Micro transformation: Driving big business benefit through quick IT wins

Strategic micro transformations enable IT leaders to digitally evolve their organizations without disrupting business continuity, creating continuous cycles of improvement that deliver large-scale benefits with lower overhead and risk.

When it comes to IT projects, Daragh Mahon likes to think small. The CIO of transportation and logistics company Werner Enterprises has spent the bulk of his career doing full-blown transformation projects that often took two or three years to complete and ended up being a “massive, monolithic platform.” But by then, the business requirements had changed, “and frankly, it doesn’t work,’’ Mahon says.

So Mahon is driving digital transformation in a different direction, doing minimum viable products (MVPs), or micro transformations, which are pieces of a system that are digitized in small increments.

For example, IT started by moving the “least complex part” of its logistics platform, which sat on a legacy system, onto a modern platform, Mahon says. Over the course of time, IT did many more MVPs, migrating more complex pieces of the logistics system, and eventually moving the entire platform in an 18-month period.

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Micro transformations are a strategic approach to digital evolution, enabling IT leaders to innovate without disrupting business continuity. Typically quicker, micro transformations are more adaptable — and lower risk — than large-scale projects, helping organizations achieve tangible improvements faster. When done right, they emphasize what many organizations strive for: improving the customer/client experience.

And when performed strategically in succession as Mahon has done at Werner, such quick wins can lead to much larger business transformation over time — with less big-bang disruption and change management thanks to measurable proof of enhancement along the way.

Here’s how IT leaders are embracing a quick-win, cumulative approach to digital transformation.

Dealing with limited financial and human resources as well as a need to increase patient engagement meant Chris Belmont needed to find a way for his IT organization to produce some quick wins a couple of years back when he was vice president and CIO of Memorial Hospital in Gulfport, Miss.

The hospital was grappling with how to effectively stay in touch with patients who had been discharged but might need a follow-up visit. “The traditional approach was we’d get lists and call them, but that’s not going to work 100% of the time,’’ explains Belmont, who left Memorial in February to become senior vice president and CIO of Ochsner Health in New Orleans. A new approach was needed that would produce “more shots on goal.”

“It wasn’t like they were in a big room and an executive said, ‘We want to move in this direction,’’’ he recalls. “It was more, ‘Let’s do this under the radar and prove out a couple of micro wins … and that will lead to more macro benefits.’ It gets contagious — you do one and it leads to others.”

IT worked with the hospital’s clinic operations group to build “EmmiJourneys,’’ a series of automated scripts that were a blend of engaging and educational content in the form of interactive voice response calls and multimedia videos targeting patients based on their needs. The program reminds patients about discharge care instructions as well as follow-up appointments.

The program has resulted in a 50% higher likelihood of former patients attending follow-up appointments within 21 days of discharge and 26% fewer avoidable emergency room visits, which results in lower costs, Belmont says.

From there, “the next thing you know, we’re using the same methodology and approach in other departments and scaling up and out,’’ he says.

IT worked with solutions provider Wolters Kluwer to build EmmiJourneys, which Belmont describes as coming to fruition with “a little bit of begging for permission … versus talking through a large decision-making process.”

Belmont says IT will do more micro transformations as well as macro initiatives. “We want to move more toward value-based care, and they can do that with both larger and quick-hit projects like [EmmiJourneys] with relatively low overhead costs and risk,’’ he says.

Now at Ochsner, Belmont is about to embark on a micro-transformation project that involves deploying an ambient listening platform that records information from a clinic visit and produces a high-quality note. Eventually, IT will integrate the system with Ochsner’s Epic electronic medical record platform. Belmont introduced ambient listening at Memorial, where it was a challenge keeping human scribes, and started with 100 doctors instead of “a big bang” rollout.

It behooves IT to engage with the user community and understand their business “and not wait for them to call you and ask for solutions,’’ he says, but rather, look for “small, quick, short wins that have an immediate impact that can scale.”

The value of doing something small is the ability to learn from one use case, make any necessary tweaks, and see where else it can be applied. “We still do a lot of big things, but if they can fill in gaps and get some wins along the way … it’s a great enabler.” Too often, Belmont says, IT tends to think about products and shiny objects more so than outcomes.

Even in a massive university system, small changes can reap great value. Technical College System of Georgia, which comprises 22 colleges and 88 campuses, and serves 350,000 individuals, needed to modernize systems to adapt to customer expectations, says Steven Ferguson, CIO.

The way people want to interact with the college system has changed drastically since the pandemic. Now, they expect to have 24/7 virtual interaction and just-in-time services, Ferguson says. “If someone live is not available … they wanted an intelligent chat service to answer questions,” as well as flexibility in offerings, he says. That means if a class can be online, students want that option.

