There are good ways to use a management model and a lot more bad ways. A good management model helps to make sense out of a situation and helps to get an idea of the possible solutions. It might give you some guidance on how to analyse or create a new design. Using a management model for reference is thus a good way in my opinion. Working with frameworks like ITIL or COBIT I’ve seen many ways of how a management model can be used the wrong way. Not for guidance leaving room for your own interpretation and ultimately your own responsibility but as manual prescribing how these frameworks have to be implemented. Taking the framework a face value and blaming the framework for all that goes wrong in the process. And then moving on to the next model that is now in fashion.

I’ve worked with cynics who believe that models can be created on the whiteboard from scratch and wiped just a fast. So in their eyes models have no additional value and there is no use in studying them at all. If you can dazzle a client with 2 axis and 4 quadrants than it is his own fault for being so gullible. And I understand where they are coming from, I can see their point. Still there are models that are more useful as a starting point for discussion or providing guidance to a client through the change process than others. Preferring a model over others is in itself understandable and defend-able. There is a clear distinction between being pragmatic and being opportunistic in this respect.

I’ve worked also with believers who think that one model can be used in all circumstances explaining all possible situations. This model to end all models is to them so clear and to-the-point that all other models are made redundant on the spot. It kind of amuses me how they can apply their model in situations that I would not have thought of myself. And I applaud their creativity and the flexibility of their model. Still, I don’t think that the Swiss pocket knife versions of models is all that useful. In most cases the usability of their model is greatest in the area their model was original designed for. And for the other situations there are better and more applicable models available.

So, in this section I’m presenting my own models and frameworks that I like to use in my work. Some of these are well known or variations of current models, others are my own and I will be expanding on these in the near future.