Template

Executive Summary

A summary of the change proposal and benefits. Written last.

TEAM Description

A narrative description of the team system, what output they produce, how they fit into the overall organization.

Identification of the roles and responsibilities and any key measurements involved in this justification.

Opportunity

The Ideal Final Result (IFR) stated as “Our ultimate goal is to provide X.” where X is an understood and desirable benefit.

Using the team characteristics definitions in the form of contradictions, describe the characteristic of the system that must be improved, and any associated characteristics of the system that must not be impacted by the improvement or made worse.

Change Benefits

A description of the current ideality of the team as defined by the benefit of the current team alongside any noted problems the team is facing.

A description of the current value of the team as defined by its efficiency in producing its output alongside the current cost of that output.

If the change plan is successful, the positive change in the team’s ideality and value.

Solution Level.

Solution Scope.

BPR = (B/(P+H)) + ((A/R)/C)

Proposed Change Model

The Solution Model that will be used to support the change concept.

Impacts to the team of Applying Model

Explain the actual changes that will be made to the team system and impacts to roles.

Steps:

Step 1:

Review current literature in your professional field. Identify current best practices and ideas for organizing and work product improvements, standards, methodologies.

Review your current work environment. Within the context of your area of responsibility or professional field, select an item within your organization that should be improved. Ideally this would be a real-world problem that you are faced with solving.

Develop a narrative to simply explain your selection:

• What is the subject are and general scope you selected?
• What is the problem description and context?
• Why is addressing this problem important?
• Who is this problem important to?
• Why would benefit the most from addressing this problem?
• Why hasn’t this problem already been addressed?

Step 2:

For your chosen topic and field, inventory relevant measurements, roles, input, and outputs.

This inventory should be well thought inclusive, but it is not meant to be exhaustive. The list should identify at a high level the major elements of each item.

Be sure to use meaningful measurements that carry significance in your organization and professional field.

Only include items CORE to transforming input into output and items that associate COST to that transformation.

Without excluding any necessary elements, the fewer items involved the stronger the change value case will be.

Step 3:

For your chosen topic define in real terms the Benefits, Costs, Problems, Harms, Actual Outputs, Required Outputs.

The next step will be to analyze these and identify what changes (deltas) are needed to achieve your desired results.

This is a difficult activity, and it will challenge traditional thinking and accepted norms.

Remember cost and benefits are external only measures; problems, harms, actual and required outputs can be either internal, external, or mutual measurements.

You will want to associate costs with internal efficiencies; however, since costs are relative to value, all costs are associated with the value measurement.

Using the end of chapter activities done so far you are able to complete the Team Description and Opportunity sections of the change justification template found at the end of this book.

Step 4:

An example to the language developed using characteristics:

Improve: Needs improved/increased/decreased <Characteristic>

No Impact: Without impacting <Characteristics>

Example: We must improve our security controls over remote workers without impacting their current work quality.

For your chosen topic identify the team characteristics involved.

Categorize each into a value zone.

Develop your contradiction.

While fewer is better do not exclude a possible impacted characteristic.

Often attempting to improve a single characteristic can have broad impacts that MUST be captured and analyzed to have a true and correct change plan.

Step 5:

For your chosen topic develop the language of the IFR:

State an IFR as a hypothesis.

Define the value addressed by this new IFR.

Generate different possible futures assuming the IFR.

Shape these futures into a single concept.

Develop language to explain the concept as simply as possible.

Can the IFR equal zero while still maintaining supersystem ideality and value?

If the answer is yes, then the best solution is to proceed to implement

If no, then proceed to test two AND three.

Test Two

Are the current benefits B greater than or equal to the cost C of the benefits?

If yes for either, then the current benefits B and/or cost C remains intact, and, precautions are necessary to ensure B and/or C is not negatively affected by any proposed system change

If no for either, then identify the change (delta) necessary for B to be equal to or greater than the costs. This can be a delta to B or C or both. Identify the characteristic zone and team system characteristics impacted and proceed to the solution analysis.

Test Three

Is the current output A greater than or equal to the required output R as well as any problems P or harms H of achieving the required output?

If yes, then the current output A remains intact, and, precautions are necessary to ensure A is not negatively affected by any proposed system change (reduce output or introduce new problems or harms)

If no, then identify the change (delta) necessary for A to be equal to or greater than the required output taking any problems or harms into account. Identify the characteristic zone and team system characteristics impacted and proceed to test three.

Step 6:

For your chosen topic analyze the scope of possible solutions.

Identify in high level broad terms conceptually how your solution will need to be framed.

Determining what type of system strategy, you will adopt will help you to determine the scope and direction of the team system.

The narrower the team focus, the more the team can concern itself with just the features of the system under analysis, and the broader the scope, the more supersystem components will need to be analyzed and understood.

Analyze the presented solution models in this chapter selecting as many or as few models as needed and propose change to meet your BPS.

The remainder of the change proposal can now be completed.