Most organizations evaluate their digital tools like a catalog:
features, promises, integrations, interfaces.
The field does not care.
For an operational team, a tool has only one success criterion:
does it reduce the difficulty of real work?
Useful digitalization starts with this simple, yet consistently forgotten truth.
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The field measures friction, not innovation
A solution can look brilliant on paper and fail completely in practice.
The field instantly detects:
• where it slows things down
• where it adds unnecessary steps
• where it imposes rules disconnected from reality
If a tool increases friction, it loses legitimacy.
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A good tool disappears into execution
When a system is well designed, people stop talking about it.
They talk about the work moving forward.
Useful digitalization is silent: it blends into daily gestures instead of disrupting them.
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The field reveals constraints dashboards never see
A dashboard may say a process “works”.
The field shows how it really works:
with improvisations, adaptations, hidden risks.
A tool must serve this truth, not the aesthetics of indicators.
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Measure value not by what the tool does, but by what it removes
The real question: what has disappeared thanks to digitalization?
• fewer double entries
• fewer unnecessary movements
• less uncertainty
• fewer errors
A tool that adds more than it removes is just a cost in disguise.
Digitalization that ignores the field gets bypassed.
Digitalization that frees the field becomes essential.
The field is the only judge.
Everything else is commentary.