Top 10 Great Things to See & Do in Andalucia, Spain

1. Sun and Sand

With a thousand kilometers of coastline there is one common factor: the Sun. Come and be captivated by Andalusia's coast, where you will find a endless miles of unspoilt beaches, majestic cliffs, salt marshes brimming with wildlife and a little-known undersea world simply waiting to be discovered.

Andalusia's coastal beaches are its natural heritage and each have their own distinct personality. The coastline, includes the Costa Del Sol in Malaga, the Costa de la Luz in Cadiz and the Costa de la Luz in Huelva, the Almeria Coast & the Costa Tropical in Granada, all are idyllic natural settings, with crystal clear warm waters and year round sunshine.

2. Golf

If golf is your passion, you will be in the best region in Spain for this sport. You can enjoy the sun whilst playing golf in Andalusia all year round.

From the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, Andalusia offers a generous host of courses with first class facilities and stunning surroundings that are worth visiting simply in their own right.

Whether you are an novice or a pro, you will find Andalusia the perfect place to play, thanks to its excellent weather and the quantity and quality of the courses. There is an extensive range to suit all players. The variety of the courses, their facilities and their track record with many of the major championships being held, which help guarantee golfing quality in Andalusia.

3. Entertainment & shopping

Choose from one of the many amusement parks in Andalusia; Descubre Isla Magica or El Parque de las ciencias being just two of the options available to a visitor to the region

For shopping lovers the huge El Corte Ingles shopping complex provides a superb shopping experience, or visit Puerto Banus for its exclusive brand name boutique shopping beside the delightfully quaint harbour.

Markets (or mercados in Spanish) are a common sight in the towns and villages throughout the Andalusia region, They are noisy, colorful and highly entertaining and an experience to be witnessed, whether you plan to shop or not. Markets thrive throughout the province and are the pivotal centre of life in towns and villages.

4. Nature

Get closer to nature in Andalusia by enjoying the magnificent Whale & Dolphin Watching off the straits off Andalusia. There are two national parks in Andalusia: Donana and Sierra Nevada providing a great way to spend time amongst stunning natural landscapes.

Andalusia is a bird watcher's paradise as it lies on the Europe to Africa migratory routes.and attracts ornithologists all year round. There are in fact so many ways to connect with nature when visiting Andalusia from visiting its abundant Forests, Sampling its Salt water and Fresh water fishing or simply admiring the wonder of its numerous Olive groves and Cork trees.

5. Sports

Whether indoors or outdoors, Andalusia offers a broad range of sporting activities, and there are numerous kinds of national and international competitions held in the province.

Sporting competions held regularly at Andalusia's different stadiums, circuits, pitches, sports halls and courts also allow spectators to enjoy watching live sporting competition at the topmost level. Famous events include Formula 1 Grand Prix or the Motorcycle Racing World Championship can be witnessed alongside international surfing and body board competitions.

6. Relaxation & Therapy

Andalusia has all the right ingredients and is the perfect setting for you to enjoy a personalized health and beauty treatment experience. It is an ideal place to combine action and pleasure.

If you are looking for that healthy holiday for both body and mind, then your senses will be satisfied by the exceptional facilities and treatments awaiting you here in Andalusia.

Thermal waters, a range of mud treatments, therapeutic baths, water jets, algae therapies, massages... these are the main components for revitalising treatments at specially designed spas and hotels.

7. Flamenco

Flamenco is a passionate and seductive art form of dancing, a mysterious and misunderstood culture that has been practised in Andalusia for nearly half a millennia, and today flamenco has numerous aficionado's worldwide.

Many people witness flamenco in some form or another during their summer vacations in Andalusia, especially on the Costa Del Sol, where there are great flamenco Tablaos in abundance

8. Culture

Andalusia has a wealth of culture that will take you way back into history, with major archaeological sites, the legacy of the different cultures and civilizations that made their home in this rich, beautiful land in the south of Spain.

The Great Mosque of Cordoba, the Alhambra in Granada and the Giralda in Sevilla are first class World Heritage monuments, an immense artistic legacy that has been passed down across millennia of history.

The stunning Moorish, Renaissance and, especially the Baroque architecture can be seen in its most important buildings, the fortresses, the castles, and monasteries to be found throughout andalusia, which help to complete a hugely valuable array of cultural heritage.

