100 applications in 6 years

How to build engagement in IT projects?

Agata Skowrońska-Domańska, Vice President of the Management Board at Archicom, discusses how to successfully implement digital transformation and build engagement in developing business applications in an interview with Michał Rykiert, Chief Evangelist EMEA at WEBCON.

Agata Skowrońska-Domańska
Vice President of the Management Board and CFO at Archicom

Between 2017 and 2023, she actively participated in strengthening the nationwide brand Echo Investment as Director of Strategic Planning. She has been working in the real estate industry for over 20 years, gathering experience in the largest organizations in this sector, including Skanska, Bouygues Immobilier, Yareal, and Simon & Ivanhoe. The experience gained over the years has made her one of the leading experts in the industry today. She is the winner of the 2019 Top Woman in Real Estate award in the Innovation and Technology category and was also recognized in the 2021 StrongWomen in IT ranking.

Michał Rykiert
Chief Evangelist EMEA w WEBCON

Bringing over a decade of expertise in the realm of Information Technology, I’ve had the privilege of actively contributing to diverse facets of digital transformation. I’ve been working closely with clients and business partners across the world. From shaping strategies to delivering projects and witnessing their success, my experiences have equipped me with insights into both technology and human dynamics. My expertise lies in the realms of business process management, optimization, and automation through the utilization of low-code solutions.

Michał Rykiert: Agata, six years ago you began implementing applications to support business processes on a large scale. Since then, you’ve gone through a significant transformation. Could you tell us what your organization looked like back then and how it looks now?

Agata Skowrońska-Domańska: When we started, Archicom faced a significant challenge: we needed to streamline our business processes and introduce innovations that would allow us to manage the growing number of projects more effectively. Over these six years, we have implemented over 100 applications on the WEBCON BPS platform, which has truly changed our organization. Initially, our processes were less organized and relied on manual reports. Now we have a much better-integrated and efficient system that supports us in every aspect of our operations. For example, our tendering team calculated that by leveraging technology and preparing the entire tender process in an application, their productivity increased by 20%. This means that thanks to the technology that organized certain elements and took on some repetitive tasks from the team, we can execute 20% more tenders.

According to McKinsey statistics, only 1 in 200 IT projects meets all the criteria of a successful project, meaning it delivers the expected benefits within the previously defined budget and timeline. Looking at your journey, I feel like this statistic doesn’t apply to you. What qualities should a leader possess to best support the team in executing IT projects?

I’ll start with the most important thing – above all, a leader should have a vision. A vision is like a lighthouse – it provides a light signal, shows the way, and is always located at a fixed point, visible from any perspective at sea or in the ocean. Without a vision, no project has ever been successfully realized. The leader’s role in relation to the vision is to ensure that the lighthouse guides us in the right direction and supports all units sailing in our project ocean. However, that’s not all. The path we set must be communicated to each person in a way that resonates individually. Therefore, the second very important quality of leaders is empathy. The third is the leader’s ability to adapt to the character of the team. In the process of digital transformation, two worlds often collide: the innovative and ever-evolving one known from startups, present in the early stages of the implementation, and the more stable, consistent, and organized one. Conscious management at the intersection of these two worlds, cooperation, respect, and openness to ideas from both sides are very important qualities of a good leader.

You mentioned that empathy and the ability to manage diverse teams are key in the process of digital transformation. However, even well-executed change naturally faces opposition. How do you manage this challenge?

First of all, resistance must be accepted. I have never seen an implementation that didn’t face it. There will always be a group of people who, in some way, oppose the changes. The root of this resistance is fear. Every change triggers a biological threat response in us. Therefore, resistance needs to be understood. We need to identify its source and determine what actions might have been perceived as a risk. Sometimes, these are very simple things. For example, someone used to send emails every day, but now the process is automated, and they no longer need to do it. Some employees may feel threatened by the change in their routine and the way they perform tasks. This is why, at Archicom, we always strive to show employees that the changes we are working on aim to improve things, not create additional challenges. We’re not doing this for the sake of technology itself, but to implement technology that makes their work and growth easier.

Your journey – over 100 applications in 6 years – is quite impressive by market standards. How do you begin to implement such an ambitious vision?

