Orchestrating Transformation: the Campaign for Change

An archestra notebook.

© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

Management is the key to success, right? But even though organizational changes are explicitly managed, some changes fail. Complexity is certainly a typical culprit. But one cause of failed changes that may be even more important can be neglecting what is really most necessary to manage in the change: transition.

Managing the transition, from the current state to the desired future state, is sometimes overwhelmed by a cult of results: a preoccupation with an endpoint and with the compromises of it that may occur due to complexity in the effort. This focus on the endpoint increases the risks that shortcuts and exceptions will be employed in reaction, without a disciplined connection to other key factors, effectively corrupting the transition. The consequence is that the intended change is unstable and does not actually survive.

Bringing the focus back to the transition itself re-establishes the point of view that gives the most important perspective. Namely, when a departure from the current state is being attempted, what differences are expected or occurring, that inhibit or encourage progress towards the target future state? How should the differences be treated in order to fortify a good logic of the transition, or to overcome a bad logic?

The following descriptions and sketches survey the perspective of managing differences, not outcomes. The point is not to discount the importance of achieving good results, but instead to highlight the role and goal required to specifically manage change.

Solving The Right Problem

We are all familiar with the strong but sometimes ironic nature of a legal trial. The institution and process that is employed to render judgment spends as much time protecting its own integrity as it does on anything else. The importance of that self-referential attitude is in its ability to assure that the result of the process is “valid”, regardless of what the specific result turns out to be.

The same emphasis on procedural integrity exists, of course, in the scientific method. No principle is more important than that the experiments and tests serving as the foundation for a claim or discovery can be repeated by a disinterested third party to provide the same accountability of whatever results occur. In fact, it is not unusual that such a repetition of process may not come up with the same result but will carry the same, if not better, degree of accountability.

A final familiar reference to the focus on procedure is the common experience of playing ordinary games by their rules. Although it is never the case that two games unintentionally duplicate each other, they can wholly share the same rules and objectives – and each game’s progress is always governed by the effect of the rules on their intermittently occurring events.

So it is that managing a trial, managing an experiment, or managing a game exhibits the essential paradigm for managing change. Independent of the results, the validity of the procedure is paramount, while also establishing the basis for comparisons, improvement, and prescribed effectiveness.

Point A to Point B: the logic of the transition

MANAGEMENT

A “change” is typically thought of as a future state intended to allow or cause an opportunity or a capability. But the real change is in getting there.

The future state is represented by a description of what will be different, where the difference will be driven within the institution itself, and how the institution will provide the means for effecting the change. The description is expected to be accepted or rejected, based on those goals and concerns.

The description argues that the means (HOW) will enable conformity to the position and predisposition (WHERE) that the institution agrees should allow or cause the future state (WHAT).

The logic of the argument prescribes a premeditatedalignment of those goals and concerns. The alignment must be reasonable and sustainable.

The goal of the logic itself is to validate the likelihood of the success of change. Change Management instantiates the argument, not the future state.

The Concept Of A “Valid” Change

WHATdifferences are

targeted

WHEREdifferences are

promoted

HOWdifferences are

enabled

Guidance

GuidanceGuidance

management

The Validating Culture

The enterprise must become a structured environment providing a cultural level of encouragement from multiple parties, for the catalysts, prerequisites and agents of the intended change.

A cultural level of encouragement is one where prevailing environmental conditionstypically favor the type of interactions necessary to realize and maintain the state targeted by the change.

“Prevailing” conditions usually persist through a combination of factors including preference, acceptance and logic, and these factors become critical focus areas for management. Before they operationally fall under management, those factors must be identified as part of the definition of the intended change, through guidance.

A good definition of the change also includes justificationsnecessary to account for the motivation of the participants who must co-operate. The justifications also need to be compatible, by being explicitly aligned to each other.

© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

To bring about the proposed change, Stakeholders and participants must embrace the concept of the future state as their common goal.

Justifications drive the motivation of the different parties to take on the needed operational responsibilities of supporting change.

Without relevant motivation, the momentum of the status quo is unlikely to allow enough opportunity to coordinate enough review of the proposed change.

Without enough review, there is insufficient determination of possible impacts.

In effect, without clear distinctive high-level justifications, it is unlikely that a basis will form for accepting the particular view of the future as being necessary.

Stakeholder Justifications

WHATdifferences are

targeted

WHEREdifferences are

promoted

HOWdifferences are

enabled

Value&

Roadmap

Governance&

Support

Organization&

Implementation

A successful change is not an event but an enduring condition.

