Handle the ‘Fear of Unknown’ carefully in Supply Chain transformation projects.

Many supply chain transformation projects fail to take off due to the ‘Fear of Unknown’ in team members as well as in top management. It is true that a major change has many unknowns. Unless these are handled carefully, it is difficult to get an enthusiastic buy-in for the change. How do we handle this fear?

To start with, we should jointly prepare and discuss the logical cause-effect impact of the ‘As Is’ situation as well as the ‘To Be’ situation. The team should understand what is leading to the current Undesirable Effects (UDEs) and how the proposed changes would eliminate them. TOC practitioners refer to it as ‘Current Reality Tree (CRT)’ and ‘Future Reality Tree (FRT)’.

However, just the logical explanation is often insufficient. We should simulate the changes on past data and confirm that the UDEs do get eliminated without causing any fresh negative impact (NBR). We’ll also get a fair idea of the improvements we should expect on the key metrics of availability and freshness.

Once the team is convinced of the direction of solution and their benefit expectations have been broadly set right, it’s advisable to start with a pilot and demonstrate the benefits before wider implementation. It also helps in mid-term course correction, if required.

If the ‘Fear of Unknown’ is not handled carefully, major supply chain transformation projects are likely to get either postponed or implemented only half-heartedly.