by Staff Writer
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Digital transformation is touted as a leading force driving IT and business decisions. Despite the hype, it’s not delivering on the promise. In spite of surging investments, fewer than one-third of digital transformations succeed at improving a company’s performance, according to McKinsey & Company.  

Yet the effective employment of digital strategies drives key benefits and across business lines, from improved productivity that fuels innovation to better business insights  – but only if you approach digital transformation the right way.

It’s not the underlying technology that accounts for the poor performance of so many digital transformation projects. Rather, a lack of organizational readiness is a frequent culprit, including underestimating or not understanding the work and resources required, and factors such as poor data governance and executive cohesion.
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Here are three key ways to beat the odds and achieve digital transformation success.
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by Stephen Danos

Across all industries, IT departments provide the essential infrastructure for companies to operate more efficiently and effectively. They often coordinate and implement technology on a tremendous scale and ensure business continuity, from installing hardware upgrades to setting up single sign-on to improve data security.

IDC recently reported that when considering a work execution platform, IT departments add adoption criteria that move beyond cost, customer validation, and implementation time. Among these necessary checks are enterprise-grade security, scalability, long-term use, APIs and integrations, and the platform’s access to a partner ecosystem.
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When stakeholders want to secure buy-in for new SaaS platforms, IT leaders want to outline value added, quantifiable benefits, and understand why stakeholders need the platform in the first place. However, IT teams that use Smartsheet can access several add-ons, templates, and integrations and Connectors that help improve planning, increase throughput, and streamline operations.

IT leaders can see immediate value for numerous team functions such as organizing your IT help desk, implementing software migration plans, tracking unresolved tickets, and developing new software. Smartsheet provides multiple approaches for streamlining existing IT workflows and managing projects with real-time, executive visibility. Here are seven Smartsheet solutions IT teams can use today:
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by Katie Bouwkamp

by Staff Writer
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Change is hard – which is why managing shifts within the enterprise has evolved into a discipline in its own right. Change management refers to strategies and processes to support individuals as they navigate and adopt organizational changes, whether that’s expanding into new product lines or adopting a new technological platform.

While experts have been studying the best methods of effectively driving change since at least the 1940s, a recent study suggests that the most effective way to speed adoption in the face of organizational change is to focus not on the change itself, but to emphasize what will remain the same.
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by Stephen Danos
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The need for businesses to adopt technology and software platforms has evolved at an accelerated pace. For companies and IT teams striving to become more agile, the technology they adopt needs to enable faster decision making while ensuring the administrative controls and data security vital to scaling software platforms across their entire organization.

In a recent report, McKinsey found that agile organizations have a “70 percent chance of being in the top quartile of organizational health,” which is attributed to their ability to achieve customer centricity, quicker time to market for developing products, increased revenue growth, reduced costs, and better employee engagement.

The report also identified characteristics that successful agile organizations have in common, including a willingness to embrace next-generation enabling technology.
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by Robin Sherwood

I spend a lot of time talking with customers, particularly those who leverage Smartsheet for portfolio reporting. During the Smartsheet ENGAGE’18 customer conference, I spoke about portfolio reporting and how it can make an impact across businesses of all sizes.

I’ve worked with so many project managers (PMs) and program managers (PGMs) throughout my career, and I’ve seen a lot of traditional portfolio management tools. I believe that the generation of top-down portfolio management tools needs to be replaced by software as a service (SaaS) tools that integrate with the work being done, not just the portfolio being managed.
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Older tools, while effective on an individual portfolio level, force users to do extra work to manage multiple projects. This means information workers have to go out of their way to access and compile PMO status reports and tracking.
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by Dan Sills
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Managing complex projects and processes requires precision and control. You never want to be caught off guard after someone changes data or removes key project details from your sheet.  

In order to prevent unexpected changes and stay on top of important updates to your work, you need a work execution platform that enables you to easily manage and track collaboration.

With Smartsheet, sheet owners and admins can improve transparency and rest assured knowing their sheet information is protected with these easy-to-use features.  
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by Staff Writer
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by Kit Unger

Update: Our redesigned navigation experience is now live in the web app for all Smartsheet customers!

Earlier this year, we redesigned the Smartsheet interface to make sure you can easily locate and access the features you rely on most. As part of our continuous effort to improve the user experience, we’re now preparing to release navigation enhancements to our web application that will help teams access, organize, and share their work more efficiently.
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When you log in for the first time following the update, you’ll quickly notice a couple of big changes; there will be an open navigation menu listing your recently viewed work and the Smartsheet tabs will no longer be present.
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Today, I’m pleased to walk you through the forthcoming updates and their benefits.
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