Designing for Change: A Practical Guide to Business Transformation - Hardcover

Bainbridge, Colin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0471964522 ISBN 13: 9780471964520

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 1996

Synopsis

Business process reengineering (BPR) helps transform the way businesses and organizations work in order to dramatically improve performance. This book shows how to implement BPR rather than re–design organizations and guides managers through the BPR process.

About this title

About the Author

About the Author Colin Bainbridge is a management consultant and business writer. Previously a senior consultant with OASiS group, he is now an independent consultant specialising in organisational change and design. He has been involved in numerous change programmes and process re–design projects, and has conducted further research into process–led business transformation in various sectors and industries including financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, central government and healthcare.

From the Back Cover

The ability to cope with change is an ever more essential strategic capability; change is occurring on every side with those who cannot respond rapidly being overhauled by their competitors. However, modern organisations are complex, and increasingly, change initiatives affect many different, interrelated parts of the business ? processes, people, organisation and structure, IT and culture. Change is happening in so many areas at once that some organisations face overload. Designing for Change shows how to achieve change in a controlled and coordinated manner by designing the core processes within an enterprise and using those designs to drive the change activities through to completion. The book is firmly rooted in the practical steps necessary to move from theory to implementation and

• shows how to take the new designs forward to specify and develop new organisational structures, people capabilities and IT systems
• brings clarity to the much–hyped concept of process, using familiar terms and concepts to show how to convert designs and intentions into realities
• presents a flexible framework which can be adapted for particular environments and organisations
• provides pragmatic advice for coping with the realities of change resistance, selecting and motivating the change team, managing complexity, communication, culture change and winning the commitment of those involved.

Designing for Change stems from Colin Bainbridge?s hands–on project experience. The book is presented in such a way that those responsible for a particular aspect of change ? whether HR, IT or line management ? are able to understand the context of their work within the overall change initiative.

From the Inside Flap

Modern organisations operate under an onslaught of pressures for change competition, globalisation, technology, customers, legislation the forces come from every side. The design of business processes has emerged as one response to coping with these pressures, providing a way of focusing on the real requirements of the customer rather than the idiosyncrasies of internal operations. But all too often while the process view has been fine in theory, it has failed in practice, leaving managers and staff unable to untangle the reality from the buzzwords, and the practicalities from the good intentions. The size of the shift in understanding and culture has proved just too big an obstacle to achieve lasting change. Designing for Change takes a practical approach to transformation. It presents a simple framework for change based on business processes but rooted in familiar aspects of the business avoiding buzzwords and jargon. It shows how to produce detailed process designs which can be used to keep an organisation on track during a change programme. These designs form the basis of the specification for the new capabilities necessary to make change happen. Designing for Change shows how control can be maintained and risk minimised and genuine change achieved by design. Throughout the book there is an acknowledgement that the softer social and cultural issues are just as critical as the production of deliverables and the development of new systems. There is a strong emphasis on the practical techniques necessary to cope with the realities of change the dismantling of old processes as well as the development of the new, and the nurturing of genuine ownership and commitment among staff as well as training and re–organisation. Designing for Change acknowledges that major change often requires upheaval in many different parts of an organisation as IT systems are dismantled, people retrained and products modified. Rather than attempting to tackle each rebuilding and retooling task in isolation, the author presents a multidimensional approach to change, showing how changes in one area can be harnessed to achieve short cuts to rapid progress elsewhere. The book provides a comprehensive framework easy to understand yet powerful enough to cope with the challenges of fundamental change.

Edition details

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
• Publication date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0471964522
• ISBN 13: 9780471964520
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 264