9. Sierra Nevada

Snow & Sun, Sea & Mountains, Sport & Relaxation, Art & Gastronomy, Shopping & Therapy at a Spa, Sierra Nevada offers you the perfect combination of all of these.

Sierra Nevada is a paradise for snow lovers. It has the number-one ski resort in southern Europe, where you can enjoy the maximum number of sunny days a year, is the perfect place for all winter activities.

The quality of its services and facilities together with its lively atmosphere and nightlife make this mountain retreat a five star spot for winter sports lovers.

10. Gastronomy

The Mediterranean diet is in vogue. Basic products such as fresh vegetables and pulses, fresh fish, ripe fruit and virgin olive oil have made Andalusian cuisine a major force to reckoned with.

Andalusian cuisine centres around fresh, localy sourced ingredients, with fresh fish dishes available in all coastal areas and the finest meat dishes inland. A huge variety of sun ripened fruit is to be found throughout.

The gastronomy of Andalusia owes much of its origins to the Moorish cuisine of Al-Andalus. Its style came to transform many customs. It was the people of Al-Andalus who first created the dining room and the current order of dishes served in a traditional Andalusian meal.

10 Cool Things To See On Berkshire Trails With Your Dog

"If your dog is fat," the old saying goes, "you aren't getting enough exercise." But walking the dog need not be just about a little exercise. Here are 10 cool things you can see in the Berkshire Hills while out walking the dog.

CCC BUILDINGS
During the Great Depression of the 1930s President FranklinRoosevelt put thousands of unemployed men to work in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Work camps were set up across the country with the mandate to build roads, reforest denuded lands, and construct recreational facilities for public use. Some of the greatest legacies of this "Tree Army" are in the Berkshires, including Bascom Lodge on the summit of Mount Greylock. Designed by Pittsfield architect Joseph McArthur Vance, the rustic shelter was designed to blend in with the landscape using native materials of stone (Greystone schist) and lumber (red spruce and oak).

GLACAL ERRATICS

The great ice rivers of the last Ice Age melted from Massachusetts about 15,000 years ago, scraping and shaping the landscape and leaving behind a fair share of debris. Strange rock formations from retreating glaciers are known as erratics. The greatest oddity in Pittsfield State Forest is a glacial erratic known as Balance Rock. The massive 165-ton limestone boulder teeters precariously upon a small, 3-foot piece of bedrock.

GRAZING CATTLE

Does your dog have any herding instincts? At Tyringham Cobble the canine hike begins in an open field where you may find yourself hiking with your dog through a free-ranging herd of Hereford cattle - as they have done for 200 years.

MASSQUATCH

A canine hike in October Mountain State Forest may be your best chance to spot Massquatch, New England's version of Bigfoot. There have been occasional sightings of a hairy, oversized, human-like creature in Massachusetts across the years from the Atlantic beaches to the Berkshire Mountains. The Berkshire Eagle twice reported encounters at October Mountain in the 1980s, including an up-close and-personal at a former Boy Scout camp near Felton Lake.

MODERN ART

After World War II interrupted his career as a Williams College librarian, Lawrence Bloedel purchased the former Nathan Field farm with his wife Eleanore. In 1948 the couple retained Edwin Goodell to build a house to accommodate their expanding collection of contemporary American art. He responded with a modern, window-dominated design adorned with simple lines. In 1966, Ulrich Franzen delivered a Victorian Shingle-style house for the Bloedels' grandchildren, known as The Folly. The Bloedels donated their blend of architecture and nature to the Trustees of Reservations in 1984 and when you hike with your dog at Field Farm today you can walk among 13 modern sculptures, including works by Richard M. Miller, Jack Zajac, Bernard Reder and Herbert Ferber.

MYSTERIOUS GLENS

Nathaniel Hawthorne called the Ice Glen, a cleft in the rocks between Bear and Little mountains behind the town of Stockbridge, "the most curious fissure in all Berkshire." It is a ravine without a stream - all the water around Ice Glen flows on a south-north axis while the gorge is aligned east to west. In fact, the glen, stuffed with stacked boulders and draped with hemlocks, was once a glacial lake. Tucked away from the sun's rays, the season's last snow melts here, hence its name. Further west, beyond West Stockbridge, Stevens Glen was once one of the busiest tourist destinations in the the county. In the late 1800s Romanza Stevens built bridges and staircases to the Glen and its waterfall and charged 25 cents for tourists to view the magic of Lenox Mountain Brook.

