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Chapter 14 ■ Change architecture
achievement of this change that Technology Associates achieve consistency of
account management practice. Many of its customers operate globally and
may well be dealing with more than one region. In any event inconsistency of
account management practice will lead to confusion, inconsistency and poor
quality/higher cost in delivery. It seeks to pursue this consistency through the
follow-up process.
However, the project team is also very aware that the initial business model and the
consulting skills workshop will be imperfect. Both need revising in the light of
experience. The follow-up process provides for the sharing of best practice as a
means of doing so. Admittedly not easy to pull off, nevertheless the chances of this
follow-up process working effectively is enhanced by designing it as a transparent
process and by having the project team responsible for overseeing the process.
More formally then, how would we define the change architecture? Let us look
at the following:
1 Governance is in place. We are clear how the main board is overseeing the
process and we are clear about the mechanisms through which change is to be
implemented.
2 Accountability is defined. The project team is accountable to the main board.
The regional teams are tasked to work up alignment proposals in support of
the project team and therefore...
3 Regional teams are engaged but so are other consultants via the process used
to develop the competence model.
4 Regional team members are engaged in the delivery of consulting skills workshops.
5 The follow-up process seeks to ensure consistency in both the application of
account management practice and to provide for the leveraging of best practice.
6 By using regional team members and other consultants as tutors, the consult-
ing skills workshop process was scaleable – in fact, in year one the number of
consulting skills workshops rolled out was doubled because of demand from
consultants.
7 Overall there is a high degree of connectivity between those driving the change,

those managing the change processes and those directly affected.
8 There is also a considerable degree of transparency of process.
9 While it is not completely clear from the above, some attention has been given
to the management of expectations throughout the process. In particular, the var-
ious stages in which internal stakeholders, group (via the project director) and
external advisors have been involved, alongside the follow-up process, bench-
marking and best practice exchange, all provide for reality checking in terms of
the appropriate balance between the external imperatives which must be faced
and a realistic view of how quickly change can be achieved within the business.
But note that this external vs internal contrast is far from straightforward. Thus,
while competitive pressure on Technology Associates argues for rapid change,
this must be balanced by the view that too rapid a change risks destabilizing the
group. Yet, as we have already seen in the context of GE not least, too much con-
cern about that can lead to the company going down. Interestingly enough, the

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