Talent and Competency
A transformation program will engage tens, hundreds, or even thousands of team members. Though the program will include IT, product, sales, and marketing, there are a few key roles to facilitate change. The job descriptions are not new but require some specific competency in a transformation program.
Program Leader
A transformation program leader must be a master in communications and have exceptional skills in influence and persuasion. Ideally, the leader broadly understands the organizations engaged during the transformation and manages with facts and data over opinions. Placement of this resource in a neutral organization can dramatically reduce politics. The program leader should be enabled to drive change across the matrix without approval for every decision. A steering committee, cross-functional cadence, and formal project meetings are key tools in managing the organization.
Portfolio Manager
Transformations inherently are loaded with change, and that change is represented in a portfolio of work. The cross-functional nature means many projects, development and enhancement work with an even larger number of stakeholders from all parts of the organization. The portfolio manager tracks and animates the teams and individuals involved. From experience the best candidates have skills of both a project manager and a scum master managing the direct direct team engaged in the broader portfolio with stand up calls and the individual developments with project mgt technique.
​
*To highlight the importance of this role an Analysis of user story found nine teams or domains are needed to deliver each user story.
Business Process Analyst
This role is key in driving a data-driven approach, ensuring the needed detail is captured between the user story and the business requirement. Most transformation programs are focused on building experiences/process and organizations that are new or highly modified. Because of this, the process analyst in a transformation does not need to be an expert in a specific process but must be an expert in user story development, benchmarking, data analysis and requirements documentation. Competencies in analytics and managing ambiguity are required; the soft skill of curiosity is key in selecting a process analyst for a transformation program.
Quality Manager
As a transformation program progresses from build to deploy, the real change begins. Teams operating transformed experiences and facing the customer tend to be highly aware if something does not work as expected. Proactive identification and engagement of process or experience defects ensures teams stay engaged and committed to the program. A quality manager should be looking at customer feedback and data-driven insights like cycle time and process quality to find issues early. A six sigma green belt ensures the quality manager has the tools to succeed.