So IT did a micro transformation dubbed “eCampus,” leveraging the existing framework for online education via a shared services model. That meant sharing faculty and course capacity among the various colleges.

“It’s a large change but a small thing that happened,’’ he notes. Because faculty was already teaching online at one campus, it was mainly a shift in mindset and saying, “We’ve got faculty, let’s make them available across the state, and a shift in technology from one to many.”

IT ran a pilot in 2021 with one instructor. On the back end, that required “some plumbing” using Cisco Webex to broadcast the faculty member across a larger footprint. Whereas a macro transformation would be to repeat the same process 22 times, “the micro transformation was flip that one-to-many switch,’’ Ferguson says.

Despite being a university system that works together and looks similar, “there’s really 22 silos and everyone has their own learning management systems and tools and their own databases,’’ Ferguson says.

The shift required taking data systems, connecting and standardizing them, normalizing the data, and then aggregating the data back to a common database IT could pull from. This “ultimately allowed us to make this seamless for both faculty and students,” he says.

Today, IT has built out the eCampus transformation program in all 22 colleges across 300 courses. Switching to a one-to-many model has enabled innovation to continue at a steady pace, Ferguson says. Although nationwide, enrollment in two-year colleges is declining, eCampus and a related portfolio have contributed to greater than 3% enrollment growth over the last academic year in their institutions, he says.

“So when everyone’s losing [enrollment], we’re growing as a system,” he says.

As with most organizations, at MetLife, the impetus for any transformation — no matter the size —   is always the customer, says Bill Pappas, executive vice president and head of MetLife’s Global Technology and Operations (GTO) organization. The most accurate micro transformation GTO conducted this year was the launch of the company’s enhanced pet wellness app, which offers a set of resources in real-time with the goal of creating a better experience for insured pet parents. It was a cross-functional effort between GTO team members and MetLife’s pet insurance team, Pappas says.

Users can now manage pet insurance by securely viewing policies, chatting live with customer service, editing pet profiles, and submitting and tracking claims. Among the other new features, they can also access live a 24/7 vet chat to quickly get answers and tips from licensed vets without having to schedule a visit.

Pappas says they stayed ahead of any cross-functional digital transformation challenges “through intentional, consistent communication cross-functionally on the various stages of development. They also worked to ensure the right teams within GTO and the business were engaged to ensure a seamless and secure app experience for their customers.”

Since its launch in March, usage of the enhanced app has increased from a few thousand average monthly users to more than 35,000, according to Pappas. Additionally, the percentage of submitted MetLife Pet Insurance claims increased from under 30% to nearly 50%, he says.

In terms of whether he will lead other micro transformations, Pappas says, “We will continue to innovate in a way that’s intuitive to their customers.”

Micro transformations should not be done for the sake of innovating, he says. “We don’t chase the shiny new toy — they innovate based on customer wants and needs. No project is too small, and it’s important to make sure that the transformations you lead — no matter their size — add value to your customers and employees in a way that’s intuitive and secure.”

CIOs should also make sure they’re creating an environment for ongoing enhancements and improvements led by data-driven insights gathered through continuous listening models, Pappas says. “This will help to ensure that CIOs sustain an agile tech organization with the ability to adapt to the changing needs and growing expectations of their customer and employee base.’’

At Custom Neon, a global manufacturer and retailer of custom-designed LED neon lights and signs, there was no lightbulb moment for CTO and co-owner Matt Aird to do a micro transformation. Spurring growth and innovation and racking up quick IT wins is how the company approaches projects, Aird says.

“It’s not about seismic shifts overnight but implementing small, targeted changes that progressively enhance the overall business operation and customer experience,’’ he says.

One such micro transformation was the overhauling of the website’s neon sign customization tool, a core part of its business. This shift was not monumental in scale but was transformative in its impact on the customer journey, Aird notes.

“We had a vision of a tool that was not just functional but enjoyable and intuitive to use,’’ he says. “The overhaul involved adopting a more modern, clean look, and making sure the process of customers designing their own signs was as user-friendly as possible. It was important to us to take away any guesswork and provide real-time visual feedback as customers design their neon signs, blending creativity with technology.”

While it’s still early days to determine the success of the micro transformation, the initial customer feedback has been encouraging, Aird says. “There’s something intrinsically rewarding when you hear directly from customers about how much they’re enjoying the new tool, how it’s adding value to their purchasing experience, and how it makes the process of creating their own neon signs easier and more fun and exciting.”

