FAQ

A: We believe one of the reasons for such a high failure rate of transformations today is the over-emphasis on technology solutions without a clear understanding of the problem.  Most digital transformation programmes available today start with digital. The DTLP is different in that digital is considered a capability, and the DTLP starts either with customers or people & leadership.

Most incumbent companies are complex.  The DTLP was designed to solve the problems of complex transformations in incumbent companies. The DTLP leverages The allDigitalFuture Playbook (taP) created and written by DTLP programme directors Dr Dennis Khoo and Jung Kiu Choi. taP is a holistic approach, which incorporates 4 dimensions and 19 elements which are vital for transformation success. Unlike most other programmes, taP focuses on why digital transformations have such high failure rates, and addresses them by incorporating systems thinking to overcome complexity, desirable, viable and feasible hurdles to separate ideas from innovation.

taP is a structured, holistic and step-by-step approach designed to solve complex business transformations.  taP showcases the interactions between the different elements across four dimensions – customers, business, capabilities and people & leadership. We believe that ignoring these interactions is another major source of failure in transformation initiatives.

Finally, taP is based on the learnings of real-world transformations that the authors and faculty have been involved with. You will gain the insights and inner workings of complex transformations that few (if any) of the other digital transformation programmes offer, as they are mostly based on second-hand knowledge, at best.  Many digital transformation programs delve into why you must digitalize and what you must do. Unlike the DTLP, almost none focuses on how to navigate a complex transformation.

A: NUS, Asia’s top university and #11 Globally (according to the June 2022 Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) annual higher education ranking) is partnering with the authors of The allDigitalFuture Playbook through AllDigitalFuture LLP to bring you a new and breakthrough transformation programme, the NUS Digital Transformation Leaders Programme. 

The NUS DTLP is a unique multi-disciplinary programme involving business, people & leadership, computing, design and much more.  

The NUS School of Computing (SoC) traces its roots back to the Nanyang University Department of Computer Science which was established in 1975 – the first of its kind in Singapore. Since then, the School has developed into one of the top 10 computing schools in the world in the QS and Times Higher Education (THE) rankings, with faculty members who are both internationally recognised researchers and inspiring teachers.

With the aim of equipping business leaders and computing professionals with the skills to thrive in the digital world, the Advanced Computing for Executives (ACE) centre focuses on emerging technologies and how organisations can harness them to gain a competitive edge. As part of SoC, ACE gives participants an opportunity to learn about the technologies transforming business and society, with insights from leading faculty and industry practitioners.

All Digital Future LLP helps companies transform in a digital world using a new and breakthrough approach: the allDigitalFuture Playbook (taP). taP is a holistic and structured step-by-step guide that covers customers, business, capabilities, and people & leadership, resulting in higher success in digital transformations.

The NUS DTLP combines relevant theory and practical insights that differentiate it from other digital transformation programmes:

• Provides an umbrella method that unifies existing practices into a holistic approach
• Creates and deploys a common language that breaks down organisational silos
• Focuses on “How you should transform” vs Why and What
• Avoids a lopsided technology and solution focus that plagues other programmes

A: These are the issues common amongst NUS DTLP attendees:

• Don’t know where to start and find the complexity overwhelming
• Key players operate in silos whereas a customer view is needed for success
• Focused on solutions but clarity of the problem is elusive
• Don’t know enough to ask your working teams the right questions to guide them
• Focused on the tech, but suspect that design and process are paramount but ignored
• You have searched externally and can’t hire the right talent, but haven’t realised that internal talent, properly trained are also the key
• You have heard a lot of digital transformation but do not know how to make it happen
• You started some types of digital transformation but it seems that there are no clear benefits
• Your IT system is not flexible, scalable or not able to meet your needs. You do not know what is needed and what to do about it.
• You hired a systems integration (SI) firm before but there are no visible improvements or benefits to your business. You do not know what went wrong
• You do not know how to sustain the transformation after you start

A: Here are some of the issues that often plague transformation programs in incumbent companies today:

• Not understanding the customer and business problem deeply enough to find and tackle the organisation-wide issues that are interconnected and interrelated, e.g., how to balance a strong customer value proposition (desirable), with a strong business model that can generate profit commensurate with your risk appetite (viability) and yet, have the right capabilities, people and leaders to ensure a high probability of successful execution (feasibility).
• Did not create an environment where the common goal is focused on the customer and through the customer, business growth vs internal, siloed thinking.
• Lack the fundamental knowledge to adopt a holistic methodology to guide your transformation.
• Business requirements are very vague and not sufficiently detailed to act upon.
• Did not assemble the right combination of internal and external candidates needed for success.
• Too focused on an endpoint and not realizing it’s a journey where implementing continuous learning and improvement is key.

