Getting (re)Started with Your Digital HR Transformation
Phase Zero Planning
For progressive HR organizations, digital transformations can seem like a never-ending pursuit of excellence as it relates to employee experience, efficiency and business value. Digital transformations are about “…having digital technology become the backbone of new products and services, new ways of operation, and new business models” (Digital HR Strategy, Soumyasanto Sen, Kogan Page, 2020). Phase zero planning, also known as pre-implementation planning, is a great way to achieve this.
As digital HR technologies continue to change at unprecedented rates, so too do the organizational demands needed to leverage and respond to those enhancements across the employee lifecycle. Digital HR program teams must continually evolve their digital capability and capacity to deliver and sustain better solutions and business value. Most changes will be small and incremental. Others will require more extensive, complex and transformative programming. Examples of the latter could include a greenfield on-premise-to-cloud transformation, or a brownfield optimization program involving a true transformation of the target operating model. It is for these more complex transformation initiatives where Phase Zero Planning has its greatest impact and opportunity for organizations.
When implementing or optimizing digital HR platforms like Workday, SAP SuccessFactors or Oracle, many program teams skip or abbreviate Phase Zero Planning in favor of moving quickly into software implementation. This technology-centric approach often overlooks foundational components of the transformation and is why most digital transformation programs struggle to achieve success (see why only 30% of digital transformations succeed). To better understand what Phase Zero Planning is, why it’s critical to digital transformation success, and how to go about building a Phase Zero Program Plan that’s right for your organization, this blog examines 5 key stages of Phase Zero Planning.
Five Stages of Phase Zero Planning
Phase Zero Planning is essentially program planning and pre-implementation planning for digital transformations. It is a planning framework used to help ensure the implementation phase is set up for success. Based on my 25 years of experience delivering digital HR programs with public sector and mid-to-Fortune 500 organizations, I have found the following 5 stages of Phase Zero Planning to be particularly helpful: Align, Mobilize, Discover, Design and Plan (see figure below). Whether you use these stages or prefer to go with some other framework (e.g., The Five Essentials of Implementation Planning in Phase Zero), Phase Zero Planning helps you avoid the high probability of failure that comes with digital transformation programs. Depending on where you are on your transformation journey, it may make sense to skip a stage or two (however, if you do skip ahead, it is always a good idea to make sure you have the key deliverables in place of any prior stages). Let’s explore what each of these stages are, why they are key to a successful digital transformation, and how to go about delivering them successfully with recommended activities and deliverables.
Using Phase Zero Planning to Improve the Odds of Transformation Success
Stage 1 - Align
Executive sponsors and key stakeholders must align on why the digital transformation program is needed in the first place in order to secure funding and the appropriate level of executive sponsorship and commitment. Alignment also clarifies the purpose and guiding principles of the transformation. Together these serve to keep the program team engaged and focused on the program’s objectives and key results (OKRs). They also work to excite and engage program end users/customers about what is to come. Without alignment, the program is at risk of not having a rudder to guide the program team nor the leadership and financial support needed to navigate difficulties that can derail the program.
Activities and Deliverables to Consider:
Executive Visioning Workshop to establish a North Star vision (or Massive Transformation Purpose) and OKRs that will guide your program
Problem Statement to clarify your current state (current challenges), your ideal state (what good looks like), and how you propose to deliver the ideal state (high level approach)
Business Case - good practice includes preparing a detailed business case to justify the investment required for complex digital transformations. This often includes qualitative and quantitative benefits, costs and a break-even-analysis.
Delivery Model - how digital projects are delivered will likely require some revisions - particularly if moving from an on-premise model (using waterfall methods), to a cloud or software-as-a-service (SaaS) model (using hybrid and/or agile methods) or to a Product Operating Model (POM) (see Improving Your Digital Proficiency with Product Management).
Governance Model(s) - how programs and projects will be managed, how escalations will be processed and how decisions will be made (e.g., strategy, process and data ownership) will all need to be (re)considered as part of the program’s governance model(s). In simple terms, this typically requires a Steering Committe of executive-level stakeholders and a designated sponsor, a Core Program Team, and one or more project teams. Depending on the scale and complexity of the transformation, the Core Program Team can be comprised of a Transformation/ Program Lead (reports to the Steering Committee), a Change Management Lead, Functional or Product Leads, and a System Architect. Like most teams, it's a good idea to keep the core team to between six and eight people. Roles and responsibilities should be well-defined for all.
Program Charter - this strategic control document will summarize the program vision, OKRs, approach, high level roadmap, governance, risks, assumptions and constraints. It is critical for guiding all downstream planning, budgeting and execution activities and for keeping the program team aligned to program purpose throughout the implementation phase(s).
Stage 2 - Mobilize
Once the Program Charter and Roadmap have been approved, the program team can focus on standing up the PMO, onboarding the core program team and kicking off the initiative with key stakeholders. To ensure program success, it is important to have the following in place: a consistent way of delivering programs and projects, clear role mandates and the right talent are all key to ensuring consistent expectations and the delivery of program and project outcomes. Without this, programs and projects will be led inconsistently and be understaffed (the number one reason digital transformations fail) - creating unnecessary redundancies, confusion, duplications and risks across the program.