This is critical because Custom Neon operates in a “highly saturated e-commerce niche,’’ he adds, and micro transformations such as upgrading the website tool “subtly, but surely redefine the customer experience, contributing to their continued growth and competitiveness.”

This kind of micro transformation underscores the power of agile methodology, enabling IT to identify bottlenecks, implement targeted improvements, and quickly see the effects, Aird says. “Moreover, they allow us to enhance their KPIs, notably in customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.”

For micro transformations to deliver quick-hit wins, however, all the IT leaders agree they must be guided by the organization’s overarching strategy and goals. “For us, that means every small change they implement aims to bring us closer to their mission of delivering superior quality custom neon signs with exceptional customer experience,’’ Aird says.

When starting a micro transformation, identify those small but significant changes that can bring about immediate improvements, provide quick wins, and enhance the customer experience, Aird advises. “Doing this, you’ll create a continuous cycle of improvement that keeps your company agile, responsive, and primed for success … When looking to include micro transformations in your IT strategy and workflow, your mantra should be, ‘Think big, start small, and move fast.’”

Classroom Modernization Projects Support HyFlex Learning

Colleges and universities adapted quickly to educational challenges during the pandemic. They subscribed to collaboration tools to support online classes and upgraded in-classroom technology to enable hybrid or HyFlex learning, which was important when students returned to campus.

Now, more than three years later, many institutions have discovered that students want the flexibility and convenience of these different learning modalities to become permanent fixtures, prompting schools to further invest in new classroom technology.

“Experiences from the pandemic era of teaching and learning are having a big impact on the way students and faculty look at learning and work. We’re definitely seeing an increased interest in hybrid and remote modalities,” says Jenay Robert, an EDUCAUSE researcher.

Definitions of what constitutes a hybrid course vary, but it typically offers a mix of classroom instruction with synchronous or asynchronous online sessions. HyFlex, which comes from the words “hybrid” and “flexible,” is a type of blended course that lets students decide how to attend class: in person, live through a videoconference or by watching a recording later.

Hybrid and HyFlex courses allow students to balance education with their personal and professional lives, and that can Improve recruitment and retention, educators say. For example, with HyFlex, students can make choices based on their preferred learning styles, schedules or other individual needs.

“Students are asking for flexibility. They want to be able to manage their schedules. They want to be in class when they can be there, and when they can’t, they want to do it online and still have quality,” says Brian Beatty, professor of instructional design and technology at San Francisco State University.

To support these flexible modalities for the long term, colleges and universities are adding video cameras, wireless microphones, speaker systems and large LED displays to their classrooms so that everyone can see and hear one another regardless of their location.

Click the banner below to learn more about the technology behind today's HyFlex learning spaces.

SF State primarily offers classroom courses, but the school was an early adopter of the HyFlex model thanks to Beatty, who pioneered the teaching style in 2006. He perfected it over several years by experimenting with course design and technology and getting feedback from his students, who were ideal test subjects: they were graduate students in instructional design and technology.

“I had them attend class online for a week or two, and they couldn’t complain because I had a legitimate case to make. They were learning how to use these technologies differently to support learning,” Beatty says.

Today, 40 to 50 class sections are taught as official HyFlex courses each semester at SF State. Another 40 to 50 are offered as unofficially HyFlex, meaning that faculty list them as classroom courses but allow students to complete the classes online, he says.

The university has upgraded technology in about 40 classrooms to support HyFlex learning. Beatty primarily teaches in a combination HyFlex/active learning classroom that he helped design.

The classroom features two video cameras. When class starts, Beatty launches a Zoom session on an Apple iMac to allow remote students to learn synchronously and to record it for asynchronous online students.

DIG DEEPER: Building out blended learning environments for higher education.

The iMac’s built-in webcam provides a view of the front of the classroom, where Beatty spends most of his time. A Hitachi projector displays presentations on a screen there. A PTZOptics pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera mounted on the ceiling in the back provides online students a wider view of the classroom.

The audio system, featuring wireless microphones and a speaker, is critical and allows remote and in-class students to hear one another, he says. Beatty standardized on Shure wireless lavalier microphones for instructors and Shure desk mics that sit on the room’s five tables, which fit six students each.

To enable active learning, the room includes desks and chairs with wheels; instructors can rearrange them for different types of instruction. Each table has a mounted 60-inch Samsung LED display that in-person students can connect to when collaborating on projects.

Prior to COVID-19, half of Beatty’s graduate students attended class in-person and half attended virtually. Close to 90 percent of students have gone online over the past year, he says, but he anticipates more students will return to the classroom in the next school year.

