70% of Digital Transformations Fail. Don’t Be One of Them.

INNOVATION HOT TAKE

Besides the fact that these examples ended tragically, the single most important thread that ties them together is this: an impressive lack of consideration for those who actually use the product and the context in which they use it.

Simply, it all comes down to neglecting or de-prioritizing the user experience. Even the phrase itself is insufficient. Over the years, “user experience” has morphed into a lightweight or generic concept to describe what the human factors world has been perfecting for decades. Given the amount of business that is run inside a digital framework, human factors is a vastly under-appreciated practice area for applying a user-centered digital transformation approach – as this book will make clear.

Being a designer who is very passionate about what I do, this is painful. In all honesty, I feel angry and sick when I look at outcomes like these.

User experience is one of the smallest line items on innovation budgets. Yet, users have an overwhelming (or disproportionate, direct, etc) impact on an application’s success and adoption.

Yet there is another side to this coin: if bad design costs lives and projects then good design can save them. Tweaking your enterprise innovation methodology in a way that not only considers the user experience but makes it a part of the foundational scaffolding that’s needed to avoid disaster and achieve the business outcomes you require.

That’s what this book is about: value added methodology. Specifically, it’s about the holes that exist in our current Agile-based methodologies and all the good things that happen when you plug those gaps. I’m not talking about throwing everything out, either. The methodology I’m proposing is not that different from what most enterprises are doing now. It’s a five-degree course correction at most. Your framework retains the similar shape, roles and language. The methodological adaptions I’m talking about add a maximum of 16 weeks to your timelines.

By implementing the approach I’m about to unveil, you’ll not only optimize resource allocation but also guarantee success across all innovation metrics. Each project will be carefully curated for its high-value potential, ensuring zero waste on low-ROI features. Users will not just adopt but champion your solutions, culminating in a portfolio where every project consistently meets its innovation goals—no exceptions.

Excerpt taken from Design at the Extremes