| |JUNE 20238CIOReviewIN MY OPINIONTHE SOFTER SIDE OF DIRECTING DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Through the pandemic and beyond, Digital Transformation ("DT") has become pervasive in every industry. It might seem ironic coming from someone with DT in her title, but the term itself has become almost trite at this point; one of those opaque and overused catch-all that is misapplied in many ways. When a company is deciding to embark upon a DT journey, many do not know how to define the scope and boundaries of their program, and what hazards to account for when embarking upon large-scale change projects. Do you start with internal or external-facing projects? Iterative improvement or leapfrog? Evolution or revolution? How internally agile can you get to match expectations of and work best with top vendors? Being a non-IT professional myself (my education and 20+ year background in finance, economics and leadership), directing digital transformation has been my career privilege to date, and I was honored to be asked to share on the topic. As the readers of this publication have much more technical expertise than I do, I wanted to devote this space to the "softer side" of program leadership. Once you have taken the time to plan your work streams in an integrated fashion, here are a few themes that shouldlead to success:· Without full C-suite understanding and support of the entire initiative, do not pass go; do not collect $200. While the rest of these are in no particular order, #1 really is #1. Gain full transparency and buy-in ­ including on overall budget ­ from executive leadership from the start, and establish a frequent cadence with those leaders to keep them current on all relevant aspects of all projects. Share good news fast and bad news ­ with solutions and fixes ­ even faster to keep their trust and support of the overall effort.By Sarah Grooms, Program Director - Digital Transformation, Wintrust FinancialSarah Grooms
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