Create a new Canvas4Change

The Canvas4Change is a tool to support change and innovation projects or programs in a visual way. It is based on long time experience during several projects of the last 10 to 15 years. The Canvas4Change should guide you through different areas of a successful change including expectation, prerequisites, implementation and learning.

If you want to try it out without entering your email address, please use our public  Canvas4Change Demo Canvas for a first impression.

More about the Canvas4Change

The creator, Frank Sazama, recommends: Use the Canvas4Change as a real canvas in your "war room" or as a part of the wallpaper. Use the questions as leading questions and as inspiration to find out the status of each building block.
Start with your business vision and go on with your improvement vision & goal.
Then think about your strategic approach and use the questions and answers of the prerequisite blocks as hint to find the right operational approach of implementation. At last use the change and learning cycle for continuous improvement and adjustment.
Use sticky notes to document the answers and the status of each building block.

Think about your own color-code to make visible if things are very good, good or bad. That you have no good or bad answers. That you have only a little or maybe a lot to do, to get good or better answers.
Use the Canvas4Change as a tool to support communication and transparency about your change or innovation project or program.

In more details:

Expectation

Business Vision & Goals

Vision and goals/objectives of the company are a guide and benchmark for all areas of the canvas4change

1. Do you have a clear and compelling business vision?
2. Have you derived a business strategy from this vision?
3. Do you have short-, medium- and long-term objectives based on this business strategy?
4. Do these objectives take actual market conditions and competitors into account?

Improvement Vision & Goals

Vision and goals specifically for change/improvement and its implementation

1. Do you have a clear reason for the change?
2. Have you defined the situation after the change/improvement and is it in line with the vision and goals of the organization?
3. Do these improvement objectives reflect the specific situation and opportunities of the organization?
4. Is it clear where the obstacles to change/improvement are?

Implementation

 

Strategic

Strategic plans and procedures provide direction and form the bridge between the goals, status quo, and prerequisites

1. Does the improvement strategy consider the market situation and competition?
2. Does the improvement strategy consider the actual company environment or obstacles originating from corporate culture, improvement history, and/or parallel change efforts?
3. Have you defined sufficient observation points to be aware of and react flexibly to any business environment changes?

Operational

Operational implementation always needs to be in balance with observation, learning and adjustment

1. Is the implementation aligned towards flexibility and transparency?
2. Does the implementation take into account any changes of the internal or external business environment?
3. Is progress shown in a visually comprehensible, transparent and understandable way?
4. Are bottlenecks identified to allow systematic control of the implementation of operational tasks?
5. Are the requirements/prerequisites sufficiently observed and the results included in the planning?
6. Are simple tasks and tools being used to improve communication and common understanding?

Prerequisites

Culture

Company and employee culture reflected, for instance, in communication transparency, error handling, or in dealing with change

1. Are core-company values defined and are they widely observable?
2. Do core-business values support employees in acting in a self-determined and sensible manner?
3. Does the company culture support transparent communication and decisions?
4. Is there an established feedback loop supporting organizational learning and development?

Commitment

Support of the change program and its implementation by all parts and levels of the organization

 

1. Are the organizations expectations clearly expressed in its vision, strategy and goals/objectives?
2. Are expectations met by appropriate actions and examples of model behavior?
3. Are expectations adjusted according to the internal and external business environment conditions?
4. Are internal conditions adjusted in favor of the holistic change program?

Communication

Conscious, transparent and goal-oriented communication in all parts of the organization

1. Does the communication take into account the relationship between objectives, conditions and necessity (sense)?
2. Is the communication adapted to suit affected employees in their specific context?
3. Are the visual tools of the expectation, implementation, and change areas used to support transparent communication?

Sense

Sense used as driver and motivator to test the meaningfulness of all activities and changes against the goals/objectives

1. Are strategy, goals/objectives and internal conditions evaluated against the market conditions and competitors?
2. With respect to their sense, are the strategy, implementation and adjustments balanced from time to time against the objectives/goals and vision?
3. Do you think it important to communicate the reasonableness of the change program and related activities?

Skills

Build up knowledge and experience, use it goal oriented and benefit continually from learning

1. Are the conditions (culture, resources, processes, ..) for feedback, review and learning appropriate and available?
2. Is active learning and creative group work encouraged?
3. Are education and training in line with the organizational vision, strategy, and tasks, and do they also allow for personal priorities?

Resources

Resources to support the implementation of the change program, if necessary in the long-term

1. Are the expectations, goals and resources (human, technical, financial) balanced against each other?
2. Are the resources used efficiently and effectively, and according to the objectives?

Change

Observe

observe_canvas4changeIndependent and varying methods for observing organizational preconditions and the implementation of change.

1. Is independent monitoring established to track progress and to continuously review the necessity of the implementation?
2. Do you continuously observe the requirements and conditions with respect to the organizations vision and goals?
3. Do you take changes of responsibilities and processes into account?

Learn

Learning from actual observations in comparison to the visions and goals

1. Have learning objectives and priorities been defined at the different organizational levels?
2. Do you regularly compare the status quo with the learning objectives and business vision?
3. Are internal factors and preconditions critically reviewed, and are possible obstacles to change being identified?

Adjust

Adjust and change to move towards achieving the goals/objectives and vision

1. Are adjustments made based on the improvement objectives and the behavior of relevant stakeholders?
2. Have the meaning and the consequences of the adjustment been clearly communicated?
3. Are the conditions for the adjustments and their implementation met?

Credits: This work (Canvas4Change) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Canvas4Change Author: Frank Sazama/ KUGLER MAAG CIE GmbH

More information can be found on www.canvas4change.de