ITXF Readiness Diagnostic
Most transformation fails on its structure, not on its people.
This diagnostic looks at your organisation across seven dimensions and places it on the maturity ladder. It takes about seven minutes and shows you your stage without asking for an email address.
- 21 statements
- About seven minutes
- Stage, breakdown and scorecard
The argument
When a transformation stalls, the first explanation offered is usually resistance. People are said to be reluctant, change-fatigued, not yet on board. I have rarely found that to be the constraint.
What I find instead is incoherent structure. Decision rights that nobody can state plainly. Sponsorship that is measured by attendance rather than by outcomes. Reporting that flatters. Success measures agreed after delivery began. People behave sensibly inside the structure they are given, and an incoherent structure produces the behaviour that gets called resistance.
The evidence points the same way. McKinsey found that transformations were nearly four times as likely to succeed where clear roles were defined for people at every level. Prosci found that projects with extremely effective sponsors were nearly three times as likely to meet their objectives as those with extremely ineffective ones. Both findings are about how the work is set up, not about how willing anyone feels.
That is a more useful diagnosis, because structure can be changed deliberately, and it can be assessed before it fails. The Readiness Diagnostic below shows where your organisation's capability for change is weakest, because the weakest part sets the level for the rest.
Sources: McKinsey & Company, "How to beat the transformation odds", McKinsey Global Survey, April 2015. Prosci, Best Practices in Change Management.
What the instrument measures
Seven dimensions, drawn from the ITXF framework. Each is assessed on its own and reported separately, so a single weak dimension is visible rather than averaged away.
Strategic alignment
Is the change portfolio connected to strategy, and is strategy shaped by what the organisation can absorb?
3 statements
Leadership engagement
Is sponsorship a capability the organisation develops, or a title conferred by seniority?
3 statements
Stakeholder management and communication
Does engagement change what the organisation does, or only what it says?
3 statements
Organisational learning
Does the organisation get better at change, or only more experienced at it?
3 statements
Governance and decision rights
Are decisions made where they should be, including the decision to stop?
3 statements
Methodology and delivery discipline
Does the method survive contact with a deadline?
3 statements
Absorption capacity
Does the organisation know how much change it is carrying, and what happens when that is too much?
3 statements
What you receive
- Your level on the maturity ladder, shown on screen as soon as you finish. No email address is required for this.
- A breakdown by dimension, with your score and stage for each, and where to look next.
- A scorecard as a PDF, which you can keep or take into a steering discussion.
The breakdown and the scorecard are sent to an email address you give us. That is the only point at which we ask for one.
Method and credibility
The assessment measures your organisation's capability for change. It covers seven dimensions, with three statements each. Six of them set your level, and the weakest of the six decides it. A strong average cannot hide a weak link. The seventh, absorption capacity, is shown beside your level rather than inside it. It measures the organisation as a whole, not one programme. The Five Factors Assessment does that.
It is a structured self-assessment. It reports what you see in your own organisation, and it is designed to be answered candidly rather than defensively.
ITXF comes from a doctorate at the University of Portsmouth. The research studied a shared-services programme across five centres.
Who it is for
This is for executives and sponsors who are accountable for a transformation, rather than for the people delivering it.
- You have a transformation running and want to know whether the organisation can carry it.
- You are about to commit to something large and want to know how much more change the organisation can take.
- You have been told the last change failed because people resisted it, and you suspect that is not the whole story.
How your data is handled
What we collect
Your answers are recorded as numbers on a scale. Before the first statement, we also ask your sector and the type of transformation, each chosen from a list. We never ask you to describe your organisation or your programme in your own words.
Where your data is stored
Your answers and your result are stored in Switzerland. If you ask for the full breakdown, we also store your name and email address, and your organisation and role if you give them. If you ask for a debrief, we store the email address you give for that, with your name and organisation where we already have them, so that I can write to you.
Cookies and tracking
One necessary cookie keeps your session open for seven days so you can return to it. We do not use advertising cookies, we do not profile you, and we do not track you on other sites.
Your data rights
You can ask us to delete your personal data at any time, and we will do it.