We have found that the following essential elements of effective change are often overlooked or not performed adequately by the majority of projects that fail due to strategic reasons (as opposed to poor management or delivery).
Problem/Opportunity Definition,
Business/Technology Alignment and
Business Justification (initial and/or continual)
At greenCore we focus on ensuring that projects are “set up for success”, and as such, have developed and employ a number processes, models and approaches to define, validate and justify the outcome, benefit and outputs. We have posted a number of articles previously regarding some of these tools/methods and have received amazing feedback. We are currently working on releasing some incredible models shortly that I hope the project delivery community will find extremely useful.
In the meantime, I wanted to present our approach to Value Definition that constitutes part of the “Problem/Opportunity Definition” change capability we utilise. Too often change drivers are associated with fixing problems however this is not always true and often it is the Opportunity aspects of change that can deliver the most influential change.
Our philosophy is to follow our Problem/Opportunity Definition change cycle:
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Recognise
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Assess (Options) → Value Definition
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Define (Action)
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Prepare (Change)
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Resolve/Realise
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Sustain
Problem/Opportunity Definition → Review
A portion of this method is to identify the value proposition of the intended change being implemented to resolve the problem or exploit the opportunity (under the Assess stage). greenCore developed the Strategic v Financial Value Model to assist in communicating to stakeholders, sponsors, interested and involved parties the value quadrant the change is introducing.
greenCore has found this method extremely beneficial in qualifying the change value as well as aiding in defining the business benefit, assisting in continual Business Justification and ensuring technology and business align to deliver the right outcomes for the organisation. As such, we would encourage everyone to use this method when establishing a new initiative.
