Using Templates In Implementing Change

With an average fail rate between 70-80% in attempted change projects, few people believe implementing change is an easy process. It takes time, money, man hours, and a great deal of work get from an idea to effectively implementing change. Like most processes, there are tools which can be used to facilitate the desired changes. However, the entire process can be made more difficult when people attempt to use these change tools in a manner for which they were never intended. Templates are tools that are often subject to this type of misuse in the change process.

The reality concerning templates is that they are a kind of simple, useful shorthand for larger and more difficult processes. They are a roadmap for the proposed change and, as with any other roadmap, they include major features to the exclusion of considerable detail. When a template is used in this fashion, with the understanding that it is there to point out major features, it usually works well. Unfortunately, this is not always the way in which templates are treated while implementing change.

There are those who look at templates as be-all, end-all solutions to given problems. They want to treat templates as magic wands that can be waved over their present issues to generate success. This demonstrates the misperception of templates and the basic failure to recognize that they are not comprehensive in nature. It is very rarely the case while implementing change that a template can be used in lieu of other types of planning. While it does happen occasionally, it is ill-advised to assume that a given template can or will work in that fashion.

A template is not there to replace the thinking process or the planning process that occurs when implementing change. A template is only there to help to clarify the process for those that are doing the thinking and the planning with the intent of increasing the efficacy of those activities.

By: Wallace Brooks

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For more information, please see the website: Implementing Change