A: Participants can expect the following benefits:

• You will be one of the first to experience a holistic approach that is repeatable, and thus your investment will continue to serve you well, no matter which industry you venture into, in the future.
•  The NUS DTLP has been designed with the busy C-suite executive in mind.  Instead of a lengthy program, we have crafted a short but intense 1-month program that will allow you to master the taP approach and start practicing, shortly thereafter.
• Learn a comprehensive and integrated customer and business transformation approach that starts with the customer but keeps iterating between business, capabilities, and people & leadership to uncover and manage the hidden interactions.
• Learn to approach the customer segment selection, gaps and insights to ensure a customer-centric approach.
• Gain the ability to understand what you know for sure, what you don’t know and what you need to validate. 
• Provides C-suite executives with the necessary foundational knowledge to ask the right questions. You are not expected to have the right answers, but you are expected to be able to ask your working teams the right questions to steer them in the right direction.
• Learn how to structure your transformation as a journey and not a fixed endpoint.
• In most cases, the bottleneck is not technology but design and process. Learn how to use the allDigitalFuture Playbook or taP approach across 6 important capabilities: Design, Methodology, Data, Info Tech, Ecosystems and New Disciplines. taP combines customer, business, capabilities, people & leadership into a powerful and scalable approach.
• Leverages systems thinking and desirability, viability & feasibility to ensure the C-suite executive in-charge can understand all the inter-related considerations.

A: The NUS DTLP has been carefully designed to equip you with all the necessary ability to lead your transformation well within an impactful 1-month program.  It consists of three modules:

A: The NUS DTLP is designed as a breadth programme that covers all the key topics or domains that a senior C-suite executive needs to understand to orchestrate a business transformation involving, at a minimum, customers, business, people, process and technology. See the table below for more details.

A: The following are the key commitments from participants in the NUS DTLP:

• Participants are expected to attend all 8 face-to-face in-class sessions. 
• There is a pre-programme assignment to read Driving Digital Transformation: Lessons from building the first ASEAN Digital Bank. The book encapsulates one of the most comprehensive accounts of how to design and execute a complex digital transformation programme.
• You are expected to propose a use-case or initial problem statement to evolve in the NUS DTLP using the taP approach.  3 or more participants for the same company can choose their own company-specific use-case.  Other participants will form groups of 5-6 participants as a project team and select one use-case or problem statement to evolve.
• There are short pre-readings before every face-to-face session.You are expected to evolve and advance your use-case as a project team during the one-month period between modules 1 and 2.

A. No. The essence of the DTLP approach is that a firm grasp of your customer’s major problems that are deemed worth solving, plus a deep understanding of how you can adapt your business in the face of industry disruption, allows you to appreciate the gaps in your capabilities, people and leadership required to bring about your transformation.  There are many resources that you can turn to, to help you, once you know what problem is worth solving.  The issue many companies face is that they start with capabilities first, and then find that the way the capabilities are configured cannot be easily changed to fit a problem worthy of solving.

A: Certificate of Completion awarded by the National University of Singapore.

A: We accept:

• Bank transfers to DBS Bank Account Number 0720334019 (SWIFT Code: DBSSSGSG) 
• PayNow to UEN T21LL0132E
• All Major Credit Cards

A: Our refund policy is as follows:

• 3 months or more before course commencement – 100% refund of course fees
• 2 months or more before course commencement – 50% refund of course fees
• 15 days or more before course commencement – 25% refund of course fees
• Between 1 to 14 days before course commencement – 0% refund of course fees
• No show on first day of course or after course starts – 0% refund of course fees

A: Read Driving Digital Transformation: Lessons from Building the First ASEAN Digital Bank, which is included as part of the course fees. Do a write-up of your use-case or problem statement that you would like to refine during the DTLP.

A: By the end of Module 1, a great outcome will be if you are able to know “what you don’t know” or assumptions you have made that need to be validated.  The one-month break allows you to perform the required analysis and research, gather data, talk to customers, analyse competitors, and speak to industry experts to answer key questions, or validate assumptions you have made. Without such refinement, we find that most use-cases are more theoretical than practical. If your company use-case has been selected, you may be able to leverage your company resources to perform these activities, making your use-case more robust.

A: We have found that doing Module 2 and 3 consecutively is too strenuous for most participants.  Thus, we have introduced a weekend in-between Modules 2 and 3, where participants can work with their technology or other capability partners to refine their capability requirements or take a break before Module 3 starts. The weekend also allows project teams to attend optional clinics with the program directors and catch up as a team on any area that they need to.

