systems and although business change was also an important factor in the framework, there was little in the way of linking the two together. Imagine you are in business for yourself and have a specific business need for a tool to help you run a particular service or part of your organisation. Someone has proposed you invest in “Product A”. Should you find an alternative solution to “Product A” that filled the business/user need more closely/reliably, offered the same or more in features with greater simplicity, or simply failed to “speak” to the customer base, you would probably not choose “Product A”. In fact you might decide that “Product A” was simply so risky to your business, that you may continue as you are now. Because Do Nothing is, after all, always the first option on the table. But we forget that too easily as we deliver these big programmes and projects of work - we get on with what seems like a great modern plan and forget about the careful management process of BAU (Business As Usual), Transition and Go-Live. Sometimes, we treat the business as though they are simply 3rd parties to the change, rather than the customer that they are, which needs and simply must be a part of the strategy, delivery and change over, in order for our roles to be deemed a success. If this is such a no-brainer when we think about what it would be like when choosing to invest in tools for our own businesses, can you imagine how key the concepts outlined above would be for someone else’s business, organization or customer base? After all, they have a business to run and it doesn’t matter what fantastic, sparkling tool you promise, if it doesn’t align to the existing ways of working, or if there is indication of significant risk to their being able to run the business effectively, I can tell you right now that when push comes to shove, the business/department Delivering Change •
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