Fundamentally, digital integration initiatives are projects with varying scope and complexity. Being projects, they need to be managed as projects with a structured and organized approached. Since Mondro uses a thorough discovery phase combined with the PMI® project management approach, digital integration projects are well defined and well managed, from beginning to end.

Business Case – the Need or Problem

Before a project is initiated, it is usually preceded by a high-level business case. However, doing a business case before the discovery phase can be challenging. It requires identifying, quickly and at a high level, the need or the problem that the business faces. From this need or problem, computing what will be approximately required to address the need or problem will help the customer understand why an investment is required. It is recommended to do a preliminary business case before kicking off the discovery phase, and a more in-depth business case after the understanding of the situation has evolved. After the business case, a high-level roadmap should be created to ensure all the different processes and tasks are aggregated and prioritized.

Discovery and Diagnosis – Assessing the Current State with IDEAS^TM

Before any project is started in any company, the first step is to correctly understand how the company operates in the current moment. This is usually defined as the current state of the business. Discovery involves interviewing different stakeholders involved with the business as well as observing how things are run.

It also requires process mapping, which is essentially drawing a diagram of how the process being investigated flows. Business Process Management (BPM) is the group of skills which allow processes to be well understood. There are several different BPM mapping tools which exist on the market, but generally any will do so long as a standard process notation is used.

At Mondro, we use a proprietary approach to discovery, diagnosis, and problem solving called IDEAS™. IDEAS™ stands for Interviews, Data, Examination, Artefacts, and Synthesis. With the IDEAS™ methodology, the advisors at Mondro will be able to correctly identify and define what kind of digitalization will be needed within a business.

Defining Preliminary Requirements

Once the current state has been well understood, issues should be fairly easy to identify. In fact, it is pretty common for issues to spring forward as the discovery phase is being executed. Issues are usually gaps, bottlenecks, weaknesses, and redundancies. However, requirements are not only built on the issues in the process. Usually, when issues have been identified, it is important to spend some time trying to identify general opportunities for efficiency and effectiveness. Automation Identification Diagnostic Tools (AIDTs) may also be used with companies slightly more advanced in their digitization. These tools essentially identify which process steps can be automated through various automation methods.

Roadmapping and Prioritizing

After improvements have been confirmed, the high-level roadmap should be updated with more details. This will help visually understand which improvements are to be done first and will also help identify if there are connection to be made between different business processes (such as operations and accounting, for instance). A detailed roadmap will also confirm the time required for completion of the integration and should feed the update of the business case for the project.

Choosing and Trialing the Right Applications

Once a detailed roadmap has been created, identifying which digital applications will satisfy the need is a little easier. And although some apps may have been suggested at the business case level, a roadmap is necessary to confirm if these applications are still relevant or if they can be streamlined into a single application, for instance.

With each application selected, a small use case should be demonstrated on each one of them to show the client how the final product will look and feel like. At this stage in the project, significant time will have been expended into preparing for integration without apps being available to the company. A trial can provide reassurance to stakeholders that the right apps were selected.

Refining Requirements

With the issues, opportunities, and applications identified, getting to the desired state (or commonly future state) is fairly straightforward. In this phase, process mapping may be used again but this time takes into consideration improvements as well as the capabilities of each application such as automation through smart workflows.

Automation involves tasks such as sending notifications, logging structured data, executing processes with a pre-defined flow, amongst others. The most accessible automation tools are still smart workflows which enable task routing based on a pre-defined logic.

After the future state has been defined for the process, it is necessary to refine the requirements and confirm if more should be added. The refined requirements are always necessary to understand how to proceed with digital implementation, especially with companies unfamiliar with digital systems and automation. Within this step, a set of key business metrics will also be defined to ensure datasets enable visibility on pre-defined metrics.

Implementation Through Agile

With all previous steps completed, implementation and integration can begin. The first step to integration is to take the roadmap and break it down into Scrum-friendly user stories (or product features). At Mondro, we use PMI-facilitated Agile project management to ensure integration is delivered to the company in reasonable increments through regular sprints. After each user story has been developed, it is tested with select company users to ensure that it meets the requirements. After successful acceptance testing, the feature is rolled out to be used throughout the company and the next feature is started.

Digital Integration Change Management

It goes without saying that with any change comes change management. And of course, digital change will most likely disrupt how things are managed within a company. To ensure things are done as smoothly as possible, change management is done throughout the entire project, from beginning to end. At Mondro, we work by ensuring all three aspects of change management, people, processes and tools, are seamlessly integrated.

Takeaway

By using a clear and structured approach to digital integration through business casing, current state and requirements assessments, roadmapping, application selection, trial, and agile implementation, Mondro ensures that projects are well defined and well delivered, creating maximum value strategies for business looking to facilitate and automate their management. And despite being very structured, this approach shows room for flexibility when projects need to be delivered faster and at a lower cost, without risking errors or omissions.