1. Why is Change Difficult?
The Target of Change: The workflow process
The Problem with Fixes
Understanding Scoping
Understanding Connections
Data Flow and Data Vocabulary
Change is constant. That's a given. We haven't achieved perfection, or even equilibrium.
It's not because of technology, although the rapid introduction of new technology has certainly affected the pace of change.
Change is demanded in order to fix what is wrong and to get better. It is about improving the quality and quantity of our work output. Today it is about getting better or being left behind.
So, why is it so difficult?
First, life is messy. There are more things than places for things. There are more human relationships than Rolodex cards. There are more business interactions than entries in appointment books.
Second, life is complex. One thing depends on another. Humans are interdependent in ways that range from the regulated to the weird. Business processes don't just have beginnings, middles and ends; they have beginnings, interruptions, digressions, diversions, more interruptions, occasional completions, and frequent unexpected side effects.
We think it's important to point out these two obvious facts because they are the context in which business change occurs.
Most change management programs forget these facts. They want you to enter a state of denial, to focus on the change and drive it in a straight line from point A to point B.
Change is manageable. In fact, there is a science of change that understands work in a messy and complex world. As an applied science, it provides techniques for analyzing change and measuring progress. As an applied science, it provides predictable results.
Back to Top
The Target of Change: The Workflow Process
In business we are always trying to fix or improve results. This means fixing or improving the processes that produce results. This is Change!
Why do processes break in the first place? Market place conditions change. Inputs to the process change. People change and machines break. The process' horizons change - new opportunities must be seized to stay competitive. In each case, simply looking at the process cannot solve the problem.
Fixing a problem with a process means looking beyond the process.
And that is because our work is not independent of others' work. Our processes are connected, intertwined, and interdependent.
Back to Top
Problem with Fixes
If you are in management, how do you spend your day? You delegate everything you can - because that's the right thing to do - which means you take on the problems that no one else can.
These problems tend to be hard and urgent.
This is a bad combination.
As a result of time pressures, you put in place the fixes that seem to work and then move to the next item on your list of "do-by-noon" problems.
But in this messy, complex world, processes are interdependent. What fixes one process may disrupt another process. It seems impossible to know how your fix is going to affect other processes down the line.
So here is the dilemma. You survey the landscape and think you have to change the world before you'll get things to work right - leading to despair and inaction. Or, you narrow your focus to a corner of the world small enough to actually get your arms around that includes only a bit of the process -leading to a less-than-complete solution. Finding the right size of project is the key to successful change.
This is called scoping. Ah' but it hides a subtle trap.
Our image of scoping is drawing a sharp circle around a problem - isolating and limiting the change. But in doing so, you willfully ignore the complexity of life and business. In fact, that's why you scope the problem! You want to ignore the interdependencies! They are distracting and endlessly difficult to resolve.
Consequently, scoping itself leads to fixes that break other processes (because it has ignored them), fixes that degrade the overall system.
Back to Top
Understanding Scoping
Our view of scoping is the key to managing change. Effective scoping requires us to identify not only the process problem, but also its connections to other processes.
A cardiovascular surgeon doesn't "scope" a heart that needs a bypass by cutting the heart out of the chest. The surgeon scopes the heart by first carefully noting and inspecting all the connections of the heart to the rest of the body. Only then does he begin to work on the heart. When he's done, he not only has a beating heart but one that's actually pumping blood to the rest of the body. Which, more or less, is the point.
In business, we generally take scoping to mean "First, scoop out the heart" because we don't have a framework that lets us understand the process and its connections in a larger context.
Only through this larger context, can we see how to scope and solve problems successfully.
Back to Top
Understanding Connections
The science of change is the science of connections. These connections must be understood in two dimensions; the operational (horizontal) that interface with processes, and the strategic (vertical), that define why and how a process is performed.
The connections between processes consist of data. The prerequisite for sharing data is that the meaning or "definition" of that data is understood and shared by both processes.
The data may be recorded in handwriting or computer bits. They may be explicit ("Here are the results of the diagnostics on this piece of equipment") or implicit ("By handing this off, I am implying that my portion of the process is complete"). They may be clear or ambiguous, but the connections involve moving information around.
Changes in processes often include changes to data definitions without considering the widespread effect that such a change can have.
For example, if a field is changed on an inspector's form signifying that a piece of equipment is "off line pending re-inspection," this can throw off other processes that are expecting to find the same data expressed as "inoperative with an undetermined re-start date" or as "temporarily disabled."
Solving these data connections between processes is not based solely on the redesigned process requirements. These interfaces must be negotiated with the other process owners. Interfaces are the formal, negotiated solutions to the data exchanges between processes, and they occur in the horizontal or operational plane. It is particularly important, when trying to manage change and the interface connections between processes, to understand the distinction between data flow and data vocabulary.
Back to Top
Data Flow & Data Vocabulary
In a sense, if the data flow is the way processes interact, the data vocabulary forms the foundation on which the processes are built to work with each other.
Nothing is more important in managing change than understanding and addressing both the flow and the vocabulary of data.
Back to Top
Next