October’s edition of Godel’s Tech Talks saw Superbet’s Finbarr Joy host a webinar where he shared his knowledge on how to kick-start digital transformation and scale up DevOps and Cloud capability without losing control of your workforce. It was a delight for Godel to have Finbarr on board, as with a plethora of knowledge from all kinds of industries: tech, gaming, telecoms, media, advertising and legal (to name a few), his recommendations are undoubtedly led from experience.

Fristly, Finbarr explained that before going through any digital transformation process, the benefits of doing so must be clear. It’s important to understand that the process, which requires investment, must be beneficial for both the organisation as well as its consumers, in order to maximise ROI. But what are the benefits of undergoing a digital transformation? The webinar explained “the usual five” reasons as to why organisations express intent towards digital transformation, although these components are unlikely to be held accountable for ‘business transformation’:

  1. Reduced costs and improved efficiency through The Cloud
  2. Better (predictive) insights via AI/ML
  3. Better product delivery through Agile
  4. Improved telemetry & control via IoT
  5. Smarter decisions through Big Data

However, first and foremost, the reason for doing so must fit with the business strategy, whereby digital transformation becomes a product of this, and helps goals be reached. The process should be seen as a continuous one, which is down to the fact that everything changes… all the time. To help illustrate this idea, Finbarr refers to The Red Queen Hypothesis, which underpins the idea that we must continuously evolve and adapt with our competition, or risk falling behind. In doing so, we’re acknowledging that there is going to be a continuous backlog of work, so each organisation must develop a comprehensive approach as to how they will reach their goals, outlining techniques which must change as a part of this. Finbarr adds that, at each stage of development, tech leaders should re-evaluate and consider whether they are investing in the ‘leading-edge’ technology which will help gain the necessary competitive edge.

Many people can be averse to change, so it’s important that when undergoing any transformation, leaders are able to be at the forefront – leading by example, keeping their teams focused on the desired outcome, and what the ‘pain points’ are which are being addressed. Finbarr explained further that this helps IT teams stay attached to the core business, and that without doing so, the teams’ endeavours will go to waste. In accordance with this, it’s important that digital transformation is in line with the company legacy, as Finbarr rightly asks – “how can businesses create anything meaningful if they don’t utilise their core assets?” For the desired outcome to be achieved, everything must be aligned and all developers must be ‘on the same page’, working towards this common goal, which is key to not breaking down and ensuring investment is not put to waste.

However, it is also vital that the team has the scope to ‘own’ their complete lifecycle, which is achieved through reducing dependencies. This also means the team must have meaningful targets, whereby it’s clear for them to see how their work will add value for the end user.

As a culmination of all of this, organisations must ask themselves some all-important questions: do we have the capabilities to deliver this software based on a predictable delivery pattern? And will it add value to the end user?

Follow the Godel LinkedIn and Twitter to stay up to date with their upcoming Tech Talks.