Journeys and Rants

This is a followup to my previous post about why change is difficult. Here are some key steps to take to improve chances of success when enacting change in an organization:

Obtain Buy In and Support from Leadership

Process Champions

Find forward thinkers who will serve as champions of the change, touting the advantages and promoting change.

Early Messaging

Let everyone know early that change is coming so they can anticipate change.

Gather Examples of Successful Changes from the Past

Discuss why people were resistant to change

Why did people eventually make the change?

Discuss the Pros and Cons of the New Approach versus the Old Approach

Education Sessions

Demonstrate the changes.  If the change involves software, let people use the software hands on.  Allow people to ask questions and address their concerns.

Follow up training after deployment to address appropriate usage.

Often times, the technical implementation is not the hardest part of adopting a new process or way of working, it’s the cultural change.  People tend to become set in their ways once they learn how to do something.  Generally, the older you are the more set in your ways you become.  Young people are more open to new ideas because they are still learning and being exposed to ideas and processes.  

As a child of the 1980s, I was among the first generation of kids to have a computer at home.  I was part of the personal computer revolution.  I remember my Mom thinking that computers were just a fad.  My mom didn’t see the benefits of computers.   She also thought computers were difficult and she did not want to learn to use them.  They just seemed too complicated.  It wasn’t until the advent of the web and the proliferation of personal email that my mom started using computers.  She saw a benefit.  Computers also became easier to use.  She could keep in touch with her kids easily.  She could also research any topic in an instant.  

People resist change.  Change can be uncomfortable and scary.  Change requires much effort to learn new ways of working.  It’s often faster on a single task to simply do it they way that you already know how.  However, if you do that same task over and over again, it usually is beneficial to learn a new approach if that approach is more efficient and / or provides benefits over an older approach.

Fear of technology and fear of change is nothing new.  For a historical example about the resistance to change, see Luddite entry on Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite

We must train ourselves to be open to new technology and new ways of working.  It can be overwhelming because technology evolves so rapidly and that rate of change is getting faster as well.  Without adapting, we become relics of the past, and unable to interact with others.  We find ourselves without the needed and valuable skills that will keep us employed and connected to our friends and family.

Evolution has an inherit way of promoting change.  We all have a limited time to live.  The new generation is open to change and new ideas.  In fact they often generate the new ideas because their minds are open to possibilities.  They haven’t been trained yet of “the way” to do it.  However as the young generation ages, they become less open to change.  You have to actively resist becoming set in your ways.  Ultimately, whether you accept change or not, it doesn’t matter because you will die, and a new generation — one that is open to change — will replace you.  And society will continue to evolve.  

Stay youthful.  Be open to change.  Adopt new ways of thinking.  In my next post, I’ll discuss best practices for promoting change.  To close I am reminded of a quote by Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of the United States and primary author of the Declaration of Independence.  This quote is inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC:

As described in previous posts, my team is working with the Regional Government of Piura (RGP) in Peru to introduce eGovernment in an effort to improve services to citizens, reduce costs, and reduce paper usage.  This blog post will focus on Digital Signatures.

Today, when a document needs approvals, the employees of the RGP print the document, and send it to each person who needs to approve it.  When a person receives the document, they review it, stamp it, sign it, and pass it along to the next person.  They stamp not just once, but they stamp every page.  Anyone who needs an official copy of the document cannot get just a photocopy, but that photocopy needs to be stamped and signed on every page as well.

As you can imagine, this process is time consuming, costly, and consumes a lot of paper.  The costs include paper, printing, shipping, storage, retrieval, and disposal.  It is also difficult to get the status of a document since the flow is paper based.

Enter Digital Signatures.  A digital signature ensures that a specific person electronically signed a document and guarantees that the document has not changed since the signature was created.  A digital signature is unique to the combination of signer and document.  Digital signatures are implemented using standards which are peer reviewed for vulnerabilities.

Coupled with an electronic document management system and an electronic workflow process, digital signatures provide a complete solution to eliminate paper while guaranteeing the authenticity of documents.

For an example of digital signatures, you can download the US Government Budget.  It is digitally signed by the US Government Publishing Office (GPO).   You can validate the digital signature using Adobe Acrobat Reader.  If the signature is valid, which also guarantees that the document has not changed since it was digitally signed, then a Ribbon Icon appears, followed by the words “Certified by Superintendent of Documents <[email protected]>, United States Government Printing Office, certificate issued by VeriSign CA for Adobe CDS.”  You can click the “Signature Panel” Icon for detailed information.

You can download the digitally signed 2017 budget here:  https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BUDGET-2017-BUD/pdf/BUDGET-2017-BUD.pdf

It’s important to view the document in supported software, such as Adobe Reader, so that the signature is validated.