5. Science of Change Principles
The Science of Change states that change occurs in a messy, complex world; and that it is best understood by the data connections of the component pieces. Applying this science, MetaPower's methodology provides a change scoping model, a five-tier design model, structured analysis techniques, and a six-phase project model.
MetaPower's methodology adheres to several basic change principles:
Address the connections over perfecting the process
Pursuing perfection within the process is a guarantee for failure. The connections of the process must be addressed at all costs; otherwise, the changed process will disrupt other processes and violate programs.
Corollary: To de-optimize the process for the sake of connections is to optimize the enterprise.
Changing tiers is changing projects
It is occasionally necessary to go up a tier in the design hierarchy in order to make a change. For example, it may be that a process can only be fixed by changing the program it supports. But if it becomes Change the program rather than Fix the process, it is a new and different project. It has different scope, different expectations, different players, and different scale.
Change people last
In a complex, interrelated society, like any business, people evolve different ways of talking about the same phenomenon. While it might make sense on paper to insist that everyone use the same terminology, getting people to talk and think in a standard, centralized way is expensive for you and demoralizing for them. Instead, the data dictionary can easily translate the various ways humans want to speak.
Follow the data
Processes become visible to one another through the data they interchange. By focusing on the data, change projects keep processes properly aligned and interfaced with other processes. Furthermore, data can be analyzed and managed rigorously, whereas many of the other elements of processes - for example, people - cannot. Thankfully.
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