A Change Agent is someone with the political clout, will, and capability to bring transformative ideas to life. These are often business leaders who have the ability to convince others that change must occur and they know how to sell these ideas up the corporate ladder.
Change Agents help organizations to function more efficiently and they help to create opportunities for the organization to grow. They therefore must be supported and empowered.
One way to assess your organization's ability to support these Agents of Change is to consider the tools and technologies that support them,
Complexity Kills Innovation
For example, a Change Agent may wish to jump on the Artificial Intelligence bandwagon with the idea that a smarter way for users to search and interact with data could save countless hours of manual effort. On paper this sounds amazing. In reality, the Change Agent can be far removed from what is needed to make this actually work.
A quick audit of the people, tools and platforms that the Change Agent would have to engage with this can be eye-opening. How quickly can these people, processes, and systems adapt to meet the change that is being sought?
People/Skills Required:
Solution Architects
Data Engineers
JavaScript Developers
Database Administrators
Workflow / PowerApps Specialists
Application Specialists
Tools Required:
Spreadsheets
BI Visualizations
Data Transformation
Workflow / PowerApps
ETL Tools
Platform Integrations:
Enterprise Data Warehouse
Data Lakes
Data Marts
SaaS (ServiceNow, Salesforce, Workday, etc.)
Even the smallest change often requires multiple teams to be engaged and systems to be modified. This represents a HUGE barrier for Change Agents to overcome.
Given this, the path of least resistance for the Change Agent is to turn to:
Spreadsheets
Or, custom development
This should be a big concern for the organization because brilliant ideas often hang on the success of a spreadsheet or a JavaScript developer. There is a lot of risk in this equation. Spreadsheets were not designed to be production-ready applications and custom development can be painfully slow and not deliver value for a very long time. The Change Agent is likely risking a great deal of personal clout and political capital and to do so in this manner is a sign of either desperation or an incomplete vision.
Why Organizations Need A Rapid Application Development Environment
Imagine empowering a Change Agent with the ability to create production-ready applications that can scale to meet the needs of 1,000s of users.
Imagine empowering these Change Agents with a platform that is purpose-built to solve the spreadsheet/custom development problem.
Imagine a rapid prototyping capability that can help Change Agents sell the "art-of-the-possible" and allow them to bring new ideas to life very quickly.
To achieve this, a Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment must offer a solution that goes beyond the concept of a low-code capability. It must also encompass or support:
Bi-Directional Application Integration - the ability to push and pull data as needed
Workflow and Forms - the ability to collect information and human knowledge
Alerting and Escalation - the ability to push data to users and prompt them to act
Data Visualization and Interactivity - the ability to summarize data in a variety of ways to help users make informed, data-driven decisions
An Integrated Data Store - a flexible platform that can be used to house data using various structures and one that can adapt and evolve as needs change
By combining these capabilities into a single platform, many of the moving parts otherwise needed suddenly play a secondary role. This means that the Change Agent can bring new ideas to life faster and with less impact on internal systems. The RAD capability removes the barriers to innovation and empowers Change Agents to deliver transformative change.
To learn more about how we can help bring your ideas to life, please get on our calendar for a quick conversation. We are happy to help!