Wicked Problems and the VUCA Approach to Change Management.

It is fairly safe to say that we live in interesting times. More than that, we live in rapidly changing times. All Change Management professionals and Project Management Office teams are asking themselves the same questions. How can we keep pace with rapid business transformation, tectonic shifts in the economic and finance environment (starting in the UK post Brexit) and almost bewildering societal change?

These questions all came up at a recent breakfast seminar I led where our panel of change management experts and audience of insurance sector participants discussed the complexities of solving tame, crisis and wicked problems and the VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) approach for general conditions and solutions.

Tame - Tame’ problems will have occurred before they may be complex but there is always a solution, a system or process to resolve.

Crisis - A ‘crisis’, is presented as self-evident in nature, there is very little time for decision-making and action.

Wicked - A ‘wicked’ problem is more far more complex, not just complicated, its unpredictable, you cannot remove and solve, without affecting the environment.

Independent reviews suggest that 60-70% of major change programmes fail by their own standards, which is a major concern for insurance leaders operating in a volatile risk landscape that is increasingly disrupted by new drivers of change. However, the insurance industry can create methods to bring about a much greater success rate. More than ever before, insurance companies are facing external and internal demands to manage complexity, disruption and transformation while still being expected to deliver a slick and efficient IT service to support the business and its customers. In the post Brexit environment that future business environment is more clouded than ever.

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN IT AND THE BUSINESS

Brexit, Solvency II, TOM, Cybersecurity, Mergers & Acquisitions, IT systems consolidation, automation, system implementations or re-organisations are a few examples of drivers for change, while increased competition, technology driven innovation and tight budgets only add to the pressure. Any one of these ingredients alone would make a Change Management programme challenging, and yet they are often just the tip of the iceberg. As well as providing an effective toolkit to successfully manage change and disruption, Change Management and Project Management Offices are increasingly focused on bridging the gap between IT and the business. On hugely important projects don't forget the ‘people element’ - people are most definitely the key to success.

That is why Fifth Step’s seminar theme for senior business and IT decision makers, IT managers, change managers was:

“How to deliver success and make change happen while managing a large agenda whilst facing a continuous stream of disruptions.”

The seminar’s panel of Insurance Change Management Specialists and senior decision makers participated in an interactive, hands-on discussion with real-project experience and pro-active advice. We brought in an external moderator and key-note speaker, Steve Harpum. Our intention was to add a different perspective to the discussion by drawing on his experiences as a senior NATO Commander in Afghanistan. We wanted to demonstrate that change presents itself in many different forms but real focus on the ‘people and process’ will help you reach the end result and success is far easier to achieve.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

Steve shared his experience and lessons learned from delivering significant organisational and process change quickly, in a diverse, extremely hostile and in a rapidly changing military environment, where even the smallest mistake could mean the difference between life and death. It was a timely session that took place the day before the UK referendum vote whether to leave or remain in the UK so an interesting discussion was had on what to do in the event of a leave vote.

Probably few of us there at the time thought that leave would win – whether you voted to leave or not - but the general consensus, to quote Corporal Jones was “Don’t panic!” The leave voters won, of course, and so businesses and their change management professionals were all confronted with a “wicked” problem, which is not a quote from my 10-year-old daughter but a fundamental theme of our event’s keynote speaker’s presentation!

It is also underpins the theme for my write up of our seminar on Managing Change in a Post Brexit Environment. Post Brexit panicking is clearly not an option but a sober analysis of the facts on the ground and flexible approach will pay dividends as we outline later in this series of blogs. In my next blog in this series I look at The Kandahar experience and VUCA.