Execution · Plan

Change context read

Reads eight features of a change situation — time, scope, capability, readiness, power, and more — and says which change approach those readings actually permit.

Stage

04 Plan

Works at

All levels

Maturity

Scaling → Large organisation

Time

Two hours

What it is

Balogun and Hope Hailey's contextual features, used here as a router rather than a general model: read time, scope, preservation, diversity, capability, capacity, readiness and power for this specific change, and let those readings narrow down which change approach could actually work — before planning the approach itself.

Time: How much time is genuinely available. Little time available rules out slow, highly participative approaches regardless of how well suited they would otherwise be.
Scope: Whether the change is realignment within the current way of operating or transformation of it. The two need genuinely different approaches, and treating a transformation as a realignment undersells what is actually required.
Preservation and diversity: What must be protected through the change, and how uniform or varied the organisation genuinely is. A highly diverse organisation cannot be changed with one approach applied uniformly.
Capability and capacity: Whether the organisation, and specifically its managers, have changed successfully before and have the bandwidth to do it again now, alongside everything else already running.
Readiness and power: How ready people genuinely are for this change, and where the power to enable or block it actually sits — which is frequently not where the organisation chart says.
The permitted approach: Not every combination of readings permits every change approach. The point of the exercise is to narrow the field before choosing, rather than defaulting to whatever approach was used last time.

The mistake people makeChoosing the change approach first, out of habit, and reading the context afterward to justify it — which produces a plan that fits the organisation's usual style rather than this specific change's actual demands.

What it’s forA change is being planned and the approach has not yet been chosen, or has been chosen out of habit rather than tested against this specific situation.

What it’s not forThe change approach is already mandated by circumstances outside the organisation's control — a regulatory deadline, for instance — where reading context changes nothing about what has to happen.

How you run it

Score time, scope and preservation firstHow much time is genuinely available, whether this is realignment or transformation, and what must be protected through it.
Score diversity, capability and capacity honestlyHow uniform the organisation actually is, whether it has changed successfully before, and how much bandwidth genuinely exists alongside everything else running.
Score readiness and powerHow ready people actually are, and where the power to enable or block this specific change genuinely sits — checked against, not assumed from, the organisation chart.
Rule out the approaches these readings do not permitLittle time available and low readiness rule out slow, highly participative approaches, whatever their other merits.
Recommend the approach the remaining readings permitMatched to this specific change, not defaulted to whatever approach the organisation used last time.

The prompt

Two ways to run it

Run this tool in your own Claude

The short prompt starts your partner against the library on your disk. The long one carries everything with it and needs nothing installed.

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🔒 Prompt locked

Everything above is free — what this tool is, what it is for, what it is not for, and how to run it as a workshop. Three tool prompts a month are free with an account; beyond three, and for the printable canvas, it is the paid part.

See plans — from £19 a month

Your playbook

It lands in the earliest stage this tool suits. Move it on the Playbook page.

You’ll need

How much time is genuinely available before the change must be delivered
An honest read of organisational capability and readiness for this specific change
Where power actually sits, as distinct from the formal reporting lines

You’ll end up with

The change context scored across its key features
Which change approaches those readings rule out
A specific, matched recommendation rather than the organisation's default approach

Runs well with

AI risk classification and governance Alliance and partnership design Assumption log Backcasting