Lean Change Management: Innovative practices for managing organizational change

by Jason Little

Insights: Before you can plan any change, you need to understand the current state of the organization. To do that, there are many tools, assessments, and models you can apply to understand the current state. For example, at The Commission, we collected Insights by using an ADKAR® assessment and informal meetings called Lean Coffee. You’ll learn more about those in Chapters 4 and 5. Options: Once you’ve gained enough Insights to start planning, you need Options. Options have a cost, value and impact. Options usually include one or more hypotheses and expected benefits. These hypotheses are turned into Experiments when you are ready to introduce a change. Experiments: At this point you’ve learned enough about your current state and considered multiple Options. Now it’s time to introduce a change and see if it works out the way you thought it would. Experiments also have a sub-cycle: Prepare: This is the planning stage of your Experiment. Later on in this book I describe some light-weight planning and sensemaking tools you can use to prepare your Experiments. The key point about the Prepare step is that at this point, all you have are your assumptions about the change. It is in this step that you validate your approach with the people affected by the change before you implement it. Introduce: This is the step where you start working with the people affected by the change. Once a change has reached this step, it’s considered to be in process. Ideally you will be limiting the ...