RARE DAMS

In Natural Bridge State Park, the site of a marble quarry until 1947, is a dam built totally of marble blocks, etched in black on the edges. As Ed Elder, who operated the property as a roadside tourist attraction, would describe it, "This is the only marble dam outside Athens, Greece."

SACRED RELIGIOUS SITES

Shaker communities were required to clear the summit of a nearby hill for worship. Near Hancock around 1842, this site was atop Mt. Sinai, now known as Shaker Mountain. The trail today leads to two Shaker sacred sites that have been leveled out on the top of Mt. Sinai and Holy Mount. When the Shakers worshipped here non-believers were not allowed on these grounds.

SLUICES, SPOUTS AND CASCADES

All over the Berkshires your dog can view and swim under hydrospectaculars. Some are reached with hardly a hike (Campbell Falls, Windsor Jambs, Wahconah Falls), others with a little effort (The Notch Brook Cascades, Bash Bish Falls, Tannery Falls) and other waterfalls are rewards for a spirited canine hike such as Sages Ravine in Mount Everett State Reservation.

STONE WALLS BUILT FOR THE AGES

The stone walls found throughout Massachusetts are some of the most beautiful walls ever built. The fact that so many can be found in Berkshire woods attests to the skill used in construction. You could not just pile up rocks found around your property and call it a wall. When a stone wall was finished it needed to be inspected by a fence viewer. If a wall was deemed sound the owner could not be liable for damage done to his crops by other farmer's animals.

Travel Sedona's Red Rock Country - The Jordan Family Legacy

Although one could stay for months in the beautiful red rock rimmed landscape of Sedona, many of the 4 million tourists per year visit just for a day; perhaps on their way to the Grand Canyon or up from Phoenix to escape the heat. On any given day, Uptown Sedona is buzzing with tourists shopping at the quaint boutiques, crystal shops and art galleries, sampling local treats and enjoying the spectacular 360 degree view of crimson monoliths. In the heart of Uptown Sedona, just a few blocks up Jordan Road, visitors can also get a taste of life in the early days of Sedona by visiting the Sedona Heritage Museum. Jordan Road is named for one of Sedona's early families who devoted their lives to developing Sedona into a thriving community for their children and future generations.

The story of Sedona's famous Jordan family begins with William and his wife, Annie Bristow Jordan, their sons George and Walt and their wives, Helen and Ruth. This industrious, hard-working family and their orchards became a cornerstone for Sedona's commerce.

William Jordan originally began farming in Arizona in 1881 about 20 miles west of Sedona near Clarkdale. There he had great success until the toxic fumes from the nearby Clemenceau smelter killed his crops resulting in one of the first U. S. Supreme Court battles against a firm for environmental pollution. He conducted tests of air samples to determine how far away he needed to move to resurrect his enterprise. In 1926, he purchased 175 acres at the mouth of Oak Creek Canyon from Claude Black who had only just purchased it a few years earlier.

There were 9 children born to Will and Annie Jordan: six sons and three daughters. When the two eldest sons went off to fight in WW1, Walter, the third son, dropped out of high school to assume his brothers' duties on the farm. It was Will's fourth son, George who bought out the orchard from him in 1927 and started marketing produce as far as 120 miles away. Walt worked with George until 1928 and then began his own farm on a 65 acre of patch of dry land that Will acquired from Jesse Purtyman for $1000.00 and 12 creek side acres of the original Jordan property. Not much for dry farming, Walt needed to figure out a way to irrigate his crops. He investigated purchasing a water wheel system from New York, but it cost more than the entire purchase price of the original 175 acres. Determined, Walt enlisted the help of George, who had studied engineering back east. Together they poured over the drawings of the water wheel and during the following winter, George began building the components for a giant water wheel right on the living room floor much to the dismay of his tidy wife, Helen. By spring they had the beginnings of the Sedona City water works.

During the Great Depression, produce prices were low and it was difficult for local farmers to make a profit, so George began a co-op. Local farmers would bring their goods to his packing shed where the produce was uniformly packed and readied for market. George would then take the fresh fruits and vegetables to his customers in the neighboring towns of Jerome, Cottonwood, Clarkville, and Prescott as well as Flagstaff and other northern Arizona towns.

