Description
As mining organizations invest heavily in digital technologies to improve safety and operational performance, many face a persistent challenge: organizational readiness. In underground environments, where risk exposure is high and operational constraints are significant, misaligned digital initiatives can create resistance, confusion, and unintended safety gaps.
This presentation explores how leadership and governance structures shape the success of digital transformation in mining. Drawing on a real-world underground gold mine case study, it introduces a mining-adapted Project Portfolio Management (PPM) approach designed not only to prioritize initiatives, but to align innovation with safety culture and workforce engagement.
Rather than managing digital projects independently, the site structured its digital transformation extraction-related initiatives as an integrated portfolio linked directly to safety objectives, operational risk, and frontline realities. The approach combined top-down strategic direction with bottom-up operational input, creating transparency in prioritization decisions and strengthening trust across departments.
Key leadership insights from the case include:
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Identification is key : A bottom-up approach strengthens initiatives identification, ensuring that projects are both operationally relevant and strategically coherent.
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Transparent and supportive governance reduces resistance to technological change
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Early involvement of frontline teams strengthens adoption and hazard identification
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Organizational readiness (change, communication, risk, and stakeholder management, training, infrastructure) is as critical as the technology itself
The case demonstrates that building a safer future in mining requires more than deploying advanced technologies. It demands intentional leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and portfolio-level governance that integrates safety, culture, and innovation into a coherent strategy.
Participants will leave with a practical framework to lead digital transformation in a way that strengthens—not destabilizes—mine safety culture.