A: You will be organized into groups of 3-6 to work on your use-case or problem statements.  In the case of participants from the same company, this provides an excellent opportunity to work on your real-world use case or problem statement. We find that doing so may resolve many of your internal coordination issues between different units, and significantly improve your probability of success. 

For participants that attend individually or if your company has less than three participants, you will be asked to select your choice of use-case or problem statement that you would want to work on, and on a best-case basis, we will attempt to assign you to your use-case of choice. Note that it will not be possible to assign everyone to their use-case of choice.

You will be accessed as part of a project team of 3-6, based on how well you leverage the methodology taught in the DTLP, to advance your use case.  There will be a presentation at the end of the program where you will be required to present your use-case in the frameworks you have learnt.

As part of the Leadership element in the People and Leadership dimension, you will complete a leadership development assessment known as the Harrison Assessment. A few participants will be asked to volunteer their assessments for class discussion.  It will not be possible to do so for every participant. This assessment will help you understand your leadership behaviours and allow us to delve into how these behaviours or lack of expression of certain leadership behaviours may affect the success of your transformation.

A: The NDLP venue will be at the new School of Computing COM3 @ Imagination Ridge. COM3 is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities and connects academia, research and industry, and the Singapore Smart Nation Cluster (SNC), as well as serve as a hub to foster collaboration and innovation.  The directions to the venue are as follows, together with a map of the venue (NUS COM3 is indicated in the map below).

Participants who are driving can park at NUS Carpark 11.

A: Lunch and break refreshments are provided for all three Modules.  There will also be an opening dinner and a close of programme dinner that are provided.

A: Yes, attendance is compulsory for all eight days of the DTLP modules.

A: Yes, overseas participants pay for their own accommodation during the DTLP and their flights into and out of Singapore.

A: English is the language for the DTLP and the materials are also in English.

A: A copy of the allDigitalFuture Playbook will be provided to all participants, and a separate binder containing updates and additional case studies created post the publication of the playbook.  Inaugural intake (Feb/Mar 2023) participants will receive a complementary Lenovo ThinkPad laptop, courtesy of our corporate main sponsor Lenovo.  For all other cohorts, participants are expected to bring their own laptops for DTLP exercises.

A: We would like to reiterate that face-to-face interactions are very important to progress the use-case or initial problem statement as a project team.  The NUS DTLP provides the necessary frameworks and approaches using the allDigitalFuture Playbook or taP approach, but the essence of the program is using these frameworks and approaches to advance your use-case so that you experience action learning, which is the most effective what to learn a new approach.  If you are unable to attend any of the face-to-face sessions, please contact the program directors during the NUS DTLP program, who will assess each case and determine the best course of approach.

A: We would encourage all participants to attend the sessions in person, as far as possible.  In the event that an event beyond our control happens, video attendance can be considered, and the program can accommodate this, with the concurrence of the program directors.

A: No, there are no make-up sessions.  We encourage you to attend all sessions, but if something very urgent comes up, please speak to the program directors, who can discuss with you the best way for you to stay on track.

A: No, the laptops are provided on a complimentary basis for use by participants in the first intake in Feb/Mar 2023 only.  The laptops will be provided at the start of the DTLP and not before. If a participant refuses the laptop, there will be no discount offered as an offset. For the value of the Lenovo Laptop, please check out the latest retail price at the following website:  Lenovo SG Online Shop

A: No, the 10% discount for 3 or more participants from the same company is to encourage collaboration, alignment and synchronization amongst the top executives responsible for designing and implementing a transformation.  This is one of the top drivers of transformation failure.  For this to be effective, participants have to attend the NUS DTLP together.

DecA: No, the early bird discount is only for participants that pay in full before 01 Dec 2022.  Participants who reserve a place by placing an initial deposit of S$5,000 are not eligible for the early bird discount. The initial deposit of S$5,000 is also not refundable.

A: The Lenovo Transformation and Innovation Grant helps self-sponsored applicants of the NUS DTLP by providing them a grant of S$3,501 towards payment of the NUS DTLP programme fees.  Together with the early-bird discount of S$1,500, it means that self-sponsored participants get to attend the NUS DTLP for S$9,999.  The inaugural cohort for Feb/March 2023 also receive a complimentary Lenovo Carbon X1 ThinkPad* Laptop, which retails from SG$2353 on 25 Oct 2022 (https://tinyurl.com/am3ztjtr). 

Note: *Subject to stock availability, participants may receive an alternative Lenovo laptop.  Prices are subject to change and there is no guarantee whatsoever that the price will be S$2353.  Please check the Lenovo website for the latest price. Company-sponsored participants are not eligible for the Lenovo Transformation and Innovation Grant. Self-sponsored participants are defined as participants that pay for the NUS DTLP from accounts bearing their own individual names.