Walt could have been considered a Renaissance man of his time. He researched and taught himself all aspects of farming and running an orchard: soil nutrients, grafting and pruning fruit trees and using bees for pollination. He even set up his own weather station and devised a thermostat system to monitor the conditions for frost.

Walter started his farming legacy by growing carrots and driving the hand bundled bunches 12 hours by Model A Ford to Phoenix. There he and his wife would sell them to the hotels and restaurants. Using the money he made from marketing carrots, he was able to pay off his father for the parcel of land, purchase some fruit trees and build a 14 x 20 foot cabin which became the Sedona Heritage Museum in 1990. During the years it took for the fruit trees to mature, he grew strawberries, beans and other vegetables for income.

Getting his precious cargo to market was often a harrowing experience. After working in the orchards all day, he then worked into the night packing the produce on his modified truck. With little or no sleep, Walt had to drive at a snail's pace over steep slopes and navigate some tight places with plummeting drop offs on northern Arizona's early rugged roads.

The Jordan family legacy lives on in the Sedona Heritage Museum located inside Jordan Historical Park.

It was Ruth who desired to preserve the history of Sedona and after Walter's death she approached the Sedona Historical Society with an idea for a museum. In 1991 the Jordan home became the property of the City of Sedona and is now managed by the Sedona Historical society.

Visiting the museum is a great way to experience the life in the early times of Sedona. In addition to the cabin with its original furnishings and the packing house, the museum displays antique farming implements, various exhibits and has a quaint gift shop. The Sedona Historical Society hosts many events there and continuously strives to preserve and teach Sedona's history.

A walk around the park gives the visitor an opportunity to stand in Walter and Ruth's shoes.

The homestead is surrounded by inspiring red rock formations such as The Fin and The Sail. These shapes were familiar friends of the Jordan family. One outcropping, The King and His Three Wives overlooked Walt and Ruth's first home. This configuration consists of a group of small monoliths. The king is off by himself facing a cluster of 3 monoliths, his queens. It is noted it by their daughter, F Ruth Jordan in Following Their Westward Star that Walt thought the tree on the ledge of the king appears to be his boutonniere.

There are several hiking trails just behind the park where an avid hiker as well as the casual visitor can enjoy the natural beauty of Sedona. Walk the trail around the formation known as the Cibola mitten named for the mythical Spanish City of Gold or take a longer trek on Brin's Mesa. As you drink in the boundless beauty surrounding you, imagine life as an early settler; working endless hours under primitive conditions relying only on resolution, endurance and ingenuity.

Look for more articles in this series Watch for Red Rocks by Ann Galgano-Bellile.

Custom Software Development Makes Economical Sense For Extranets - Asian Paints Case Study

Twenty years back most companies the world over had no choice but to use custom developed software. Custom Software developed for self use provided the only means of mapping and automating the business processes within. Large IT teams typically were hard at work developing customized software for business users. These were well before the days of software outsourcing.

Then came the wave of out of box enterprise solutions like SAP, Peoplesoft, Baan, Oracle and corporate IT lapped them up in a big way. Centralized databases and real-time view of data were the buzz words and any company worth its salt did not want to be left behind. Legacy custom developed softwares were quickly consigned to the dustbins (oh OK Recycle bins!) and the long and painful implementations (not to miss on the lighter wallets) began. We will not get into the debate on Custom Software versus Enterprise Apps as that is not the subject of this article.

Instead we would like to explore why it makes sense to look at custom software solutions in the current context specially for extending the enterprise to channel partners like distributors, dealers, service centers etc. the example used is of Asian Paints. Asian Paints has always been at the cutting edge of technology implementation

I will take the example of MySAP Call Centre implementation replacing the legacy software at Asian Paints a leading corporate in India. Asian Paints was operating a 12 seater distributed call centre with a custom software solution. At that time, the software at Asian Paints was made by a single member team and met all the requirements of Asian Paints. The only problem was that the custom software used by Asian Paints made use of distributed databases. In the year 2002 Asian Paints (an existing SAP customer) wanted to explore the feasibility of shifting to MySAP to manage the Call Centre. We are not sure what level of evaluation was undertaken by Asian Paints besides - "It's from SAP so it must be worth it!". Certainly no usability study and impact on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) was undertaken by the team at Asian Paints.

Nonetheless, MySAP was rolled out swiftly to the Asian Paints Mumbai Call Centre by the Asian Paints IT team (thankfully saving the fat implementation bill at least). Our familiar Custom Software lay firmly in the bin!

