Change need

A change need is a problem, opportunity, constraint, or other condition that provides a reason to consider change.

In plain terms

A change need is whatever gives an organization a reason to consider changing. It can be a problem, an opportunity, a constraint, or any condition that makes the current arrangement worth reconsidering. It may arise because current results are inadequate, because conditions are shifting in a way that will make acceptable results unacceptable, or simply because something worthwhile has become possible that was not possible before.

How it works

The change need is where deliberate change begins. Before it, nothing in this framework applies: an organization is simply in a state, producing outcomes. Once a condition is recognized as a reason to act, the reasoning that intent integrity concerns itself with starts.

The change need is where deliberate change begins, and it is not itself one of the functions of the Intent Loop. Its interpretation is not fixed. New evidence emerging while direction is explored, execution unfolds, or outcomes are validated may change how the original need should be understood. Because understanding the change need is part of establishing intent, such evidence may require intent and the reasoning downstream to be reconsidered.

How a change need is understood does more work than it may appear to. A need described as "our handling times are too long" invites a different set of responses than the same situation described as "customers contact us too often", which invites a different set again from "we never fixed the thing that generates these contacts". Each framing leaves different possibilities open.

Understanding the change need is part of establishing intent rather than something that happens before it. That is where the framing takes effect, and where a misread need contributes to an intent gap.

That is why the strongest outcome position reasonably achievable, the change potential, is defined in relation to the change need rather than to the intent that follows from it. It is the widest frame the model has, and everything after it narrows.

In practice the change need is often skipped past. Work frequently begins with a solution already in circulation, and the need is reconstructed afterwards to justify it. When that happens the reasoning runs backwards, and there is no reliable way to tell whether the response fits the situation, because the situation was described to fit the response.

Nothing in the framework points back at the change need. It is where deliberate change begins, and that is by design rather than by omission.

Related

• A change need is the reason Intent is established. It is where deliberate organizational change begins.
• It arises from the outcomes the Current state is producing, or failing to produce.
• Change potential is the strongest outcome position reasonably achievable in response to the change need.
• Intent quality concerns, among other things, how well the change need is understood.
• Evidence emerging during Direction, execution or validation can change how the change need is understood, which can require intent and the reasoning downstream to be reconsidered.

Referenced by

• Organizational state
• Deliberate organizational change
• Intent
• Intent