We have been asked to quote on digital transformation programmes that turned out to be a new intranet, a CRM migration, a rebrand, and on one occasion a spreadsheet.
Vagueness is a feature
Every term of art that survives a decade of consultancy has been sanded down until it can no longer be argued with. That is not an accident. A brief nobody can disagree with is a brief nobody can be held to, which is comfortable for everyone in the room and expensive for whoever signs at the end.
What we ask instead
Three questions, in order:
- What does someone do today that they will do differently?
- How will you know they did?
- What are you prepared to switch off?
The third one is the honest one. Transformation programmes almost never retire anything, which is why the organisation ends up running the old system and the new one at once, forever, and concluding that digital is expensive.
A smaller word
We prefer “change one thing”. It sounds less impressive in a board pack and it is considerably easier to tell whether it worked.
Every term of art that survives a decade of consultancy has been sanded down until it can no longer be argued with.