But just a few months on when we (at Asian Paints) looked at the effectiveness and cost benefit we were in for a surprise. Why? Read on...

• For a simple call that needed very few data fields to be captured in the Custom Software solution, Asian Paints agents now had to fill many more data fields as dictated by MySAP leading to longer call handling times
• The training required to learn to use the software increased many fold leading to higher induction time and cost for Asian Paints.
• The call centre needed leased line connectivity to the Asian Paints servers so add a connectivity cost into the equation
• If there was a power failure or link failure the Asian Paints Helpline would stop working - so add the backup power, and backup connectivity cost
• The screen was so cluttered that the Asian Paints Helpline agents needed bigger monitors so add the cost of new workstations
• Some of the reports specifically required by the Asian Paints Call Center were not available or configurable easily
• We are of course not going to talk about the license costs etc. that Asian Paints had to bear. So we end up with significantly greater costs (the increase in costs are too embarrassing for me to share) for one great achievement - Real time data!

And that too for a 10 odd seater Call Centre that Asian Paints had to operate! What's the alternative? Maybe a simple custom software solution using xml web services based synchronization could have saved Asian Paints thousands of dollars every year. Is it possible? Of course and quite effective. Read this article for more on distributed solutions.

One last question is bound to come up. What if we want to have data synchronize with SAP? Well we just write some ABAP code and expose some methods to consume data from third party applications.

The technology landscape has changed and it is now possible to extend corporate ERPs to partners through third party custom Software quite easily without incurring the heavy overheads thus significantly reducing TCO.

Food for thought?

Landscape Edging Stones - A Great Way to Spruce Up Your Garden

Now that the harsh winter of 2009-2010 is just a memory it may be the right time to get outside and make some of those landscape improvements that will allow the days spent on the lawn a more pleasant experience. Of course, the reason people spend time outside is to enjoy nature so why not make those improvements with a natural landscape edging stones.

Natural stone lends itself to a variety of aesthetic applications, such as edging around a flower bed to add to the natural feel of the plants growing there or to create a walkway to make it easier to go from place to place. Natural stone can even be used as a retaining wall to protect the earth that is being held back from erosion. Unlike wood or plastic, stone will last forever and needs little to no upkeep once it has been installed.

Stone has been used in a great many ways in the past and many of the structures it has been used to create are still standing centuries after their first application. It is not unusual to see stone structures built centuries ago throughout the world that are living on and being used by modern day man. This is not only a testament to the builders of those structures but to the quality of the material itself. For those wishing to leave a legacy for future generations, natural stone is the way to go.

When using natural landscape edging stones for a do it yourself project a few techniques should be considered. Remember that it will be necessary to displace some of the earth and sod from the spot that will receive the edging. By laying a plastic barrier down before placing the stones weeds and grass will have no place to grow and pop up in the cracks between the stones. That means a little digging and a bit of extra work, but the effect will be worth it.

Take Care Of Your Business, VIII

Respect Yourself And The Country Around You

A few weeks ago, I drove from Colorado to North Carolina and back. I wanted to see my son and daughter and grandkids, and haul out several holidays' worth of unshipped presents to them. And I wanted to have a little adventure, the type of which you can only have when you see the U-S-A in your Chev-ro-let (or, in my case, your little import pickup truck).

I wasn't in a hurry. I took some back roads. On the way out east, I stopped by the Shiloh National Battlefield and filled myself with a new consciousness of the courage and perseverance it took to preserve freedom in our Union a century-and-a-half ago. And on the way back, I meandered through the coal mining countryside of West Virginia and Kentucky, where I gained a new respect for, well, respect.

The poorest economic areas of our nation are now in the inner portions of our big cities. Social programs have drawn an ever-increasing percentage of our population to the cities where poor people can be "helped" (or supervised, or - some might say - enslaved), so the poorest part of the country is no longer the rural coal-mining region. But you can still see the ghost of poverty everwhere you look in coal country, from the hollowed-out mining towns to the once-bustling shop districts now devoid of humanity.

But the worst thing I saw was the garbage.

