Digital transformation for small teams

Most teams know this matters. Fewer have decided who owns it. Most advice about digital transformation assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What to keep

The technology is rarely the hard part. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions.

Where to start

Start with one workflow that visibly hurts. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

In practice

Strategy work is mostly deciding what not to do, and writing it down so it stays decided. Three things worth confirming about digital transformation before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Start with one workflow that visibly hurts — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If any of that sounds like a description of your current setup, it is fixable.