Chapter 5 Sustainable Change Management

Abstract

Get ready! Buckle up! This chapter is very different from the previous chapters and even the following chapters, in this textbook. It is about change, so it leads by example! A change in the writing style, the structure and the approach. Our approach in this chapter, deviates from the standard academic writing style to a more practical, hands-on, case study-based approach. Most of the content reflects on the first author’s vast experience; guiding businesses to cope with the challenges amid the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) economic environment. The main body of the chapter is based on a fictitious case study about Kimlach Shahidi, a business owner and a CEO of a struggling business, seeking to adapt her business to the new economic realities of the Digital Age to build sustainable businesses and win in the VUCA 1 reality. In telling her story, Ed Capaldi uses a free writing style that makes it easy to read and follow, and hopefully an enjoyable learning tool.
However, it was deemed appropriate that at the outset the reader gets introduced to the relevant academic concepts covered in this chapter which is presented by the second author, the editor of the textbook, and which ties well with the previous chapters, particularly the section that discusses in depth Scrum as a process, following the earlier discussion on teams in Chapter 2.