Digital Center of Excellence (DCOE)
Establish the charter, scope, reach and structure of your organization’s DCOE in just six weeks.
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Proven Approach Ensures Success
The global COVID-19 pandemic has impacted corporate budgets, reduced workforces, and disrupted the way companies transact and conduct business, accelerating the digitization of business operations by roughly seven years, according to a McKinsey study. Businesses forced to ‘go digital’ before they were really ready must rapidly transform to adapt to the “new normal” in order to maintain growth—or simply survive. Furthermore, working virtually requires new technologies for communicating and transacting business, along with new challenges: disorganization, gaps, and siloed workflows. As a result, successfully navigating enterprise digital transformation initiatives requires more than technical expertise. Key stakeholders, business drivers, target users and much more must all be taken into consideration to successfully implement and scale digital projects. Whether your organization requires multiple CoEs or is just starting out, our Digital Center of Excellence (DCoE) Kicktart helps organizations of all sizes establish an internal, cross-functional group responsible for overseeing digital project development, implementation, deployment, and performance by providing strategies, guidance, and support.
The Digital Center of Excellence Kickstart engages key business and IT stakeholders through facilitated collaborative workshops to help you:
Rapidly define the charter, scope, reach, and structure of your DCoE.
Develop a set of DCoE standards, guidelines, and practices.Provide a framework for managing, governing, scaling, and championing digital initiatives.Establish the resources and domain expertise to improve how employees work, share techniques, and receive training.Maintain consistent delivery practices and standards moving forward.Minimize operational costs and resource-consumption by eliminating inefficient practices and accelerating the implementation of new skills and technologies.
Our Approach
The following approach guides the tasks and activities for defining, designing, and launching the DCoE:
How it Works
Definition & Planning (2 Weeks)
Our strategists engage key stakeholders in facilitated workshops to identify the key business drivers for establishing your Digital Center of Excellence (DCoE). These sessions validate the organization’s business objectives and strategic direction and define the scope of the DCoE.Then we assess the readiness and maturity of your existing digital strategy, data management, IT delivery and support services, policy definition, project governance, and SDLC processes. Based on the organization’s maturity with digital transformation, we work collaboratively with key stakeholders to define the DCoE’s vision and mission and to catalog the short- and long-term goals and objectives to determine the critical success factors and optimal organizational structure of your DCoE.Lastly, we create an actionable plan for completing the design and launch of the DCoE, including an estimated timeline, resources, and dependencies along with an overall plan for the DCoE design, pilot, and launch.
Key Activities
- Define Qualitative & Quantitative Business Drivers
- Describe the Vision & Mission
- Delineate Services & Responsibilities
- Define the DCoE’s Organizational Structure
- Develop a RACI Chart
- Deliver the DCoE Charter
Design (4 weeks)
Once the DCoE Charter has been adopted by the core DCoE team, steering committee, and senior leadership, we define and finalize the plans, governance, critical success factors, and tools for rolling-out the DCoE to the organization. We begin by reviewing any existing Digital Solution roadmaps (e.g., web, mobile, AI/ML, ERP, social, etc.) then meet with the delivery teams to review the standards and guidelines for governing, selecting, designing, developing, implementing, delivering, and supporting digital solutions to determine which ones require updates or are missing. Leveraging best practices and proven delivery standards and guidelines our solution architect and technical domain experts assist with completing the updates and creating standards and guidelines.Next, we work with the Core DCoE team to devise the strategy for communicating the DCoE’s purpose, capabilities and value to the organization. This ensures employees view the DCoE as a team that advises and assists with digital transformation initiatives—rather than just another “governance” committee. Following this, we help the core DCoE team and steering committee define the key performance indicators (KPIs) and methods for measuring the success of the DCoE.Lastly, we devise a plan for integrating the DCoE with core governance and delivery teams and define the tools and resources necessary to support the DCoE’s services before rolling-out a “Pilot DCoE” (typically a 3-month program). This enables the core DCoE team to measure and refine the services, responsibilities, and capabilities before launching to the entire organization.
Key Activities
- Review existing digital-solution roadmaps (e.g., web, mobile, AI/ML, ERP, social, etc.).
- Define all standards and guidelines for selecting, governing, designing, developing, implementing, delivering, and supporting digital solutions.
- Identify essential standards and guidelines that require updates and/or are missing.
- Create and/or update the standards and guidelines identified.
- Define and develop the Communication Strategy & Plan.
- Identify key metrics and methods for measuring DCoE progress and success.
- Develop governance standards, best practices, and processes.
- Create the DCoE Integration Plan.
- Identify the tools and resources necessary to support the DCoE services.
- Develop a plan for the Pilot and Launch.
Pilot & Launch Preparation (1-3 Months)
Anexinet assists the core DCoE team with the launch of the Pilot to specific, designated departments and employees. In accordance with the defined key metrics and critical success factors, Anexinet and the core DCoE team capture and review the program results and identify any areas that may be improved prior to rolling-out the DCoE to the entire organization.
Key Activities
- Communicate the DCoE Pilot launch to target departments and employees.
- Review and adjust defined DCoE KPIs as needed.
- Finalize the Launch Plan for rolling-out the DCoE to the entire organization.
What you’ll get
Upon completion of this Kickstart you’ll take away the following deliverables:
Step 1: DCoE Definition & Planning
DCoE Charter
- Vision & Mission
- Services & Responsibilities
- Organization & Governance Structure
- RACI Chart
DCoE Roadmap & Actionable Plan
- Prioritized Initiatives
- Estimated Timeline
Step 2: DCoE Design
- Communication Strategy & Roadmap
- Key Metrics & Measurement Methods
- Digital Solution Delivery Standards & Guidelines
- DCoE Integration Plan
- Tools for Supporting DCoE Services
- Pilot Launch Plan