The key to successfully implementing HyFlex is to ensure all students have the same learning outcomes. He engages with online synchronous students to make sure they feel like part of the class. When he has in-class students break out into small groups for a discussion or project, he asks remote students to go into their own online breakout rooms.

For asynchronous learners, he pauses the recording and directs them to do their own exercises and to add their comments in a shared classroom document online.

“It’s a way to show they are actually engaged and participating,” he says.

Brian Beatty Professor of Instructional Design and Technology, San Francisco State University

Early in the pandemic, Missouri State University tasked Brian P. Leas, coordinator of classroom instructional technologies at the institution’s Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, with building more web conferencing-capable rooms to enable hybrid and HyFlex learning.

The Springfield campus had a dozen Zoom Rooms for its distance learning programs, but it needed more for the start of the 2020-2021 school year to allow students to attend class while social distancing.

Leas and his team equipped 50 more rooms with videoconferencing equipment in just a week and a half, right before the start of the fall semester. They standardized on a Vaddio EasyIP system with a PTZ camera and ceiling microphones. That enabled faculty to simultaneously teach students in class and students connected live over Zoom.

“Some students were apprehensive about physically being in the classroom, and had they not had the capability to deliver classes online, they would have lost those students,” Leas says.

Two years later, Missouri State has nearly tripled the number of web conferencing-enabled rooms to support an increased demand from students for hybrid, HyFlex and online learning, Leas says. About half of Missouri State’s 365 classrooms now have web conferencing available.

In the new web conferencing rooms, he and his team have installed cameras from Panasonic and PTZOptics as well as new AVer auto-tracking cameras that automatically follow instructors and other speakers.

Some professors teach using hybrid or HyFlex models in those classrooms. Others use the rooms strictly for lecture capture, so they can upload a lesson to the learning management system for their online students, he says.

“We’ve primarily gone back to seated courses, but their faculty members have a lot more choices in the way their courses are delivered: hybrid, HyFlex, online or blended,” he says.

The percentage of respondents who are modifying classroom learning spaces to support remote or hybrid learning

Source: er.educause.edu, “EDUCAUSE QuickPoll Results: Learning Spaces Transformation,” April 1, 2023

In the Southwest, the University of Texas at San Antonio is upgrading 55 classrooms (about one-third of its learning spaces) to support flexible teaching and learning. That includes videoconferencing equipment, says Joe Tobares, executive director for academic technologies and strategic enterprise.

In Spring 2021, administrators met with faculty and students to discuss what classrooms should look like post-pandemic. They had embraced different modalities during the health crisis, including fully online courses and hybrid courses, where some class sessions were in-person and other sessions were fully online.

The HyFlex model was critical for students not comfortable with returning to the classroom immediately, says Melissa Vito, vice provost for academic innovation. “The HyFlex piece was most important to some students who wanted to be home and still participate.”

In focus groups and surveys, administrators discovered that faculty wanted to support a flexible pedagogy moving forward, including active learning and remote learning activities in their classrooms, she says.

As a result, the university developed several standard classroom configurations, including “connected” and “active connect” rooms, which leverage audiovisual equipment.

Those rooms include Panasonic AW Series 4K PTZ cameras; Shure wireless microphones; speakers; multiple LED displays from Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and others; a Crestron control panel for managing the audiovisual equipment; and an Extreme Networks switch to network the equipment together, Tobares says.

Both room designs are similar, but the active connect rooms feature movable furniture for active learning. In both rooms, faculty can choose the web conferencing software they will use, including Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Cisco Webex, Tobares says.

UTSA also has built Zoom classrooms, which are similar to the connected rooms but offer a one-touch system that allows faculty to easily launch a Zoom session at the click of a button, he says.

So far, the university has built 31 of these flexible learning spaces and will complete the remaining 24 this summer. With videoconferencing available in these classrooms, professors can invite guest lecturers to speak remotely to their students. If students are sick and can’t make it to class that day, they can join the class online.

“We have the technology to do it, and it allows faculty to be flexible and give that opportunity to students,” Tobares says.

Universities and colleges must train faculty to effectively use classroom technology that supports different teaching modalities.

UTSA, for example, has developed a professional development program that includes self-paced, online lessons on how to take advantage of the campus’ new flexible learning spaces, says Marcela Ramirez, associate vice provost for teaching, learning and digital transformation.

The program includes lessons on how to use the technology, course planning and classroom management. It also includes a peer-to-peer online community where faculty can collaborate and share best practices. Online or in-person consultations and hands-on workshops also are available, she says.

Photography by Cody Pickens