5 attributes to successful change

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5 attributes to successful change

Posted on August 10, 2010

As organizations take on new projects and services, attention needs to be dedicated to the underlying fundamentals of successful changes. When it comes to senior communities and whether this includes a technological component or not, these concepts remain the same and are useful to mitigate risk.
Here are the five attributes that one should pay attention to:

Relative advantage:
The new state needs to clearly show an improvement in a clear timeframe and show advantages that other options lack.
As with anything that regards seniors, it is possible to imagine outcomes such as attendance to activities, effectiveness of stimulation, even quality of life enhancements can be analyzed.

Compatibility:
Change always includes costs or special efforts to be put in place but it needs to remain compatible with existing business frameworks. For this matter, it is interesting to look at change as an evolution instead of a radical shift as much as possible

Complexity:
The degree of complexity is important as it helps to set milestones and expectation. Simple modifications are quicker and easier to implement. But on the other hand, they still need to have some level of complexity or the actors will see no interest in shifting as they feel they are too mundane for them.

Trialability:
An important aspect of successful change is the ability to try or test it before. This can accelerate acceptance because small-scale testing reduces risk; being able to test-drive something will also show what the pain points are and what might hold back a successful rollout.

Observability:
Change is much easier to accept if people can perceive differences before and after. Letting agents see and judge on consequences empowers them and gives them the ability to act and participate in the process.

These five elements helps understand how to successfully implement change and need to be addressed by all departments of an organization to limit risk. For example, a change in the way nurses work might have implications on how some activities need to be conducted and so forth…