In rural North Carolina, near the area now called the "research triangle" and where the elite class now lives, the countryside may not be pristine, but it's pretty. Same for Virginia. But by the time I got to coal country, I saw a volume of roadside garbage that surprised me, and the likes of which I don't see anywhere else (and I've driven extensively throughout the American countryside). Occasionally, the road widened and I'd see a cluster of huge, ostentatiously-pretty homes with attractive landscaping. Then I'd drive around the next bend in the road, and there again, I'd see piles of trash.

Why doesn't anyone get out and clean this up? I wondered. Out west, on the way out, I'd seen jail crews out in their orange vests, filling bags with roadside trash. Why don't the coal country communities even care enough about how their towns and landscapes look to dispatch jail crews to clean them up? I mean, I hadn't seen trash like this since the last time I walked around the poor inner-city areas of Denver, or Phoenix, or Los Angeles, or San Francisco, or Atlanta, or Dallas, or Chicago, or New York.

You know, the places young protestors like to "Occupy" these days.

I have a theory: there's a legacy of victimhood in these places that doesn't soon depart, once people become accustomed to being taken care of by the government and not to taking care of themselves. And wherever people feel poor and incapable of self-determination, the cycle becomes deeply rooted and the trash starts to pile up. The answer, I figured, was this: they don't have the habit of self-respect in some places in America, and you can tell those places by the garbage.

Forget for the moment the inner workings of collectivist economics. Forget the inner city. Focus instead on your inner self. Are you feeding your inner Victim with negativity, envy, jealousy, class-warfare, and self-loathing of everything from your own nation to your own talents? Or are you feeding the opposite part of your nature - your inner Entrepreneur - with optimism, self-reliance, generosity, and self-respect of everything from your resume to your community?

If you think of yourself as just another cog in the great machine, as just another unit of human resource to be deployed (or not) by your government masters, as just another number to be called at the unemployment office... please, for the sake of us all, think again. Think of yourself as a business. You're in business to share the best of your skills and talents with an eager market. You're in business to find and keep happy customers. Whether or not you actually own and run a commercial enterprise, you're in business to be the best you can be. Don't concern yourself with getting your "fair share" - focus on making the world better, and trust that everyone will get a better share when there's simply more to go around.

Make, don't take. Expect to take care of yourself and others, not to be taken care of. Thinking of ways to create new opportunities beats sitting around and lamenting the opportunities politicians say you never got. It beats it every time.

While I was in coal country, I took the opportunity to go by Coalwood, where the story of "October Sky" is set. It's an inspiring movie, and therefore one of my favorites. It's a story about overcoming adversity, not succumbing to it. And you can still see the self-respect in that tiny little place, where rockets took off and true hope soared, more than half a century ago. Folks there are probably still poor... but the town's a little cleaner, and there is almost a palpable optimism in the air that still hasn't left Coalwood since the days of Homer Hickam and "the Rocket Boys."

Then, just around the corner, on the way back to the main road, there are piles of garbage by the side of the otherwise-beautiful country road. I tried not to look at the trash. I tried to look at the opportunity there - the opportunity to clean up the landscape and reclaim the beauty of this one little corner of America.

The government wants to grow by making you diminish. Your opponents in life want to keep you hopeless, helpless, and self-loathing. But you don't have to be those things. You can ignore the victim-makers. You can take care of your own business with true self-respect, and watch your fortunes take off - like a rocket.

Changeability - Can You Drive Your Business Without it?

"...a systematic and institutional capacity forchange may now be a company's single most valuable asset." Michael Hammer, Beyond Reengineering

You may be in charge of your company but are you in control of it? How many times have you tried to manoeuvre your company in a particular direction to find that it is incapable of responding in either the right timescales or manner? Make no mistake, your ability to steer and move your company is only as good as its inherent ability to respond to the need to change, its business change capability. Would you accept a car that had a rubber steering column and did 0-60 in whatever time it felt like? Of course not, so why accept the equivalent in terms of business change management?

Take a good look at your own company. Operationally you may be doing a good job of servicing the customers. Management wise you've probably got a good team doing your planning and overseeing the day-to-day operations but how well are you coping with your changes? How many IT projects do you have on the go? How many reorganisations or office moves? What's the impact? What's the cost? What's the benefit? Who's doing what to whom and when? How do you know? Is it within your means to change the direction and momentum of that reengineering programme? Is change a necessary evil or an opportunity to succeed? It's probably a bit of both but one thing is for sure, it's not going to go away.

