Key Considerations for Selection of Technology in a Digital Transformation
Introduction
As a digital transformation technical leader, I've had the opportunity to lead large organizations through major transformational initiatives. A few examples included initiatives such as rebuilding a retail banking core asset and its related functions including onboarding and sales, implementing an enterprise-wide replacement of core systems, and a greenfield implementation to build a new line of business. In trying to achieve the business and technical objectives, a common goal for these organizations is to select technologies to be used in the implementation, whether it’s to choose a client side JavaScript framework / library, or selection of a runtime for backend integration and processing. Most will include a technical assessment of the technology supported by resources online, whitepapers, documentation, and case studies. This may extend to building a PoC that can be used to demonstrate the technology and assess it against a set of technical criteria. I’ve led a number of these assessments, including documenting tradeoffs, analysis of included features, ease of use, suitability to business and technical requirements, longevity of the solution, performance, license costs, and interoperability, to name a few.
Although these technical considerations are necessary, there are other key considerations that must not be overlooked for digital transformations involving large groups that span multiple business units, over a prolonged period, and potentially across different regions.
Key Considerations
The skillset existing in the organization and in the marketplace: In many cases, I have found there may be a superior emerging technology in the market from a purely technical standpoint, but I ask myself whether my client’s organization will be able to secure the subject matter experts to build, and just as importantly, to maintain the solution. Even when there is strong evidence of wide support from reports such as stackoverflow developer surveys, addition context is required to understand how the technology is used. A technology may be popular, but is it popular for the case of a large enterprise-wide digital transformation, or is it popular for use in single apps by smaller teams? When selecting a technology, be realistic on the time horizon as there will be a need to account for a potentially high learning curve. I have witnessed cases where a technically superior platform may have been selected only to be slowed by an unexpectedly high learning curve, inability to acquire the skillset in the marketplace, incorrect usage from lack of experience, and unforeseen performance issues introduced due to misalignment of skillset.
Compatibility with existing assets: Compatibility with existing assets is a consideration that is frequently overlooked. Compatibility with an existing design system, third party libraries, security and audit requirements, approved enterprise architecture patterns, are all examples that need to be considered in complex organizations where there are existing integrations and processes that must be followed. Alignment with target state architecture patterns vs leveraging the technology as a tactical solution need to be considered as the technology selection cannot be isolated from the strategic enterprise goals. I’ve witnessed on several occasions where certain security related frameworks were considered, only to find out later that these frameworks either do not support the enterprise approved standards or have diminished value as the out of the box integrations do not align to existing approved standards.
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The structure of the organization and staffing needs: Before I start to assess technology suitability for my client, I will ask several questions related to the organization and its staffing needs.
Governance, in an environment where employees are new to the organization and spread out across regions, may encounter challenges to coordinate and align with the usage of the technology. As a result, technology that is more prescriptive in its implementation may be advantageous compared to those that are open to interpretation. Take for example the approach for Angular and React for frontend development. At this moment of maturity, both Angular and React can create highly functional and performant enterprise applications. Angular takes a prescribed approach where it is “all-encompassing” while React requires other libraries which can be specifically tailored based on requirements. A prescribed approach may be advantageous in environments where staff is new, or turnover is high. Especially where there are large numbers of teams spread across time zones and regions, it may be challenging to enforce customized / bespoke approaches over what is included “out of the box”. Care should be taken to assess the organization and staffing needs to reduce the possibility of a situation where scaling with bespoke approaches may hit bottlenecks. These bottlenecks may not be due to technology limitations, but due to an insufficient number of subject matter experts to oversee the projects within the digital transformation compared to a general and commonly understood foundation.
Conclusion
Although technical assessments and considerations are necessary for evaluating technologies, we must also consider other factors beyond the immediate capabilities and technical assessment criteria. Criteria to consider the structure of the organization and staffing needs, skillset in the organization as well as the marketplace, and alignment to existing assets and standards are essential and must not be overlooked especially in preparation for large digital transformations that may last several years across business units that may span different geographies with differences in staffing mix.
