Mapping the Digital Journey: A tool for measuring Digital Transformation progress

Abstract

As digital transformation becomes increasingly important for organizations to sustain a competitive advantage, there is a growing need for practical tools to assess progress within this digital journey. This study focuses on developing a capability-based measurement method that is usable across various types of organizations. Drawing on existing literature and expert validation, a comprehensive set of digital transformation capabilities and sub-capabilities was identified and operationalized into a questionnaire. The questionnaire goes into these capabilities by measuring their corresponding sub-capabilities. These capabilities are, for example, Digital strategy, Business agility and Top management support. The questionnaire also includes contextual questions to enable comparison across different sectors. Practitioner interviews were conducted to evaluate the understandability, ease of use, and operational relevance of the questionnaire. The findings indicate that the instrument is generally perceived as understandable and easy to use, with some areas requiring clearer phrasing or examples. Most practitioners appreciated the broad scope of the tool, but this also limited the depth of the insights it could provide. Despite this, the tool could be useful in practice by helping to initiate strategic discussions and revealing differing perspectives within organizations. The study concludes that a capability-based questionnaire offers a practical and structured approach to assessing digital transformation progress, especially when combined with follow-up methods and distributed to multiple respondents within the same organization.