When organisations embark on a major transformation, one of the first questions that tends to surface is also one of the most deceptively simple: Which change framework should we use? Project One expert Simon Kane explores the ways businesses can answer that key question.
The question is familiar. So are the answers. Kotter. ADKAR. McKinsey. Prosci. Bridges. Each is well-established, widely taught, and supported by case studies that appear to demonstrate their effectiveness. Boards often take comfort in hearing that a “proven framework” has been selected. Sponsors want reassurance that people impacts are being actively managed. Change teams are expected to make a clear recommendation and move quickly into delivery.
Despite the widespread adoption of these models, large transformation programmes continue to fall short of their ambitions. They stall, fragment, exhaust the organisation, or deliver local successes without achieving enterprise-level outcomes. The issue is rarely a lack of commitment or capability. More often, it is something more fundamental: a misunderstanding of what a change framework is actually meant to do.
Most organisations assume that change frameworks are interchangeable, that selecting the right one will, by itself, provide sufficient structure for the journey ahead. In reality, the frameworks we commonly refer to as “change frameworks” solve very different problems. Some help us understand how people experience change, some prescribe activities and interventions, some help diagnose organisational alignment. Very few are designed to operate as an overarching architecture for transformation at scale.
This distinction matters because when organisations treat a single framework, or even a small collection of them, as a complete solution, important elements of change are left uncovered. The result is not a failure of intent or effort, but a failure of design.
What do we really mean by a Change Framework?
Part of the confusion lies in the language we use. The term change framework is applied so broadly that it has lost precision. Broken down into two categories of various models, we explore what they bring to a programme:
The frameworks that describe the human journey of change use models such as the Kübler-Ross change curve, ADKAR, and Bridges’ Transition Model as they focus on the psychological and emotional experience of individuals as they move through disruption and adaptation. They are powerful because they create empathy. They remind leaders that change is not simply a matter of new structures or processes, but of people letting go of the familiar and making sense of something new.
Used well, these models improve communication, coaching, and leadership behaviour. They help teams anticipate resistance, pace interventions, and respond more thoughtfully to what they are seeing on the ground. What they do not do, however, is tell an organisation how to design or run a transformation programme. They do not address governance, sequencing, interdependencies, or scale. They explain what is happening inside people, not what the organisation should do next.
The following frameworks provide more prescriptive guidance on actions and interventions. Kotter’s eight steps, the McKinsey 7-S model, and Prosci’s lifecycle bring discipline. They translate the abstract idea of change into a series of tangible activities. They are particularly useful at project and programme level, where clarity and momentum are essential.
Their limitation is not that they are wrong, but that they are incomplete. Many of these models assume a relatively linear journey. They struggle in environments characterised by multiple concurrent initiatives, evolving objectives, and complex political or cultural dynamics. They function well as toolkits, but they are not designed to act as an operating system for enterprise-wide transformation.
This distinction becomes critical when organisations move beyond discrete initiatives and into sustained, multi-year change.
Why large transformations still fail
Large-scale transformations are fundamentally different from individual change initiatives. They are not single events to be managed, but portfolios of interdependent change unfolding simultaneously across strategy, structure, technology, culture, capability, and leadership behaviour.
In this context, failure rarely looks dramatic, more often it appears as drift, dilution, or exhaustion: programmes compete for attention and resources; leaders sponsor multiple initiatives without a clear view of how they connect; teams deliver what they were asked to deliver, yet the organisation as a whole does not move in the intended direction; change fatigue sets in because there is too little coherence; and people struggle to understand what really matters.
Local change may be well executed, but enterprise outcomes remain elusive and the organisation becomes busy, but not aligned. The root cause is usually the absence of an overarching structure that holds all of this activity together. In other words, the absence of a change architecture.
At enterprise scale, a change framework needs to be understood less as a model to be followed and more as an architecture to be designed. A useful way of defining it is as an end-to-end structure for transformation that operates at the largest scale required, while remaining adaptable to programmes, initiatives, and local contexts within it.
This reframing changes the nature of the conversation and the question is no longer which framework to adopt, but whether the organisation has an architecture that spans the whole system, integrates people and delivery, and enables leaders to make coherent decisions over time.
A true change architecture must connect strategy to execution, and ambition to capacity. It must work across multiple types of change including digital, cultural, structural and regulatory without treating them as separate efforts. It must scale, allowing the same underlying structure to support both enterprise-wide transformation and local initiatives. Critically, it must support sense-making, not just compliance. Leaders and teams need help deciding what matters now, not simply instructions on what to do next.
This is where many transformation programmes falter as they have frameworks, but not architecture.
A well-designed change architecture does not need to be reinvented for every programme. The same underlying structure can support an enterprise-wide transformation, a multi-year technology implementation, a cultural shift, or a regulatory response.
What changes is the emphasis. The focus areas, intensity of intervention, and choice of tools adapt to the context. Different programmes may enter the architecture at different points. Some may be driven by strategy, others by compliance or capability gaps, but the core structure remains consistent.
This consistency is what enables coherence over time as it allows leaders to see how initiatives connect, how demands on the organisation accumulate, and where capacity is being stretched. It provides a shared language for discussing trade-offs and priorities.
In this sense, the framework does not shrink. The expression of it does.
What this means for leaders and practitioners
For senior leaders, this reframing carries a clear implication, that transformation cannot be delegated entirely to programmes or functions. Coherence is a leadership responsibility and sponsorship is not enough if initiatives are not aligned within a clear architectural intent.
For change practitioners, the implication is equally significant. The role is not simply to apply frameworks, but to design systems. This requires thinking beyond individual interventions to consider how change unfolds across the organisation as a whole. It means using models with intent, not fidelity, and designing for organisational capacity rather than textbook purity.
Change at scale is not primarily procedural. It is architectural.
The most successful transformation programmes are not those that follow a single framework most rigorously, but those that create coherence in motion, aligning multiple changes, narratives, and interventions into a whole that people can understand and sustain.
The best frameworks do not compete, they coordinate.
The real capability organisations need to build is not the ability to select the right model, but the ability to design and govern a change architecture that holds everything together while the organisation moves.
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