You Can’t Project-Manage Continuous Change
Most organizations still treat change as a project.
Identify a problem, build a team, approve a budget., deliver the solution. and then close the project. Then something else changes — and we start again.
That worked when change was occasional. But what happens when change never stops?
In an accelerating world, repeatedly launching transformation projects to keep up is becoming part of the problem. We need to move from projects to platforms. Projects solve a problem.
Platforms create a foundation from which problems can be solved continuously. They preserve what has already been built, connect capabilities and make the next change easier, faster and less disruptive.
The Operating Model should not be thought of as an organization chart or documentation of how the business works, and certainly not as another transformation project.
The Operating Model should become the platform for continuous adaptation. A shared foundation connecting work, decisions, data, technology, capabilities and increasingly, Human and AI Agents.
Instead of repeatedly changing the organization through projects, we create an organization capable of changing through its Operating Model. That is a fundamentally different ambition. In an accelerating world, the advantage won't come from becoming better at running transformation projects. It will come from no longer needing a transformation project every time the world changes.
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