The endurance of the condition is a logical result of the condition having a good host.

To be a host, the enterprise does not merely experience the change; instead it literally incorporates the change.

This incorporation can occur when a good combination of justifications andguidance exists for the participant actors at an operational level.

Guidance shows the actors what is needed in structural terms, and justification shows why that is beneficial and important to them.

Stakeholder GuidanceWith Justifications

requirements

The future state proposed by a change is always compared directly against existing ways of getting things done. Therefore, the argument in favor of change must specify its necessary operational conditions and also identify how those conditions are realized.

Those proposals model the demand for management activities. In the model, differences become manageable by coordinating requirements, quality and programs. Participants and other stakeholders are the suppliers of the mechanisms for providing requirements, quality and programs.

Managing Co-Operation

The logic for adequately sustaining the future state calls out key participants and stakeholders, who will then need to evaluate what operational differences are proposed versus the status quo.

Defining requirements begins with assessments and prioritizing; the quality of the environment for related activities relies on agreeing areas and types of assurance; and a program is used for maintaining delivery of the capability to operate both appropriately and sustainably, so that the delivery is continual.

WHATdifferences are

targeted

WHEREdifferences are

promoted

HOWdifferences are

enabled

Strategy Transformation

Architecture

The definition of the proposed change will identify what change will occur, where its assurance will be internally driven, and how it will be enabled.

The responsible parties will need to cooperate. The cooperation will be modeled, in ways that are shared through plans.

Aligning Justifications of the Proposed Change

The key plans modeling the reconciled interests in the change are Strategy, Transformation, and Architecture. These plans reflect the distinctive disciplines that shape the environment into the culture and the host of the change.

The primary plans will show that the interests of the different parties are reconciled for the benefit of making the future state attainable and sustainable. The Plans provide the parties with a common reference for them to pursue and track the alignment of their enabling efforts.

Value&

Roadmap

Governance&

Support

Organization&

Implementation

requirements

Strategy Transformation

Architecture

A “change” is a future state intended to allow or cause an opportunity or a capability.

A successful change is not an event but an enduring condition. The endurance is a logical result of the condition having a good host. To be a host, the enterprise literally incorporates the change.

The success of the incorporation depends on connections that must be established between several perspectives. The connections assure that the environment for necessary activities encourages those activities more than their precedents.

Orchestrating Co-OperationFor Adopting Change

Change Management includes the selection, authorization, and direction of the opportunities to create the connections. That is, management orchestrates the change. In particular, the Transformation plan is on the critical path of the connections.

We diagrammed the turf to be covered in INCORPORATING changes that have enterprise impact OR that require enterprise operation.

© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

Sitting between the strategy that explains the context of the change, and the architecture that structures the institutional means for change, the Transformation discipline models change execution as a Campaign. Planned Campaigns are both prescriptive and responsive.

Definition Value Roadmap Governance Support

Value Significance of the Difference

Reference the Portfolio

Schedule benefits

Assign stakeholders

Market the benefits

Roadmap Increments of Realization

Set targets Analyze trends Educate expectations

Report news

Governance Authority of Decisions

Agree Policies Set allocations Model transparency

Survey feedback

Support Maintenance of Value

Set service levels

Define releases Define reports Forecast requirements

PRESCRIPTIVE

RES

PO

NSI

VE

Transformation Plan: the Change Campaign

The campaign explicitly reconciles the Value & Roadmap of the change (the What ) with the Governance & Support of the change (the Where). That reconciliation is critically influential on the validity and incorporation of the change. Typical reconciliation tasks are shown in the table below.

© 2013 Malcolm Ryder / archestra

Transformative Procedures

Prescriptive campaigning:

embrace and promote needed “deltas”

• Defining

• Influencing

• Recruiting

• Teaching

• Organizing

• Translating

• Scorecarding (reporting)

Responsive campaigning:

Resolve bottlenecks, variances, feedback

• Grading

• Prioritizing

• Negotiating

• Monitoring

• Administering

• Analyzing

• Dashboarding (reporting)

or·ches·trate

verb (used with object), verb (used without object), or·ches·trat·ed, or·ches·trat·ing.

1.

to compose or arrange (music) for performance by an orchestra.

2.

to arrange or manipulate, especially by means of clever or thorough planning or maneuvering:

to orchestrate a profitable trade agreement.

-- Dictionary.com