting Human in the loop is often felt: 

1 If the decision or action would create negative consequence, (say disciplinary action, dismissal), human judgement is warranted?

2 If there is less confidence in defending explainability of decisions or actions by machines to externl party, keep Human in the loop

3 If the empathy and emotions are as important as the content of the interaction for employee satisfaction, oblige

4 If the reliability of the data sets driving transcations and decisions are a suspect, let humans decide

5 If the decisions require case-2-case considerations with high level of contextual and subjective discretion, humans are not replaceable.

Moving work from humans to machines has to be a deliberative, and structured transition, ensuring coordinated readiness around policies, processes, technology and people dimensions, to make it seamless and well recived by stakeholders.         

Demystifying Digital Transformation- A practitioner’s companion

Digital transformation is inevitable, for organisations who seek to remain relevant in the future. The objective of any digital transformation is to innovatively apply the technology stack to reinvent the organisation and the way in which it will engage with the customer to deliver value to them.

Given that each organisation has a unique DNA with distinctive aspirations, the digital journey need to be individually crafted with clear purpose, technology choices, and implementation specifics. Leaders will be called upon to take well-informed and deliberative decisions that have enormous implications and could very well define the future of the organisation.

I, along with Nishith Sharan, have suggested the necessary framework to assist leaders define their transformation agenda and execution specifics. We present an integrated approach, covering technological, strategic and organisational perspectives, while pointing out the decisions that need to be considered at various milestones during the digital transformation journey.

Demystifying Digital Transformation is an essential handbook for the industry leaders and transformation professionals as they embark on the digital transformation journey.

 The prime motivation to write this book is to bring certain rigor and sanity around this topic of digital transformation, so as to avoid lot of wasted efforts, resources and disappointment within organizations.


I wish this book serves the purpose in its usefulness to readers,

Happy to get the feedback, as always

Change Management for Digital Transformation vs ERP implementation: What’s the difference???

Recently, one of my colleagues, a Change Management (CM) professional with experience in driving several ERP transformation programs, has taken up an assignment to help client undertake digital transformation, primarily aimed at internal operations.  He is deliberating on a question, which I think several of change management professional will encounter soon:

 

How is the CM approach going to be different for digital transformation program, compared to that in an ERP implementation project?

Here are a few initial reflections to set the stage and invite views, comments and experience sharing from this group: 

The key characteristics of Digital transformation program vary from the ERP implementation program in certain ways, including the following: (not exhaustive)

1.       Digital transformation program is often conceived in the form of vision that is quite wide, aspirational and all encompassing (customer interface, internal operational processes and operating model) supported by broad road map. The desired states are more often described in terms of value adding scenarios and differentiating services that are made possible by providing additional capabilities (collaborative, analytical, mobile etc) and their creative adoption by the employees. Business cases associated with ERP programs are a lot more definitive and with clear steady state targets.

2.       Digital transformation programs often add to and complement the existing technical capabilities and functionalities available to users to perform their regular work. For example, advent of Enterprise Social Network does not mean discontinuation of email system. Whereas ERP program often aims to automate manual / excel sheet work and to that extent replaces the old ways of working.  To that extent, an employee can live without participating in enterprise social network, but cannot bypass ERP based approvals to conduct daily business.

3.       The nature of risk linked to digital transformation program is largely linked to confidential information sharing which is perceived more severe than in typical ERP implementation program. 

4.       Leaders have no choice but to actively participate and lead by example, in case of digital transformation program. Hence their behavioural change/alignment is a pre-requisite. In case of ERP implementation program, public endorsement of its importance while delegating its actual usage to assistants is possible, but not in case of digital transformation program. After-all leader cannot delegate writing blogs, podcasts, video-casts to others without being exposed!

5.   ERP delivers value from ensuring that process level integration points, which flow across functional boundaries are well managed and aligned with the help of an IT-system. ERP users need to be sensitive of the process interdependencies to do justice to their role.  On the other hand, Digital transformation programs are essentially focused on driving value thorough employees voluntarily and creatively collaborating across boundaries, in an open transparent and relatively tolerant environment, supported by additional data analytical skills.  Understandably, cultural permission plays much greater influence in driving outcome of the digital transformation program.

6.   Employee generational split may also become a relevant segmentation strategy during digital transformation exercise, given different level of natural adoption to digital technologies among different generations.

7.  While significant effort is required in training the users in using ERP systems, the training effort associated with use of digital technologies may not be much and may be in the form of familiarisation modules; as the social technologies are quite intuitive, and users are significantly mature in the use of these tools in their personal life. The barrier to adoption of digital initiative, in that respect is seldom lack of skills on the part of employees.  There would off-course be need for specialised skill pool, say that of data scientists, digital strategists, digital technologists, which in any case would be part of overall capability building program.

What does these differences mean for CM approach and intervention design:

1.      Communicating the case for digital transformation has to be lot more leadership- driven, continuous, and conversational, leveraging all possible channels. Stories, describing creative usage of new capabilities to drive value-adds, emanating from different sources, play a pivotal role in driving adoption.

2.      Leadership Buy-in: Leaders need to convince believe within themselves that its worth it, and what is expected of them is do-able and non-conflicting to their self- image. Leaders have to hear first-hand stories and alternative experiences to appreciate the potential of digital transformation and their own role in supporting this change. Peer level conversation and experience sharing at leadership level is a must and has to be facilitated as part of CM intervention.  Leadership enablement is easier by associating some digital enthusiast to work along for some protracted period.

3.      Policies and practices: Digital enterprises thrive on a certain level of responsible information sharing, open communication, and collaborative learning that need support from enabling policies and practices.  As a change facilitator, it is important to identify and bring forth the policy or practices conflict with digital transformation objectives and help address them.  Often it is more to do with interpretation of the policies than policy itself that is in conflict.

4.      Training and capability building:  Digital transformation linked capability development effort will involve more of familiarising users with the features of digital technologies and varied ways it has been used to create value.  To that extent the learning will be more byte sized, social learning and experience sharing based continual learning, than structured class-room trainings and practice sessions predominantly used during ERP implementation program. Games as learning tool seem to be quite relevant.  Instead of user-manuals or reference sheets, guidelines, best practices and provocative use cases and stories may be more relevant.     

5.      Adoption tracking and support: There is clear method and science behind measuring the adoption levels of ERP system usage, and segments /pockets that reflects low adoption levels can be analysed and system, training or management intervention can be made to address the cause. Concerted efforts made thus, shall help achieved fairly stable usage of the system across the enterprise, which signals reduced need for CM intervention.  In case of digital transformation, the adoption is linked to employee voluntary engagement with the new capabilities and their extracting value out of it.  The usage pattern may vary (tank after peak!) and could be due to variety of reasons.  CM needs to do much more diligence to find real reasons behind these variations and also experiment ways to spur adoption again. Digital transformation in that respect is a journey and CM has to be co-traveller on this route for a much longer distance. 

Success of digital transformation program hinges on employee engagement, supporting culture and leadership participation, and not on management dictates (with  structured capability building interventions), and that is what makes CM work challenging and interesting!

Share your experience and view-points!