Effective methods of change management

Our project assignments focus solely on customer benefit. However, the path to customer benefit is rarely clear from the outset, but only emerges ‘as we go’. During the project assignments, knowledge accumulates and opportunities open up that we incorporate into the project work. Promising solutions for what appear to be local challenges often lie outside the scope defined at the start of the project.

The reason for this is often the interdependencies between operational functions and specialised topics. Our clients know that we not only identify such influences, but also take them into account in our project work in order to achieve the best customer benefit. Only the relentless identification and consistent elimination of the causes of crises will lead to the desired results. There must be no sacred cows.

We approach change management on two levels: Firstly, our projects are about mastering the path to a new desirable target scenario and consolidating the new way of working sufficiently so that the organisation does not fall back into old routines. At the same time, however, it is also important to keep the organisation flexible and adaptable so that it can react in an agile manner to future changes in the framework conditions. This is a particular challenge.

In implementation projects, we use recognised and proven process models, not only for reasons of efficiency, but also in favour of quality and comparability. For example, we use creativity techniques, strategy models, valuation approaches, due diligence practices and game theory models in our project assignments.

If you want ‘agility’ to be more than just a modern buzzword in your corporate practice, you rely on the principle of self-regulation in on-site teams. But what is behind ‘self-regulation’, which has also been labelled ‘holacracy’ in recent years? It is about empowerment and functional feedback that makes your organisation powerful, dynamic and adaptable and therefore resilient.

Dr Boysen has described the path to such an organisation with his ‘CyberPractice’ method, with which we make essential, useful insights from cybernetics accessible to specialists and managers in companies in a pragmatic way. Because even the path to self-regulation must be initiated and guided. Unfortunately, nothing works by itself.

The Balanced Scorecard method, which originated in the USA, is an instrument that can be used to implement holistic management. The balanced scorecard is suitable for ensuring that social and sustainability goals are pursued alongside purely financial goals. It helps to ‘live’ with conflicting objectives and not to ‘resolve’ them by marginalising certain objectives. A balance with a ‘both/and’ approach is often the better way forward in a complex world.

The Japanese Hoshin Kanri method can be used to combine day-to-day work with work on long-term goals. The 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 orientated towards long-term goals.

Every implementation project must be managed. In many companies, we realise that a lot of knowledge is already available, but measures are not implemented consistently. Sometimes there is a lack of courage to deviate from the established path and do something different. In other cases, the methodology is lacking, in still others the consistency with which the implementation results are demanded is missing.

We have been bringing about change in companies for many decades and have acquired proven expertise in project management. Every change can and should be seen and managed as a project. As an active member of the ‘Project and Programme Management’ working group of the umbrella organisation Deutsches Interim Management (DDIM), Dr Boysen is constantly exchanging application know-how with qualified colleagues. Among other things, this collaboration resulted in the white paper Project Management under VUCA Conditions at the end of 2018, which we offer via the virtual management consulting portal www.consultingcheck.com.

It is important to us to pass on our experience to interested specialists and managers so that our economy functions better. As a lecturer for ‘Strategic Entrepreneurship’ at Koblenz University of Applied Sciences, Dr Boysen is familiar with the transfer of knowledge and expertise and provides hands-on training for specialists and managers as part of his project assignments.

Good management is a craft that can be learnt. Accordingly, the tried-and-tested process models used by us management consultants and interim managers are tools of the trade. We want to demystify these tools of the trade, promote networked thinking and impart practical expertise for business practice. This is also what our virtual management consulting portal www.consultingcheck.com stands for.

In order to ensure the sustainable impact of my implementation projects, we actively involve our clients’ employees in implementation projects in a responsible manner and make all relevant methods and principles openly available to them. A few months after completing our project assignments, we offer our clients a review in which we look together at which project results have proved successful, what further progress the organisation has made and what was not sustainable. We then look together for sensible follow-up measures to ensure the long-term success of the project.