ChangeTag Archive

Every options analysis should start at Option 0: Do Nothing. It is the baseline that every other option is measured against, and it is the option most often left out. This is a bit of a longer article, because I have compiled a lot of my thinking to help with… Continue Reading Options analysis: why Do Nothing is always Option 0

Most people learn to use AI by trial and error, and a lot of them do it with whatever free tool they found first. That works, up to a point. A little structured learning will get you better results, faster, and help you avoid the mistakes that cause real harm,… Continue Reading How to learn AI skills: a free, self-paced guide for office workers

How do you choose which technology to invest in? If you lead a technology team, it is the platform and the vendor. If you write software, it is the language and framework. If you are building a career, it is the vendor training and certifications you will spend your evenings… Continue Reading Which technology to use? It’s a gamble

When an AI system is deployed and then quietly withdrawn, the headline says “AI failed”. I think that is almost always the wrong conclusion. In most cases the technology did what it was built to do. What failed was the design, and the expectations set around it. We have seen… Continue Reading When AI gets withdrawn: a design problem, not an AI problem

Shadow IT is rarely rebellion. It is a signal that someone has a problem to solve, and the official route did not solve it. I described what Shadow IT is, and what it costs, in Shadow IT / Stealth IT. This article looks at the other side: how to stop… Continue Reading How to stop Shadow IT before it starts

“Click the Start button at the bottom left of the screen.” “There is no Start button.” “It will be on the taskbar, at the bottom.” “My taskbar is on the left. And I have hidden it.” Anyone who has worked on a service desk has had that call. The user… Continue Reading Does Personalisation and Customisation make support and training more difficult?

Every legacy system reaches a day when keeping it costs more than changing it. The skill is spotting that day before it arrives, and then choosing the right kind of change. Technical debt behaves like financial debt. A little, well managed, is a sensible trade-off. Left alone, the interest compounds:… Continue Reading Legacy modernisation: retire, retain, replace or evolve

This article outlines a strategic roadmap for organisations beginning on their digital transformation journey. It walks through the key phases – assessment, goal setting, pilot testing, scaling and covering cultural change and compliance – offering insights into aligning technology adoption with long-term business objectives. It emphasises change management and stakeholder… Continue Reading Digital Transformation Roadmap: From Legacy to Innovation

On International Women’s Day, I am reminded of the need for diversity in the workforce, and want to pose the question of what does diversity mean to you? Diversity is not just the inclusion of other races, genders and backgrounds. More than just a blind quota of some interpretation of… Continue Reading What does diversity mean to you?

For your next system development, make the systems intuitive instead of spending time up-skilling people in potentially high turnover positions. Great customer interaction should be your focus, ahead of designing a system that meets your internal needs for audit and reporting. Too often systems are designed with customer and user… Continue Reading Make your new systems intuitive

Often misunderstood, but the concept of “design for failure” is now common in the lexicon of system design and business operations. When you design for failure, it is not because you want to fail – instead it is with the understanding that failures can and do happen, but you want… Continue Reading How to design for failures

Solving problems often takes a completely new viewpoint over what the problem actually is. There have been many recent studies and trials of working weeks durations, including a successful trial at Microsoft for a 4-day week that increased productivity. However, I have a different idea to solve the problem: changing… Continue Reading The new week – 5 on, 5 off

If you have ever been in a tricky situation, you will know that half the battle is knowing what is going on – you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know what has happened. However, root cause analysis needs to wait until after the issue is resolved. Too often,… Continue Reading Half the battle is knowing what is going on

Organisations often run head-long into digital transformation, with a focus on technology and toolsets, and not fully understanding the impact on staff. Digital transformation is more than just moving all paper processes into electronic versions of themselves, more than just running out some new collaborative tools or enabling legacy applications… Continue Reading Digital Transformation and People

We have all been there, either by working with someone straight out of University or when you were entering the workforce straight out of education – full of passion and enthusiasm, and keen to make a change. The teenager (or person in their twenties) may challenge and ask questions about… Continue Reading Teenagers might have answers

Why is it that business transformation so difficult to successfully achieve? I believe that the fears and insecurities that keep people locked into behaviours, even invisible fears, even when we know rationally that we should change. Whilst it is possible to change policies, processes, office layout and other external factors,… Continue Reading Change is about people, not policies

I will show you how to achieve successes through playing off the inherent nature of people to be lazy. There is a tendency for people – no matter how intelligent and engaged they are – to take the easiest option, and there are ways that you can use this to… Continue Reading Use the lazy option for success

I have been involved in the drive for Digital Transformation for many businesses over the last few years, and time and again I see the spectre of misunderstandings appearing. The truth is, Digital Transformation is about process and people, not technology. Here are some of the biggest errors; Digital Transformation… Continue Reading Digital Transformation is about process and people, not technology

We have all had it before – something that has been around for a long time, and we have no idea if it is important any more – but no-one will take the ownership to declare that it can be disposed of. This is where the Scream Test comes in.… Continue Reading The Scream Test