If you make broken things digital, you end up with broken digital things

Products. Services. Processes. Experiences. If they are broken, making them digital is a waste of timeIf you make a broken thing digital, you end up with broken digital things.

In the rush to digitize experiences, organizations forget that broken processes, incomplete understanding of customer and employee experiences, bad data, and convoluted information architectures are not fixed just because the experience is digital.

Effective digitization of experiences requires a systems understanding of the experience context. The system includes:

• Organizational structure and politics

• Stakeholder motivations and success criteria

• Formal organization information flows and silos

• Organic employee organization and information flow

• Holistic customer experience

If you can’t map these pieces of the system, don’t bother trying to digitize the experience. You will end up optimizing experiences that shouldn’t exist that are based on broken tools and processes. Instead, create an as-is journey map that incorporates these components. Then, intentionally design the to-be experience. When this work is complete you’ll have a service blueprint to guide the building of effective, efficient, and enjoyable digital experiences.