The Change Imperative

All businesses must change over time or else they will fail. The commercial landscape is constantly changing due to the interplay between the market, legislation, technology and competitors. Two things are needed to navigate that landscape: headlights and a responsive vehicle. New and small businesses tend to have the latter by default. They don't have the massive cultural, technical and customer legacy of larger, older companies to hold them back. The smarter of these businesses will have also invested in a good set of headlights. As they succeed they too accrue a legacy to slow them down, unless of course they have developed a business change capability in line with their growth.

When is a Change Not a Change?

So what is a business change capability? Let's start by defining a business change. All businesses can naturally cope with a limited amount of variation in the cases they handle. Shops can handle different basket sizes and mixes, manufacturers can produce customised products and hospitals can treat a variety of illnesses and injuries. The twin daily operational goals of efficiency and effectiveness produce a compromise position. Increases in efficiency tend to result in specialisation that in turn reduces the ability to handle variation whilst the drive to be effective requires an ability to handle all the variation being thrown at it by the chosen market. It's fast food versus a la carte service. At the end of the day a particular operational model is implemented. Any change to this operational model is a business change. A business change capability is the means to efficiently and effectively (there they are again) perform a business change.

House of Cards

That's OK then, all you need to do is improve the way you reorganise, implement systems or move office. If only it were that simple. Businesses are incredibly complex and sensitive organisms. They can swallow directorial dicta without blinking but change the coffee in the finance department and your invoices take three times as long to process. The operational model mentioned above is not as simple as an organisation chart or a flow diagram. It is multidimensional. Move location and you affect processes, roles, infrastructure and communications. Change a department's structure and you can impact jobs, systems, facilities, information flow and loyalties. Implementing a new system will change processes, skill-sets, responsibilities and data. Any potential change needs to be considered holistically to increase the chance of success (or for those whose cup is half empty, to reduce the risk of failure).

The Whole and Nothing but the Whole

Taking a holistic perspective of change brings with it a whole new mindset compared to some of the more traditional change efforts. No longer do you have 'system implementation' projects, you have 'process improvement through faster access to information and the removal of organisational boundaries' projects. No longer do you have 'reorganisation' initiatives, you have 'the clarification of roles and responsibilities through the clear ownership of processes and the implementation of supporting systems' initiatives. The days of dropping a new system or organisational structure from a great height into the operational business without making sure it fits must come to an end.

Turning on the Lights

Now that we have a holistic view of a business change we start to notice something. There appears to be more interference between the various change initiatives taking place in the company. Joe's new customer care processes rely on roles that Fred is removing in his web interface project. Helen's team-working initiative is being impacted by Sue's relocation project. The holistic viewpoint has not created these overlaps it has simply made them more visible. To complete the picture we need a common language across all the initiatives that enables these overlaps to be seen. That language comes in the form of business models.

Super Models

Business models provide a pictorial and textual description of a business. They act as a set of maps onto which change activity can be plotted. Only by using a common set of models across the business and for all change initiatives can we determine who is doing what to whom and where effort is duplicated or lacking. Without this, time, money and energy will be wasted regardless of the skill and best intentions of the participants. These models must cover the various perspectives required by the holistic view. This includes process, organisation, systems, data and location. 'That's all well and good' I hear you say 'but these models will always be out of date'. 'Not if you build their maintenance into your change processes', I reply. Which brings us nicely to the next topic: method.

Process Rules

Whether they like it or not all businesses have method or, if you prefer, processes. How good they are is another matter but all businesses have a way of working. They know what to do when certain events happen such as a customer placing an order. Similarly, in order to conduct business change we need a method or a set of processes. What do we do when a potential change is identified? What do we do when a change project needs to change scope or fails to deliver? How do we handle a new corporate vision? How do we handle a simple process improvement? How do we allocate resources across dozens of competing changes? A permanent business change capability needs to be able to answer these questions by providing a set of processes, roles and supporting systems capable of dealing with all of these situations. Such a capability has the added bonus of being self-improving. It is just another set of business processes etc that can be modeled and changed.

So What.....?

So what does all of this mean? It means that, with a set of repeatable processes that help define potential changes holistically, assess their impact and interdependencies, determine the optimum mix of integrated change initiatives across the company and maintain an accurate set of business models, you have some hope of driving your company through that mixture of mine-field and oil-field, the corporate landscape. Without it you'd better get used to that rubbery steering and sponge-like response ...but then again maybe it is time for a service.