Change Management: A Crucial Issue For Companies
The landscape of large industrial groups is rapidly and drastically evolving. Giant companies like Kodak, which failed to embrace digital technology, and Blackberry, which struggled against new disruptive competitors, exemplify the critical need for agility and adaptability in maintaining competitiveness and survival.
An interesting analogy can be drawn with the Navy SEALs, a renowned American commando unit. They operate in a VUCA environment: volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. This environment mirrors the challenges every organization faces today, particularly in the digital age.
A company’s ability to transform and adapt is vital. In response to these challenges, the concept of “change management” emerged. Forbes defines it as a set of professional processes designed to facilitate adaptation within companies.
Obstacles to Change
However, change management is challenging and often unsuccessful. According to McKinsey, 70% of transformation programs fail. Therefore, understanding the keys to successful change management is crucial.
Many theories have been proposed, but they all agree on one point: the success of change projects largely depends on people. The high failure rate of transformation projects leads to a fear of change. This fear is often personal, with individuals concerned about their position, compensation, skills, and future within the organization.
Conditions for Successful Change
For a change management project to succeed, it must appear feasible to individuals. This requires clear tasks and processes with easily identifiable and measurable progress. Supporting individuals through this transformation and ensuring a successful change management strategy relies on three key conditions:
- Accurate Diagnosis: The change must be based on a precise diagnosis that reflects reality. It should provide a clear rationale for the need to change and transform.
- Gap Analysis: Before any change, it is essential to measure the gap between the initial situation (point A) and the ideal situation after the change (point B). This helps in understanding the steps and efforts required.
- Measurement and Control: The implementation must be measurable and controllable. Successful change projects often identify and highlight benefits regularly throughout the project.
How Does Process Mining Meet These Conditions for Change?
Process mining can support companies in meeting these three key conditions. This technology uses logs from information systems to visually represent the actual operations on the ground. Process mining can:
- Provide a Precise Diagnosis: One use of process mining is discovering real-time processes. By analyzing logs, companies can reconstruct processes both globally and by unit. For instance, the path of parcels, invoices, or tickets within a company’s processes can be visualized. This phase highlights bottlenecks, rework, and anomalies that need improvement and optimization.
- Evaluate Process Conformity: Process mining evaluates the conformity of field operations against their initial design and expected benefits. By focusing on process deviations, it aids in analyzing and understanding necessary changes and actions for better performance. This helps visualize the current situation and the changes needed to reach the ideal state.
- Facilitate Measurement and Control: Process mining’s temporal dimension enables systematic and projective control. It compares past and present processes and, with the help of AI and machine learning, provides future projections. This systematic control measures the benefits and advantages of changes in the organization.
Change management is crucial for companies to gain agility and performance, ensuring competitiveness in evolving markets. Process mining technology supports this by providing an accurate diagnosis of real-world operations, identifying necessary actions and efforts to achieve objectives, and measuring and controlling the benefits of change to reassure and engage employees throughout the process.
