Philosophy
A recurring pattern
Over the past decade, we noticed the same recurring issues with change initiatives. From the triangle of business-, IT- and regulatory change, only two out of three domains were actively managed. The neglected domain did not remain neutral. This observation holds true across industries, irrespective of what domain is neglected.
The hidden assumption
The neglected domain itself is not visible, but it can be rationalized. Subject-matter experts are not involved as their tasks will be outsourced anyway. IT architectural governance is ignored to enable faster delivery in exchange for poor quality. Compliance Officers are not invited in regulatory-driven change, because their “cannot” is mistaken for “do not want to”.
The cost of that assumption
Regulatory change draws the most scrutiny in any industry. Non-compliance is quickly caught but not easily managed, exposing the organisation to reputation damage or financial penalties. Business change initiatives that lacked focus result in operations failing to deliver the promised quality. It exposes the organisation to product recalls and reputation damage. IT projects are seduced by quick solutions that add to technical debt. The organisation is exposed to risk of cybercrime, reputational damage and a structural loss in competitiveness.
These costs add up, making future change initiatives more challenging, slower and more expensive.
Why existing tools cannot fix this
Existing tooling and frameworks provide industry-agnostic methodologies to deliver projects in a structural fashion. Clearly they excel at this concept, otherwise they would not be around for long. That structure does not categorize requirements based on their domains in a language understood the same by all stakeholders. This gap is not managed by such frameworks or tooling as it is not part of the delivery cadence they facilitate.
What COPAF Consulting actually is
COPAF Consulting believes that each stakeholder operates in their own world of experience. They know that world best within their organisation. Stakeholders should be engaged in their own language. We help them surface tension, identify needs and align with other stakeholders by guiding them to explicit decisions and trade-offs. We translate between these worlds and visualize the languages of IT, compliance and business into shared structures, clear decisions and working systems. These move organisations forward for years to come, even after we have left.
Understand Why Structure Matters to make complex change work.
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