It is crucial for a company to identify where the biggest challenges, or pain points, lie and start addressing them first. Sometimes these problems appear at the end of a process, but it’s still worth starting there. Why? Because that’s where you’ll find the most engaged and determined people, those who are in urgent need of change. If we manage to effectively solve these issues early on, we build trust, which supports us in the subsequent stages of the implementation. Once we reach a more mature model, it’s important to always maintain a higher demand for applications than what can be implemented. This keeps everyone on their toes – the implementation team stays alert, and those requesting resources remain eager.

Looking more broadly and over the long term at digital transformation, it’s common to see that in many companies, after initial success, the pace of application development slows down. Based on your experience, how can one not only maintain but also accelerate the process of creating new applications?

That’s a good question. The success of our organization lies in the fact that, six years ago, we approached transformation comprehensively. We didn’t limit ourselves to implementing a single application for one team; we immediately created a vision for the entire company. Such a vision helps us stay on course, even during difficult times. It keeps people engaged, even when challenges arise along the way. The vision must be simple and understandable. It should act like a lighthouse, but how the team navigates to the harbor, guided by that light, depends on the crew. The key is that the vision provides space and autonomy because it’s that autonomy that brings people satisfaction and makes the vision their own. It’s also crucial to identify the most committed employees – those who find passion and joy in working on the project. During moments of decreased energy, their enthusiasm can keep the team on the right course.

You’ve talked a lot about the role of people in the digital transformation process. Could you name three main features of technology that help support this transformation?

Technology should primarily provide stability and security. If we start implementing a business application that uses a technology that is brilliant but unstable, it can disrupt and hinder the process. In these situations, employees can become disheartened and may lose interest in continuing with digitization projects for a while. The second aspect is agility. People get impatient if something takes longer than 3 to 4 weeks from the moment they’ve already shared their vision, and they start to feel frustrated. The final element is the appropriate response to change. If an implemented fix forces developers to work an additional three months to adjust all the components affected by a part of the solution, then there’s no talk of agility, nor stability. Fixes need to be implemented in a way that doesn’t disrupt the entire operation. The system should be flexible, and each change must be thoroughly analyzed to avoid unnecessary disruptions. That’s why I think these three technological characteristics – stability, agility, and flexibility in responding to change – are key to effectively supporting teams in the digital transformation process.

WEBCON Magazine: Impact

Explore the second edition of Impact, an exclusive magazine dedicated to digital transformation. In this issue, you’ll find insightful interviews with WEBCON leaders, in-depth analyses of the company’s development, and inspiring success stories from clients and partners who have created cutting-edge solutions using WEBCON BPS. Get ready for an inspiring read that’s just a click away!

At WEBCON, digital transformation isn’t a buzzword – it’s a way of life; it’s about reducing steps, eliminating mistakes, ensuring compliance, connecting assets, and encouraging continuous improvement – all that thanks to the modern Low-code Application Platform. Applications made with our Low Code Application Platform, WEBCON BPS, are scalable, process-centric, low-to-no-code, equally at home online or on-premises, and happily used on both desktops and mobile devices. WEBCON’s unique InstantChange™ technology lets customers adapt/evolve processes to address changing needs immediately and painlessly. WEBCON processes are clearly understood and easily governed, and they can be connected to lines of business systems, documents, forms, messages, and collaboration workspaces. Low Code Automation has never been easier.

WEBCON North America

WEBCON Europe

WEBCON is the leading European-based provider of a complete Low-code Application Platform for mass delivering business solutions. Companies choose WEBCON to dramatically reduce time and cost of app development. The platform allows them to automate and manage business processes across the entire organization – using a single, unified platform. Thanks to its unique InstantChange™ technology, WEBCON embraces change like no other platform on the market.

100 applications in 6 years

How to build engagement in IT projects?

Michał Rykiert: Agata, six years ago you began implementing applications to support business processes on a large scale. Since then, you’ve gone through a significant transformation. Could you tell us what your organization looked like back then and how it looks now?

You mentioned that empathy and the ability to manage diverse teams are key in the process of digital transformation. However, even well-executed change naturally faces opposition. How do you manage this challenge?

Your journey – over 100 applications in 6 years – is quite impressive by market standards. How do you begin to implement such an ambitious vision?

You’ve talked a lot about the role of people in the digital transformation process. Could you name three main features of technology that help support this transformation?

WEBCON Magazine: Impact

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