Sample Questions for Leavitt’s Diamond

Following upon a more detailed post about Leavitt’s Diamond, here are some sample questions often generated by a workshop using the tool.

There are not meant to be specific. But I hope they inspire you and your team to apply them to your own situation to create more insightful questions to improve your change program.

The questions are divided into the four quadrants:

People: Who does the work

Tasks or Process: What do people do

Structure: How people and tasks are organised

Technology: What people and teams need to do the work most effectively and efficiently

Click a button to jump to the category below.

People

People define the group of employees who do the work to keep the organisation moving forward. This group should be analysed first as they are the group who will be asked to change as part of the overall program.

How many will be affected? And how exactly? If phased, how and what areas will be the priority?
What’s in it for them?
How many jobs may be affected and in what way? Will there be redundancies or changes to employee contracts (of any type)?
How flexible can we be with how employees might work in the future, in light of COVID or working remotely?
What changes will there be to the various levels of the organisation? How can we involve frontline staff in the change?
How can we involve frontline staff in the change? Use their knowledge?
How will we handle recruitment for new people (or for people who leave?)
Will we need to downsize?
What are the known risks vs unknown risks?
What will be the business impact on how people to their jobs?
How will we retain people?
How will we support people throughout the change?
How will this affect our culture? Work-life balance?
What will be the impact on our culture? How will we build and maintain that change to our culture?
What is the impact on our organisational values?
What’s the impact on the organisation’s structure?
What current and future skills will our employees need?
How will be develop a training plan to match the proposed change? Of the staff who will need training, how will we determine the best way to train?
Who might play a role in the planning and/or implementation? (Champions, agents or sponsors?)
How will we support people through the change and afterward?
What (and where) is the resistance to change in the organisation?
Could there be impacts to staff wellbeing?
How should we communicate the change to people?
What opportunities for promotion or development might this change bring about?
Will the titles remain the same?
Will the job descriptions need updating?

Tasks or Process

Task (also known as Process) represents how people get things done, if not how they (could) do their best work every day.

What is the current state? How do people implement the task or process now, and what’s successful and not successful about the current state?
Which tasks will be obsolete or created?
Which teams will need to adopt the new tasks/processes first?
Who decided on the change? How will it not only impact our employees, but will it also affect our customers?
Who decided on this change? Why this process and not another one? What are the pros and cons of this process?
Is there a risk to operations (or other departments?)
What are the key processes up for review?
What works now? What doesn’t work now?
What’s the cost of the change to our processes?
What new or different skills will we need to develop training? Are any of our staff skilled already?
How long to train new tasks?
How will people’s jobs (or team) be affected
What do we need to put into place to current BAU and train new?
Will it still comply with requirements, benefits of the new ways?
How will individual benefit from this change?
Who will map the change?
What history (good or bad) have we had with changing processes?
Where will the implementations start? How long will it take?
What are the risks of the process roll-out?
What is the best way to communicate the change or process? Should there be a priority or order to who changes first?
In the priority areas of change, how long have staff been with the organisation?
Is there a history of previous change projects in this area, and were they successful? What didn’t work in previous change projects and how could we improve in the future?
How large or small is the actual change? Is it an adaptation of a current process, or a wholly new system?
Have we got the right organisational structure in place to implement?
How will it affect the businesses outcomes KPI, profit, functionality – some staff need more training etc.
How can explain and help people get on board with the change, what disruption will it bring to the business?

Structure

Structure outlines how the company is organised to work most efficiently, such as in teams or departments, as well as where they are located, such as different locations, different states or countries.

How will the proposed change affect the structure (up and beyond the changes to People)?
Why does the current system need to be changed? Who says?
What works currently? What doesn’t work? What needs to be adjusted?
What is the organisational structure now, and will it change? What’s the impact on the current structure, including both advantages and drawbacks? (Will it affect our different locations for ex?)
What is the financial impact of changing the structure?
Who determined the structure needed to be changed, and why? Why now?
What does our competition do in terms of structure?
Have all options been explored? What’s our Plan B?
Can we implement in this current office space? Will the new structure change how we work day to day? How will those who work from home be affected?
Will it be a full roll out or a phased roll out?
Will the location roll out amongst the structure take place? Will specific structures (like a department or location) change first? Or will the roll-out be identical?
Is there a separate project team that handles the work flows?
How will stakeholders – both internal and external – be consulted?
What are the timelines for the change on the structure (department, location)?
Will this new structure change require new technology, different skills, new procedures?
What is impact of this structure change on the staffing needs?
Does IT have capacity to provide new technology?
Does HR have capacity to support new staffing changes?
Will it require a business plan?
Can security breaches be contained in our current structure?
Is this structural change temporary or permanent?

Technology

Technology helps people to do their job better, producing more effective and sustainable work. This quadrant includes technology hardward and software, even communications.

What technology do we use now vs. what technology will we use in the future?
Why do we need the technology change? Who says, and what proof?
What technology is changing? What this technology and not another technology?
What is the risk of not changing?
What is the cost of the change?
What is the impact of the change?
How extensive is the change?
Will COVID affect the change? Can it work remotely? Do we have enough licenses for all employees?
How ‘future-proof’ Is this new technology? How soon will we need to change or upgrade this technology?
How will the new technology change business as usual?
How does this technology compare with our competition’s choice?
What are the privacy and security measures?
How will we change and integrate the before and after tech?
What exactly will the new tech do? Create efficiencies?
How immediate will the tech change be felt? Who will it affect first?
How will we roll out the tech? By stages? Which stage?
How many people or departments (structure) will be affected by the change?
Who trains the new tech? Are they internal/external trainers? How expensive will external trainers be?
What training materials will we need to create? Training Guides, Policy Documents, Cheat Sheets
What resistance will there be to the change? It is real or perceived?
When is the change coming to effect?
What resources do we need for the change? – money, people
What is the anticipated resistance or challenges for the change to take effect?
What are the flow and effects of the change?