The entire purpose of the project should be fundamental and clear, especially any expected or required changes. The changes should be discrete to the level of individual activity change. Even though this is core to the project in every way, it is completely possible changes have not been broken down to the degree required. Often they will be broad and encompassing, which is not sufficient.

This activity is to understand and contextualize the project changes to support the defining of behaviour/attitude shifts needed to achieve the project goals. The objective is crystal clear expected, specific changes (i.e., behaviour shifts, attitude adjustments) down to an actionable level.

Broad, general change needs will likely break down to multiple, possibly related, specific adjustments. Expect to take a change as broad as, “A review and approval point will be added to the early development process,” and turn it into something like: “When a concept design (schematic and explanation) that satisfies the basic requirements… is available, the lead designer will notify Enterprise Architecture to convene a review…. The architect will present… and reviewers will approve or….” Changes are almost certainly different for individual stakeholders.

There is a measure of art to determining how far to break down a change. The best guide is to put yourself in the impacted person’s shoes and ask, “Would this alter what I do or how I do it?” At this point it is only a guide, of course, because so many factors that will only be revealed by working with impacted stakeholders are yet to come into play. The good news is that the Playbook has plenty of opportunities to refine what’s done here.