Change happens every day – especially dynamically in the digital space. We want to empower our customers to actively shape these changes and support them with our professional change management. From stakeholder analysis and UX design to rollout support and the introduction of new software in the company – we empower our customers.
Of course, changes also entail costs – development costs, licensing costs, analysis efforts, employee training and the like. The pressure must therefore be high to invest these costs. This is why changes are usually preceded by long tales of woe: processes that run into the void, financial losses due to wrong decisions, high expenses for the maintenance of existing systems, or even dissatisfied employees.
The change formula according to Beckhard and Harris serves as an illustration:
Z×U×W>K
Z Desirable target state
U Dissatisfaction with the actual state
W Practicability of the path
K Cost of (resistance to) change
U therefore stands for the pressure of suffering in the current state. We contrast this with an attractive target image Z, a positive vision of what could be. As is often the case, the fish must like the worm, not the angler. Thanks to our experience, we generate good ideas for project communication that not only „taste good“ to the management, but also convinces and engages the future users. The third point is a practicable way W to realize the positive target image. It must be clear and plausible to the users how management, service providers and the project team intend to achieve this goal. We can ensure this through our expertise in project management.
It is also important to note that the model presented is a mathematical product. The values of dissatisfaction, target state and path are therefore multiplied. This illustrates that all three values must be strong for the change process to succeed.
If the disadvantages of a current situation are not clear to those involved, neither a perfect target vision nor a good plan of how to achieve it will help – those involved will then simply sit out the change process. And no matter how high the pressure of suffering and how desirable and strong the vision, if we cannot explain to those involved how the goal can be achieved or why we are setting it in the first place, the change process will peter out.
Conclusion
With our good methods for analyzing the current situation, jointly developing a vision and supporting the overall process, we flank and support every change – depending on your needs as a full-service package or with individually bookable consulting services in all our core competencies.
Do you want your digital project to be good?
Then you too can benefit from our know-how and many years of experience in digital change management.
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