Knowing that the project clothes have no emperor: how to support the business — not the old systems
Brian Dickinson · Knowledge and Process Management · 1997
Much of what we see in place at an organization is there to support the ‘design structure’. Most systems were put in place to make the business run as designed for the real world at some point in the past. This structure is the biggest target for improvement in a re-engineering project and also, if not acknowledged, is the biggest potential source of failure. This is because the ‘design structure’ is there to accommodate human systems and computer systems—these are the design aspects of an organization. These structures are the clothes (the systems) that cover the emperor (the business). This article will show you how to discover the emperor and not simply streamline or up-date the clothes. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and Cornwallis Emmanuel Ltd.