The IDEAL Model for Technology Change

Faced with an organization that needs to be refocused on pursuing new technology, leveraging existing technology, or outsourcing technology strategically - how does one go about making this transformation?

One approach that has been quite successful and that has been formalized by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon university is IDEAL.

IDEAL spells out the phases of the change process for the organization. These are:

• I - Initiating. Laying the groundwork for a successful improvement effort.
  
• D - Diagnosing. Determining where you are relative to where you want to be.
  
• E - Establishing. Planning the specifics of how you will reach your destination.
  
• A - Acting. Doing the work according to the plan.
  
• L - Learning. Learning from the experience and improving your ability to adopt new technologies in the future.
  

The SEI has generously placed a great deal of information on IDEAL and its application on their web site. So you have free access to this powerful tool and to a large library of documents to assist you in implementing it.

Web Source: The IDEAL Model