Methods of change management

My project assignments focus solely on customer benefits. However, the path to customer benefit is rarely fixed from the beginning, but only emerges “as we go”. During the project assignments, insights accumulate and possibilities open up that I incorporate into the project work. Often, promising solutions for local challenges lie outside the scope defined at the start of the project. The reason for this is often the interconnections between operational functions and substantive issues. My clients know that I not only present such influences, but also take them into account in my project work in order to achieve the best customer benefit. Only consistent implementation leads to the desired results. There must be no sacred cows.

In implementation projects, I use recognised and proven process models, not only for reasons of efficiency, but for the benefit of quality and comparability. Thus, creativity techniques, strategy models, valuation approaches, due diligence practices and game-theoretical models, among others, are used in my project assignments.

If you don’t want “agility” to remain just a modern buzzword in your business practice, rely on the principle of self-regulation in on-site teams. But what is behind “self-regulation”, which in recent years has also been referred to as “holacracy”? It’s about empowerment and functioning feedback that makes your organization powerful, dynamic and adaptable and therefore resilient. I have described the path to such an organization with my “CyberPractice” method, with which I make essential findings from cybernetics accessible to corporate practice. Because the path to self-regulation must also be initiated and guided. Nothing happens by itself.

The Balanced Scorecard method, which comes from the USA, is an instrument with which holistic management can be implemented. The Balanced Scorecard is suitable for ensuring that, in addition to pure financial goals, social goals and sustainability goals are also pursued. It helps to “live” with conflicting goals and not to “resolve” them by excluding certain goals. A balance with a “both/and” is often the better way in a complex world.

The Japanese Hoshin Kanri method can be used to combine work on day-to-day business with work concerning long-term goals. Consistent use of this method ensures that day-to-day business does not crowd out work on long-term goals and that all activities are oriented toward long-term goals.

Every implementation project must be managed. In many companies I notice that basically all the findings are already there, but are not consistently implemented. Sometimes you don’t have the necessary courage to deviate from the routine path and do something different. In other cases, the methodology with which consistency and implementation discipline can be demanded is missing. I have been bringing about change in companies for three decades and have developed expertise in project management. As an active member of the “Project and Program Management” working group of the umbrella company Deutsches Interim Management (DDIM), I constantly exchange application know-how with qualified colleagues. This collaboration resulted in, among other things, the white paper Project Management under VUCA Conditions at the end of 2018, which I offer via my virtual consulting portal consultingcheck.

It is important to me to pass on my experiences to interested specialists and managers so that our economy functions better. As a lecturer for “Strategic Entrepreneurship” at the Koblenz University of Applied Sciences, I am familiar with the transfer of knowledge and know-how and provide hands-on guidance to specialists and managers as part of my project assignments. Good management is a craft that can be learned. Process models used by management consultants are tools of the trade. I would like to demystify these tools, promote networked thinking and impart know-how for business practice. That’s why I created consultingcheck.

In order to ensure the lasting impact of my implementation projects, I actively and responsibly involve my clients’ employees in implementation projects and make all methods and basics openly available to them. A few months after completing my project assignments, I offer my clients a review in which we look at which project results have proven successful, what further progress the organization has made and what was unsustainable. We will then look together for sensible follow-up measures.