I’m at the tail end of my PhD it’s been a very long, rewarding journey. It looks like I will be able to enjoy the summer of 2021. But to focus on the present, I want to describe what my PhD is about.
Successful change can be elusive. According to the literature (and experience) most change initiative that involve technology fails, at least initially. Sometimes you (or your organisation) has to try multiple times before you succeed.
It seems like everybody is adopting technology to enhance services. Change can be considered an iterative process, or what I refer to as a journey. Projects seek to change bad to good, then good to better, from better to great! However, that journey could be pretty complex…thus the reason so many initiatives initially fail.
What if we can reduce the rate of failure?
That is what my PhD is about – reducing the rate of failure in organisations that are adopting digital technologies to improve or transform service to customers.
There are only four things that interact, often not very well, that guide change. You have to have leaders and managers, you have to have ways of teaching people and raising awareness about the change you want to put into place, you have to have new or improved processes, and underlying all of this you need technology support the change.
So, if you address these four areas:
- Leadership and management
- Culture
- Process
- Technology
Address these four areas well and you win! Your organisation benefits, but more importantly your customers benefit from a more efficient service that may cost Les in the previous service.
I think the problem is knowing the role of each area and how the four areas interact. This includes:
- When they should interact
- How they interact
- Why they interact; and
- How often do they interact.
That is what a key focus of my PhD is.
Is it tested? No, not offically (yet). I have a lot of experience managing projects including several digital transformation projects. That is where I got the idea for the PhD. My previous experience encompasses being a geek technician, procurement, project manager, a strategic planner, to an academic.
I will give some consideration to working through each of the four areas on my blog to share with you my perspective on change and transformation.
The framework may be suitable for medium to large businesses in the public and private sectors that want to reduce risk and the and reduce the cost of rework associated with failed transformation.
Being Arthur 