The Process
The transition facilitation process has three stages.
Diagnosis: First the scope and timescale of the proposed transition are set together with the intended purpose and outcome. At this stage these are provisional intentions and their implementation which will be determined in Stage 3 depends on the outcome of the preceding two stages. All this being agreed we them proceed to carry out the necessary investigations to determine the real status of the business or department at the present time. Various methods are deployed including examination of existing relevant processes and other which may be discovered to be associated with the. This is generally a ‘paper’ exercise. Alongside this and more importantly we carry out confidential interviews with appropriate and associated members of staff at all levels to discover if the existing processes are ‘working’ as defined or whether ‘compromises’ are made to get the job done. We also discuss the relevance and appropriateness of proposed changes and how they will significantly affect the efficiency of the operation particularly in terms of costs and timescale.
This merges into stage two Discovery when the validity of the proposals is discussed – whether the change proposed is appropriate or needs to be amended, whether there might be a better way, whether more, or less, is required to achieve the objective and so forth. A key element of this stage is to acquire clarity, in the light of where the organisation concerned ‘is’ at the present time, clarity on the reason and purpose of the change – the ‘why’ this is being done. The information discovered in tis stage can be used to amend the concept of the change from stage 1
Once we know what needs to be done in the transition and why it needs to be done, we can move on to stage 3 – Development – which is how the transition is going to be implemented. Implementation processes will vary from the ‘big bang’ it all happens at once approach to the incremental implementation department by department, person by person, or process by process whether those be manual or via systems. At the end of this stage there will be a clear plan for the transition to take place successfully without any unforeseen ‘side effects’.
My role in this is to be a critical investigator and observer without any preconceptions about how the business ‘works or ‘the way things are done around here’. Also, as an impartial facilitator I am better positioned to find out what is really going on and what is really likely to happen in terms of the results of the transition as I am not seen as a threat at any level. The concept of confidentiality is crucial in this. I report what is said, but not under any circumstances who said it. I have found this is the only way to make things run smoothly and progress quickly.
