Change management on the double

Jed Simms
February 13, 2012

We have conceived the infamous change triangle as a double triangle as follows:

What this means is that if you are considering change, you need to consider all seven dimensions, when you look at your change management processes they need to explicitly acknowledge and deal with each of the seven dimensions, and you need to be able to assess and address each of the seven dimensions in making change.

More experienced practitioners will immediately see why the people-process-technology approach to change has left holes and not delivered the desired smooth or effective change at times.

For example, a project to realign and restructure a department can involve:

  • Strategy: How does this impact or is it impacted by the strategy? Is it consistent?
  • People: Who is impacted and by how much? Are they up to the new changes?
  • Structure: What will be the new structure and specific accountabilities?
  • Infrastructure: What new space, equipment, physical networks etc will be required?
  • Information: What changes to the information/reporting/measurement flows will be required?
  • Processes: What processes will change, how and why? What systems changes are required?
  • Culture: How will this challenge the mindsets and belief systems? How radical a change is this to the current ways of thinking?

Trying to achieve just an organisational change without all seven dimensions is a recipe for disaster.

What do you think? Do you think the existing people-process-technology triangle meets all of your needs?

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Jed Simms
Jed Simms is the founder and co-creator of Totally Optimized Projects, an internationally recognised strategy-based, business-driven approach to delivering projects. He specialises in project governance and control and value and benefits management. He is also the founding partner of consultancy Capability Management.
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