Navigating the unknown in large-scale operational transformation programs: The "Sirius Days" framework as a 'pilot-organization' for characterizing emerging issues

Abstract

Large-scale digital transformation programs must simultaneously sustain existing operations and navigate deep unknowns emerging from IT-business-operations interactions -a challenge conventional project governance frameworks inadequately address. Based on a longitudinal case study of a transformation program, we investigate the ''Sirius Days,'' a monthly senior management retreat identified as a critical success factor. We show that this framework constitutes a pilot-organization: an organizational 'dispositif' (or apparatus) that deconstructs established knowledge or assumptions, formulates rigorous conjectures, and tests them in real conditions. It generated five resilience levers -systemic characterization of unknowns, early anomaly discernment, expansion of performance norms, social capital creation through a community of inquiry, and expansion of organizational agility across scales -revealing a model of an organizational 'dispositif' that operationalizes navigating unknowns across cognitive, social, and normative dimensions.