Governance Ambidexterity in Digital Transformation

Adopting agile project management practice has paralleled the digital transformation agenda that businesses have embraced. The need to examine and leverage new digital technologies, with their potential to influence business competitiveness, has seen organisations increasingly manage a mixed portfolio of projects adopting both traditional and agile practices. There is insufficient research into how these organisations govern the mix of projects that comprise digital transformation initiatives.Our research aims to understand governance practices, specifically the role of agile governance as a mechanism for overseeing digital transformations. The need to coordinate and eventually integrate these large and varied project portfolios presents a means to explore the application of traditional and agile governance techniques in practice.This paper presents our preliminary findings that provide evidence for contextual ambidexterity being necessary for the governance of digital transformation initiatives. Project leaders pragmatically apply dual approaches to governing the mix of digital projects resulting from digital transformation initiatives. Data collected from interviews with project executives identify a tension between traditional and agile project governance, suggesting that ambidexterity is evident in organisations undertaking digital transformation.Our research has relevance to those interested in how traditional and agile project governance practices are applied in complex digital transformation initiatives. It contributes to our knowledge of governance practices in environments where traditional and agile project management practices must co-exist. Building on the concept of organisational ambidexterity, we theorise that project governance similarly embraces a duality. Our research suggests that practitioners develop ambidexterity as they alternate between exploration and exploitation governance actions.