Activities and Deliverables to Consider:
PMO Mobilization - if an enterprise PMO already exists, it is important to align the HR transformation program with it and leverage existing tools, methods and infrastructure (e.g. PMO systems and applications like Confluence, MS Project or Smartsheet, Jira, Miro or Mural, etc…). If an enterprise PMO does not exist, now may be a good time to establish one to drive consistent programming across the multi-year roadmap.
Resource Planning - now is the time to ensure program/project roles, responsibilities and headcount are planned for as per the Program Charter.
Onboarding Core Team - using the Resource Plan, onboard and backfill with the right resources. It is important to assign top talent to critical program roles and to free them up from their day jobs to ensure success and avoid burn out. Where necessary, leverage contingent talent for back-filling.
Program Kick-off - with the core team onboard, kick-off the program with key stakeholders. This communicates critical information to those most impacted by the transformation and answers key questions like why, what, when, where, how and who.
Stage 3 - Discover
Following program kick-off, the core project team leads a series of workshops to identify key learnings from the current state, to define the desired future state, and capture high level requirements (functional and technical). Design Thinking methods can be used during the Discover stage to help ensure that the requirements reflect the desired employee experience.
Discover occurs prior to the Design stage in order for the project team to clearly articulate what the business needs before technology constraints influence solution design decisions. Similarly, the Discover and Design stages are both carried out before the Implementation phase to ensure there are no surprises during configuration/build and testing efforts - a time when most transformation programs are derailed.
Activities and Deliverables to Consider:
Current State Assessment - using a combination of journey mapping, personas and moments-that-matter, facilitators help uncover pain points and opportunities associated with the current in-scope environment.
Target State Design - using the Current State Assessment as a key input, facilitators help project teams and SMEs identify high level business requirements of an ideal target state
Product & Platform Requirements - business requirements are then prioritized and qualified (functional, technical)
Stage 4 - Design
Once business requirements have been finalized during the Discover stage, the core team switches the focus to solutioning during the Design stage. Now is when the program team is able to use the business requirements to flesh out target state workflows. They can also vet how well their new and existing systems support business requirements and target workflows. Fit-gap analysis can be used to troubleshoot gaps and determine if further technologies are needed as part of overall solution design efforts. Finally, development of a Target Operating Model is recommended to determine what workforce capabilities, interactions and headcount adjustments will be required to support the final solution. Without good design work up front, the program team will be hit with a series of surprises and gaps to troubleshoot during the implementation phase - at a time when the contingency to properly resolve gaps will not exist.
Activities and Deliverables to Consider:
Workflow/Process Modelling
Fit-gap Analysis - working with technology and system integrator partners, identify any system gaps and troubleshoot workarounds.
Vendor Selection - if gaps remain, you may need to go to market for extensions or third party solutions to augment the current technology landscape.
Solution Design (Technical Scope) - document the high-level technical scope by function/product to identify high level requirements, known gaps and workarounds, and any remaining risks and risk mitigation strategies.
Target Operating Model - document future state capabilities required by function/product role, key interactions (e.g. SIPOC Maps for data flows, Service Blueprints for support flows), and job + headcount changes for impacted roles.
Stage 5 - Plan
With the Solution Design and Target Operating Model in hand, you have completed the majority of your due diligence. You have the right solution for the business requirements, and you have identified and addressed any gaps from a systems point of view. You have also identified the necessary operational changes for both end users and support teams. Now it is time to develop the Program Plan for your digital transformation. This begins with conducting impact assessments by functional, technical and/or people perspectives. These assessments are key inputs to your program planning efforts which results in a multi-year Program Plan and revised multi-year roadmap. The final step of the Planning stage is to develop an Executive Summary for Executive review, tuning and approval.
Activities and Deliverables to Consider:
Impact Assessments - functional, technical and organizational impact assessments of the solution design and target operating model. These assessments help ensure key considerations are identified and factored into the Implementation Program Planning efforts.
Program Plan - a multi-year plan that includes (at minimum) high level scope, approach, roadmap, resource plan and budget. Prepared in this way, the Program Plan is a defensible summary of what the solution is and what it will take to deliver it over the next 2 to 3 years.
Executive Summary - a summary of the Implementation Program Plan with highlights and financials. It clearly articulates the why, what, when, where, how, how much and who of the program. It should also include the value realization strategy and any break-even analysis (if available).
Summary
Digital transformation programs are an essential part of the HR mandate to deliver effective, employee-centric services and programs. At the same time, they are complex and fraught with many risks and challenges that often result in failure. Phase Zero Planning helps you and your digital team navigate the complexities and risks known to derail digital transformations.
If you need help building a case for, or delivering your Phase Zero Planning, please reach out to kevin@digitalhrx.com.