Identifying the Challenges of Change

Let's define change - it isn't as obvious as it seems

A business can make a decision to add, remove, or change something that they do, make or use. That change may seem simplistic (and sometimes it is), but it could have implications that aren’t obvious. A simple example – a business decides to purchase a new piece of software. It gets installed, and starts to be used. Then one part of the business has problems because the usual data it receives and uses is suddenly in a different format…

Another example could be a manufacturing business moving premises… there’s a whole raft of questions that would need to be explored and resolved to make sure that the business maintained continuity of supply to it’s customers and could also manage changes in supplier deliveries (and maintain a good relationship with them).

As you can imagine, the range of possible change within a business is rather large…

Any business faced with changing...

…how it does what it does needs to gain as deep an understanding as possible of all the challenges contained within that journey of change. Challenges can divert the path of change and can have a range of impacts on the businesses ability to successfully deliver it.

Let’s face it, life doesn’t always go to plan. We all start with a dream of how it should be, and that dream can get gnawed into pieces by those things that we don’t take into account. You think you have a winning hand with four aces, but then you find out that one of them is a joker in disguise

Uncontrolled change can derail a business, particularly small and medium sized businesses, as they start to scale up their operations.

So, how do you identify all those challenges?

Well, for businesses there’s loads of tools that you can choose from- workshops, questionnaires, reviews, assessments, analysis, but when push comes to shove, there’s no replacement for objective experience – and having access to someone who is adept at asking the right questions.

They key isn’t just about identifying the known challenges, it’s about identifying the unknown challenges – they’re more dangerous. The more unknown challenges identified and managed, the greater the probability of success.

So, if you know anyone who needs help identifying those unknowns (or the knowns!), get in touch!